<<Print>>GHANA IS 58 years old. Hurray! At this age, a person would have begun the experience of grand parenting. The kids would have started the human reproductive line themselves and the person in question would have been experiencing the thrill of playing with the grand children.
For a nation like Ghana, endowed with both natural and human resources, the joy for the citizenry, should know no bounds. There is gold, diamond, bauxite and other rich minerals in the soil. Not too long ago, our rich vegetation enabled our hard-working farmers to propel Ghana to lead the world in the production of cocoa.
There is cultivation of rubber and palm oil in commercial qualities. In December 2010, deceased President John Evans Atta-Mills commissioned the production of oil in commercial quantities.
In addition to all these, the human resource base is the envy of many developing nations. Mr. Kofi Annan retired not too long ago as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. There are many Ghanaians out there contributing positively to the development of the entire world and making this nation proud in the international comity of nations.
After 58 years of nation-hood, Ghanaians should rejoice in our corner for how far, the Almighty God has brought us. At independence, we were asked to “seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things shall be added unto it.”
Unfortunately, the behavior of our politicians over the years added to the tendency of the citizenry to play the ostrich, when the chips were down, have conspired to derail our development agenda.
It is a big shame that not many of our people even saw the independence parade at the Black Star Square in Accra and regional marches, celebrating self-government on television. Most households in the country were without power. For the past three years, power has been served in tots to our proud countrymen.
In these day and age, Ghana cannot boast of a first class road link from the national capital to Kumasi, the second largest city and beyond. In spite of the roof-top publicity of building a Better Ghana, this country has so deteriorated under the current regime that, the railway system is collapsed.
The National Health Insurance scheme conceived as a novelty in the sub-region to bring health-care to the door-steps of the poor and vulnerable is gradually being replaced with the dreaded cash and carry system.
The dream of free from want society, conceived by the founding fathers, which was within our grabs, not too long ago, is now a distance possibility. Gradually, this nation is dying even before reaching maturity.
Suddenly, we are all vulnerable again. Our leadership is failing the society. One would have thought that all of us would be concerned about how to revive our dwindling fortunes. Rather, we are spending precious time fighting an imaginary enemy. We have contrived to bring tribal politics to the fore once again, in the body politic.
It follows the leaking of a tape, secretly recorded during a New Patriotic Party caucus meeting at a hotel in Koforidua, in the Eastern Region, addressed by some leading members of the Elephant family last month.
Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, a leading cabinet minister in the Kufuor regime, is said to have told his colleagues that although 90 percent of the resources of state are produced in Akan-speaking areas, indigenous Akans are marginalized in the decision-making process in the current political dispensation.
Mr. Osafo-Maafo has since admitted speaking at the forum in question, but has denied making such ethno-centric demands. For me, with the hindsight of an experience at the International Press Centre in Accra, where private discussions I had with a friend in August 2010, ware recorded and handed over to some pro-National Democratic Congress radio stations in Accra, which broadcast the private conversation and invited listeners discussion on the recording, the Osafo-Maafo tape bears the hall-mark of the activities of national security.
Suddenly, the Osafo-Maafo take is the hottest issue in town. Those who seek to benefit from its negative effect on the alleged speaker and the political party on whose platform he spoke, have succeeded in making the issue look like the greatest threat to our national existence.
A group, calling itself Coalition for the Defence of Equal Citizens went on a march in Accra, carrying placards, some of which read: “Stop The Tribal Politics,” “Together As One, Unity in Diversity.”
I wonder if there are many Ghanaians who are more equal than Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, who reported that GHc23,000 was missing from his car in December 2012 and who spoke on the march.
In a statement issued ahead of the march, the organisers said members had resolved to lead a sustained and determined campaign to bring an end to tribal bigotry and inciting language in Ghana’s body politic.
“We would not wait for Rwandan-style genocide where millions of our citizens would be killed before we act,” the organizers stated in a statement signed by its convener, Edudzi Kudjo Tamaloe.
President Mahama weighed in heavily in his Independence Day celebration speech at the Black Star Square. “Assuming without accepting that we have achieved nothing in our 58 years of existence as a nation, one thing the whole world recognizes and accepts about Ghana is that we are an oasis of peace, democracy, religious and ethnic tranquility.”
Mr. Mahama continued: “That is such a beautiful asset we cannot allow anyone to take it away from us. We cannot sacrifice our Ghanaian character of ethnic and religious harmony on the altar of Political bigotry.” A very tough submission indeed.
One would like to believe that ethnic harmony implies that nothing would be done for any group of people to feel marginalized in society. I do not know the kind of brief the President is taken through by national security.
But the notion out there is that in spite of their contribution towards national development, there is the growing perception that the development agenda in the Mahama administration does not appear to be nation-wide.
It may be only a perception. But the complete neglect of the Suhum-Apedwa stretch of the Accra-Kumasi highway for nearly six years has given impetus to the notion that the development agenda in the Better Ghana agenda could be skewed.
Chiefs and opinion leaders in the Eastern Region had not too long ago complained about what they perceived as discrimination against the region, in terms of road construction and re-habilitation. Early last month, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the occupant of the Golden Stool complained about perceived discrimination against Asantes in the area of state appointments.
“Asantes are crying over neglect by the NDC government,” the Asantehene stated during a durbar of chiefs and people of Asanteman to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Asante confederacy.
He said that if indeed the reports and complaints he had been receiving were true, then he and his people would not accept the situation.
I do not think anybody in his wildest dream would accuse the Asantehene as being a tribal bigot. Manhyia is the only palace in Ghana where all tribal groupings in Kumasi are represented, when Otumfuo sits in state as Omanhene of Kumasi.
The Zongo chief has a stool in the palace. The Anlo leader in Kumasi has a stool, so are Dagomba, Moshie, Fante and all other ethnic representation in the metropolis. No palace in Ekumfi, for instance, can spot a representative of any other ethnic group at a meeting of the traditional council.
Let me place on record, I abhor tribal politics. It is a danger to national cohesion and development. That is why people should stop reading tribal innuendoes into people’s innocent submissions. What worries me is that as a nation, we tend to turn the ostrich when the chips are down.
When Dr. Alfred Oko Vanderpuiye and his Accra Metropolitan Assembly issued an official statement in 2009 threatening to change the name Ohene Djan Stadium, the reason they gave was that the stadium was on Ga land. We all kept quiet when a raid was organized on the stadium during which the name was changed to Accra Sports Stadium in 2010.
It is instructive to note that the decision to name the sporting edifice in Accra after Ohene Djan, first Director of Sports in independent Ghana, followed a recommendation by a committee appointed by then Minister of Education, Science and Sports Minister, late Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, as part of activities marking the centenary of the organization of football as a sport in Ghana in 2003.
The recommendations of the committee were sent to the Cabinet of then President John Agyekum Kufuor for approval, before the name changes were effected. It is a matter for conjecture why the other names -Baba Yara for Kumasi, Azumah Nelson for Kaneshie Complex and Charles Kumi Gyamfi for the Winneba Sports College are still in operation, while Ohene Djan is no more.
Historians would tell you, the main lesson history teaches is that, men do not learn from history. That is why the tribal twist that was given to the march in Kumasi, recently organized by an organization calling itself Movement for Change, is a serious cause for concern.
A day after the heavily patronized demonstration in Kumasi, newspapers linked to the NDC, infamously christened ‘rented press’ published photo-shop pictures from the social media of demonstrators carrying placards insinuating that northerners could not be effective leaders of society.
The interesting news in the publication is that the demonstrators were led by two northerners – Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, the 2012 Presidential running mate to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and NPP chairman Paul Afoko.
The next day, organizers of the march issued an official statement denying any knowledge of the so-called placards and invited the 20 television stations and 200 radio channels that covered the demonstration to come out with any such evidence, if they have any.
“We are aware that the leadership of the NDC has taken a deliberate decision to make tribalism a major campaign strategy for 2016,” Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare, leader of the group that organized the march stated in a statement.
“We are also aware that they intend to use their activists on social media, their newspapers and communicators up and down the country to push through a campaign of turning tribe against tribe in Ghana.”
It is instructive to learn that so far, no television or radio channel has been able to come out with any evidence with a tribal motive on the march.
I dare state that the moment the nation gave state burial to Prof. Kofi Awonoor, who wrote in his book- the Ghana Revolution-that politics in Ghana could be reduced into a contest between Eves and Ashanti/Akans, we said fare thee well to tribal politics in Ghana. We owe it a duty to ourselves to remain united.