Youngsters enter millennium with hip-life and gospel

Accra (Greater Accra) 3 Jan. '99

Hip-life revelry melted into gospel jamboree at Ghana's Independence Square as the clock struck 12 midnight for youngsters to enter the third millennium with great expectations.

The gospel music which exploded at the Square was a bonus for most of the revellers who ignored church services to attend the Millennium Bash of Ghanaian musicians to dance away the pitfalls of the previous year.

The dancers who had had a feel of the rumoured "falling stone (asteroid)" and the Anti-Christ control expected at the turn of the century had no more fears when midnight struck.

On the stroke of midnight, with music blaring from singers like Diana Akiwumi, Francis Adjei and the Shepherds, fireworks organised by a detachment of the army, lit up the sky in a dizzying array of colours as their deafening cracks drowned the sound of the gospel music.

The hour-long fireworks and the music gala, formed part of the Government's official programme celebrating the millennium, which had earlier seen a street carnival at Osu, one of the capital's bustling suburbs.

Expectations about the millennium were the same as at every New Year's eve.

An elderly security officer saw it as a year of better tidings, putting it simply, he said "there is a rainy season after every dry season. Two years ago, it was rainy; last year (1999), it was very dry so I expect this year to be rainy".

But a 38-year old Civil Servant was indifferent. "There has been a lot of talk about the strange things that will happen in the Year 2000. But I take it that life goes on; we have just entered another New Year and I am prepared for anything that will happen."

The gospel music gave way to more hip-life barely 20 minutes after a Methodist Minister had asked the crowd at midnight "what is your intention, what is your desire, what is your wish for this New Year".

Amidst all the bashing, smoke billowed from the fireworks westwards towards the Castle, seat of Government; with fumes toxic enough to remind the President of serious environmental concerns that have occupied the headlines for the better half of the past millennium.

GRi../