Billboards, Youth, Unemployment and Superstition in Mamfe-Akuapem, Ghana

Abstract

On a sunny day in May 1983 a section of the youth of Mamfe-Akuapem in south-eastern Ghana – reeking heavily of alcohol and marijuana, armed with machetes and pick-axes and angrily singing war songs, drumming and dancing – went to the residence of Nana Ama Ansaa Sasraku III, their queen mother. Their mission was very simple. They were to inform her of their plans to demolish the billboard which welcomed motorists and visitors on their arrival in the town. According to them, the billboard was inhabited by an evil spirit responsible for the general incidence of unemployment and the absence of development in the town.