Woman Brings Husband Down From Pylon

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday,September15,2006
TWENTY-TWO days ago, it took the diplomacy of personnel of the Fire Service at Ejisu in Ashanti, to convince Thomas Kwasi Ameyaw, 32, to descend from a high tension pylon on which he was perching precariously.

Last Wednesday, it was the intervention of his wife and little daughter, Maame, that did the trick in getting him down from the 30-metre high pylon, this time at Dzorwulu, near the World Miracle Church, Accra.

“Bra Ameyaw, Maame wants to see you. Please, come down,” was all that it took Ameyaw to respond to his wife’s plea via a megaphone.

From about 12 noon to 5 pm on Wednesday, large crowds of people gathered under the pylon watching Ameyaw high up on the pylon in his birthday suit (naked).

In the Ejisu incident, he requested the presence of his mother, who resides in Takoradi, before he would descend after two days perching “closer to God,” but he was lured to get down by the service personnel.

On Wednesday, his wife won him back to earth, even though he had earlier threatened that he would never come down again should he see a female there.

Before bringing in his wife, the police had cordoned off the area, and when Ameyaw saw his wife and heard her pleading, he could not resist her. He descended a few minutes after 5 pm, and his wife handed to him a shirt and a blue pair of jeans to wear.

He did not utter a word but accepted the clothes and dressed up. The police then whisked him away to the Kotobabi Police station for questioning.

Earlier at about 3 pm, an official of the Fire Service climbed up to try to convince him to descend and also to give him a pair of shorts which he wore before climbing to the top, but he declined and threw the shorts down.

Speaking to the Times, an eyewitness, Mr Peter Wallace, said he was taking his car to a nearby fitting shop when he saw a man entering the bush surrounding the pole.

“Initially, I thought he was entering there to attend to nature’s call as some people usually do there.”’

“All of a sudden, I overheard a little boy shouting that a man was climbing the pylon and when I looked up, he was half way through.”

Mr Wallace said they tried to convince Ameyaw to get down but he would not listen and instead, went up and perched there .

Mr Richard Ghanney, Chief Technical Engineer of the VRA, who was also at the scene, said that Ameyaw’s action compelled them to put out one of the lines which carries 161,000 volts for many hours.

“This man has forced us to switch off one of our major lines and there is surely going to be economic loss,” he said.

Mr Ekow Blankson, a Deputy Director of Operations, Ghana National Fire Service, who led the firemen to the scene, confirmed that Ameyaw was the same person who climbed the Ejisu pylon.

In February this year, the Times reported another incident in which a man identified only as Korshie, made the top of a tree opposite the Holy Spirit Cathedral at Adabraka his home for six months.

Korshie was later removed from his abode by a team of firemen.