Sometimes modernity seems like lunacy, thankfully only sometimes. I have just ended one such cycle, which I told all the principal actors I would write about, but not mention names; for the sake of one long-suffering woman who showed remarkable patience through it all.
After a gruelling multi-stage series of interviews, I got selected to serve on a board that once had Professor Amartya Sen himself. Delighted with the outcome, I eagerly awaited the appointment letter, after the system had pelted me with congratulations.
But there was the small matter of due diligence to deal with. It was to be handled by a third party, a supposed world-class expert at this stuff. Who knows, perhaps in a former or unknown life I was an international terrorist. Or maybe I led a coup d’etat on some unknown government in Antarctica. These are all theoretical possibilities, but the reality is I have never had a criminal record, not even been a litigant in court or a subject of prosecution – ever! But I still have to prove my innocence by proving that I live where I live – to an App!!
Everyone else had ample evidence that I was speaking to them from where I live, which is where I live, and which is proven by multiple utility bills and more. Well, everyone, except the App. And what the App requires, and humans already know, they must still feed the App, so that the App tells them that what they know already is indeed what they know!! We are going crazy in this great world of ours. What an App says it wants, let no man dare dispute.
After multiple unsuccessful tries, I wrote to the people handling the board recruitment to say they could come to my house to see that I live there. If they doubted that I lived there, they were welcome to mount 24-hour surveillance on me to establish that I was not merely hovering in some place as a visitor. The board itself was extremely nice and apologetic, so was the third-party agency. The only unyielding quantity was the App.
So, the third party sent a consultant to help. It did not take very long for the consultant to establish that I had done everything right and that I did know my way around digital systems. Exhausted and frustrated by the uncooperative App, she pleaded that I allow a call to be set up with technical experts; against my normal instincts, I agreed. But not before I had let out a torrent that we were complicating things needlessly, a UK address is very easy to verify in any number of central databases.
Still, we gathered this morning, for an hour. I started off the call lambasting everyone with my irritation about being so mindlessly driven by an App. I said I was going to send proof of my residential address to the Global CEO of the organisation, then they could take it to space stations on the moon and on Mars to verify, if they wanted. That would be their problem, but I was not going to be part of such an expensive process in time and effort to get this App to tell us what we all knew. The response to my outburst came from the most patient, calm and diplomatic lady I have ever met; a true professional. She apologised to me profusely, expressed an understanding of my plight, then pleaded for one last opportunity.
I would have to have a heart made of granite to refuse to cooperate, so reluctantly I gave in. Then the drama started.
Uninstall this, reinstall that, change the email address to another, scan, rescan; do this and do that and redo this. All the time sharing my screen. Then, wait for this; we got to a scroll down for country options. I type in “G,” and there comes Greece, Guyana, Germany, etc., but no Ghana. Someone who had not spoken until then chimes in from Bangalore: “is Ghana a country?” I nearly issued an insult in Ga! But I surprised myself by only saying: “the last time I checked it was, but perhaps it has become a planet now!”
So, we tried a work around, and Ghana did appear. I felt like Nkrumah declaring independence at the Old Polo Grounds in Accra. Ghana, my beloved country was indeed free forever – from the App!
A few more steps and I got a prompt: “Congratulations, you have been successfully verified.” The App had at last proven, after an hour, that what we all knew an hour before, was true and proven. What a world.
The consultants did not escape without a ten-minute lecture from me. Technology exists to serve humans and society, not the other way around. When you forget that technology is only relevant when it actually solves problems, not when it becomes the problem itself, you lose your way totally.
This fetishisation of process for its own sake is not new; we do it everywhere.
Yet, it is unbelievable how many systems are set up like this, people forget completely why something was put in place in the first place. Tradition and ritual get elevated to deity.
This is why in 2026 some Ghanaians must still carry palanquins on their heads while their feudal leaders dance. What problem does that solve for society? I could cite a legion of other examples, but we will leave it here for today; my BP reading is back to normal.
The App has spoken, and so the world must obey.
