The Accra road enters the city of Kumasi from the East and the Campus of the University of Science and Technology Kwame Nkrumah (Knust) is on the left hand, or on the southern side of the road, just within the limits of the city. Driving on the right, Accra commuters alight from transport on the north side of the road at Ayigya Junction, where a truck park has been established. At the beginning of the 1970s, life on the university campus was comfortable and pleasant, but on the other side of the street was the Zongo, the old slave town, where life was still a hard fight for existence. Living so close together, the two communities had found a way to live in peace and mutual dependence, with the university providing employment and agricultural opportunities and the former slaves providing 24-hour security.

Before the colonial period, the Ashanti Empire relied on slaves collected primarily from raids on northern tribes. These unfortunates were housed in the communities attached to the Ashanti villages and called Zongos; thus, across the road from the KNUST campus were both the village of Ayigya and Ayigya Zongo. Officially, slavery was illegal in modern Ghana, but in practice it was a matter of perspective. At a dinner hosted by the Director of the Road and Construction Research Institute (BRRI), Dr. Joseph WS de Graft-Johnson, who would later become the Vice President of Ghana under President Hilla Limann (1979-1981), He told his British and American guests that, ‘the British claim to have abolished slavery, but we still have slaves in our homes.’ The Ghanaian press also regularly reported police and army raids on communities that still claimed to hold slaves.

Whether or not there were pockets of slavery elsewhere, the inhabitants of Ayigya Zongo were not slaves in any formal or legal sense, but their situation could hardly have been worse. A survey by the KNUST Department of Social Sciences revealed their plight in brutal statistics. It was found that in all Kumasi the average occupation of the room was seven people, but in Ayigna Zongo with its broken adobe walls and rusty iron roofs, it was eleven. Such density of accommodation was only possible by arranging to sleep by Rota and this was only possible because most of the people were unemployed. Needless to say, he eagerly sought employment across the street on the college campus.

The university’s work generated many casual plowing jobs and these were quickly taken over by zongo residents who exploited their access to campus by growing corn on every vacant parcel of land. Although this casual farming was against university regulations in practice, it was generally looked the other way. Those with paid jobs on campus were the lucky ones, many others living on the brink of starvation. The staple carbohydrate in their diet was cassava, but this inexpensive food contained very little protein. The social scientists’ report made it clear that the main source of protein for Zongo residents was the chickens, goats and dogs corralled on the Kuset campus. Those whose nocturnal hunts were unsuccessful were often reduced to eating rats and lizards.

Surprisingly, the university’s security force was recruited primarily from the Zongo. One might have expected the Zongo recruits to experience mixed loyalties; Didn’t the nocturnal intruders also come from your community? In practice, however, these men hated the same Muslim tribes from the north of which the British formally recruit the army and the personal person. Many still took pride in their traditional sense of discipline in uniform, with military bearing and respect for their officers. Some older men still used medal tapes won in World War II, serving with the Western Africa Regiment in Ethiopia and Burma. Any attempt to divert them from the race of duty was probably expressed by their universal catchphrase, ‘I like my pay’.