If you blinked, you missed it. Between Monday’s rush and Wednesday’s lunch, Ghana’s social media forgot about cocoa prices, forgot about politics, and spent two full days arguing about a Russian man none of us had heard of before.

The Yaytseslav Situation

His name is Vyacheslav Trahov. Online, he goes by Yaytseslav. And for 48 hours, he owned Ghanaian Twitter.

The man walked around Accra Mall with Meta glasses, approached women, struck up conversations, and filmed everything. Some ended up at his apartment. Some ended up on his Telegram channel, where subscribers pay $5 a month for content too explicit for YouTube.

By Tuesday, the timeline had split into factions. One side called the women “cheap.” Another side pointed out the obvious: a foreigner secretly filming intimate encounters and monetising them without consent isn’t exposing anything except his own criminality.

By Wednesday evening, the Russian was reportedly deleting Ghana content from his channels. The consensus? Ghanaians don’t play that game.

Meanwhile, the 5G News Dropped

Buried under the Russian drama, Next Gen Infraco quietly launched commercial 5G operations. Available in parts of Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale now. Nationwide coverage promised by March 2027, just in time for Ghana @70.

The Duabo King Lesson

The same week, TikToker Duabo King learned that views have consequences. He posted a video accusing Kumasi police officers of misconduct with commercial workers. Under interrogation, he admitted fabricating the whole thing. Just wanted to trend.

He’s now in police custody—the charge: publication of false news with intent to cause fear and panic.

And Heritage Month Started

March 3 kicked off Heritage Month 2026 with a simple call from the Tourism Minister: See Ghana, Eat Ghana, Wear Ghana, Feel Ghana. Culinary showcases, regattas, and festivals running through March. Probably worth more attention than a Russian with a hidden camera.

But the algorithm decides, doesn’t it?

There is a building in Kumasi where the gate does not just open. It speaks.

Wrought into the iron, before you even step inside, is the symbol Bi Nka Bi. It means “no one should bite the other.” You do not read it in a book. You feel it as you walk through. The building itself is telling you how to behave while you are in its presence.

This is the quiet work of Adinkra symbols in Ghana today. They are no longer just stamped on cloth for funerals and festivals. They have moved into the walls. Into the floors. Into the places where we live, work, and gather. And they are speaking to us whether we notice or not.

From Funeral Cloth to Foundation

Adinkra started somewhere else entirely. The word itself comes from di nkra, meaning to say goodbye. The stamped patterns on cloth were once messages for the departed, a way of sending loved ones off with wisdom tucked into the fabric.

But symbols that carry meaning do not stay in one place for long. Slowly, they slipped off the cloth and into the world.

Walk through almost any public building in Accra or Kumasi today and you will see them. Gye Nyame on the wall of a church, reminding everyone inside who is in charge. Sankofa carved into the entrance of a school, telling students before they even sit down that the past is not finished with them yet. Funtumfunafu Denkyemfunafu, the conjoined crocodiles, on the floor of a community hall, whispering that even in competition, we share the same stomach.

The Architects Who Listened

There was a moment, somewhere in the last twenty years, when Ghanaian architects stopped copying glass boxes from Dubai and started looking at their own feet.

They realized that a building in Ghana should not look like any other building. It should carry the weight of where it sits. So they began asking questions. What if the railings carried Nyansapo (the knot of wisdom)? What if the courtyard was laid out in the shape of Ese Ne Tekrema (the teeth and the tongue), reminding people that even when they disagree, they must live together?

The work of people like Joe Osae-Addo and others in the Ghanaian architecture scene has pushed this forward. Not by forcing tradition onto modern buildings, but by letting the symbols find their natural place. A Sankofa on a school gate is not a decoration. It is a lesson that does not need a teacher.

What the Walls Are Saying

If you pay attention, the symbols start to read like a map of Ghanaian values.

Gye Nyame appears where people need reassurance—churches, mosques, even the front of some trotro stations. Dwennimmen, the ram’s horns, show up at courts and council buildings, reminding officials to be strong but humble. Mate Masie, meaning “what I hear, I keep,” sits quietly in libraries and archives.

The buildings are not just shelters. They are philosophy made visible.

Why It Matters Now

There is a reason this is happening during Adinkra Month, and there is a reason it matters beyond our borders.

The world is hungry for meaning. Everywhere, people are tired of buildings that look like airports, that feel like nothing. When a tourist walks into a hotel in Accra and sees Akoma (the heart) woven into the terrazzo floor, they are not just seeing a pattern. They are standing in a culture that decided not to forget itself.

For Ghanaians, it is something else. It is a reminder that we do not need to import identity. It is already in the ground. In the iron. In the wall.

Next time you walk into a building, look down. Look at the gate. Look at the pillars. There is a symbol there, and it has been waiting for you to notice.

On 6 March, the official programme will proceed as usual. Speeches. A parade. Schoolchildren standing in the sun. It is important, yes. But if you want to feel independent, not just watch it, there is another place you should be.

The day after the flags go up, on Saturday, 7 March, a different kind of celebration is taking over East Legon. It is called Our Heritage through Music and Literature. And it is built on a simple idea: that Ghana’s freedom did not just happen in a conference room in 1957. It happens every time we tell our own stories.

Where the Stories Live

The event runs from midday until evening at the e-Ananse Library. If you do not know the name, you should. Ananse is the spider. The storyteller. The trickster who taught us that words have power. Holding an independence celebration in a place named after him tells you everything about what this day will feel like.

It opens with something quiet but necessary. A reading from Poetra Asantewa’s book, Someone Birthed Them Broken, put together with the Bibliophiles and Vibes Book Club. Before the music starts, before the crowd grows, there will be people sitting with a book, asking themselves what it means to be Ghanaian right now. That is the foundation.

Games That Remember

Between the literature and the music, the organisers have made space for something we do not do enough anymore. Play.

There will be outdoor and indoor Ghanaian games. The kind our parents played before screens arrived. It sounds simple. But watch a child learn ampe from an elder, or watch a tourist try to figure out our local board games, and you will see something shift. Culture passes from hand to hand in those moments. No lecture required.

Poetry That Listens

As the sun softens, the poets take over. Ancestors Answer Me is the name of the session, curated by Creatives Project Ghana. Four poets will stand up and try to connect the people who came before to the questions we are asking now. It could get heavy. It could get beautiful. Probably both.

The Evening Belongs to the Musicians

Then, the music.

TSIE, whose voice carries the weight of highlife and the lightness of now. Elsie Raad, who moves between genres like someone who refuses to be pinned down. Koo Kumi and Mr. Poetivist, both carrying the torch for spoken word and sound.

They will play acoustic. No heavy bass to drown out the thinking. Just voices and instruments, asking you to listen.

Why You Should Come

If you are visiting Ghana, you could spend your Independence Day weekend at a hotel pool. You would miss nothing but heat. Or you could come here, to East Legon, and sit in a room with people who are still figuring out what freedom means.

If you are Ghanaian, you could stay home. Or you could bring yourself and your questions to a place where we use music and words to do what Ananse always did—remind ourselves that the story is not over yet.

Date: Saturday, 7 March
Time: 12 pm – 8 pm
Location: e-Ananse Library, East Legon, Accra