KWAMI ALORVI’S LAMENTATIONS. GHANA’S NATIONAL TRAGEDY: TRIBAL BIGOTRY, ETHNOCENTRISM AND THE SILENCE OF VOICES OF CONSCIENCE
The last straw that broke the camel’s back: “I’ll lead Kumasi people to demonstrate if the Finance Minister makes a mistake and captures Keta Sea Defence project in the 2022 budget.”
~Hon. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, Minister of Energy.
The moment Hon. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, aka NAPO, as Minister of Education, appointed all the top officials of his Ministry and related agencies from his own tribe, I was left in no doubt that, the Minister was ethnocentric. When NAPO was Minister of Education from 2017 to 2020, the Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES); Deputy Director General of the GES; Chairman of the GES Council; Executive Secretary of the National Teaching Council (NTC); PRO of the Ministry of Education; Head of the Public Relations Unit of the GES; in addition to a Deputy Minister of Education appointed by the President; were, and still are, from the same ethnic group as NAPO.
Nobody should get me wrong and jump to the erroneous conclusion that I dislike Ashanti people. I had explained in an earlier article that many of my friends in school and places where I had worked, have been from Ashanti Region, and that I admire how intelligent, industrious and persevering they are. The Executive Secretary of the NTC for instance, was my Ashanti Regional Chairman and later the Vice President of NAGRAT when I was the President. He was a pleasant person to work with. His intelligence and dedication to the cause of the teacher led me to support him in his bid to succeed me as President against an Eʋe brother from North Tongu, where I hail from. The Deputy Director General of the GES was not only my University mate, but both of us were student leaders; he as a Hall Secretary and I, the President of another Hall. I had also worked with him as Assistant Secretary to the GES Council when I was NAGRAT President. The GES Council Chairman was the Deputy Director General, and later Director General of the GES under whom I worked as a teacher and President of NAGRAT. All these people, no doubt, possess the requisite knowledge and competencies to earn them the positions they occupy. So my reference is not with any bad intention.
My argument, however, is that, many people from other tribes also possess the knowledge and competencies these people have, and if Hon. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh had no hatred for other tribes and was prepared and willing to live and work with them, he would have been minded to appoint them.
My perception of NAPO as ethnocentric was confirmed when I heard him vow to lead Ashantis to demonstrate if the Finance Minister, as he put it on an Accra based Radio station, “makes a mistake and captures the Keta Sea Defence Project in the 2022 budget” because the area is the stronghold of the NDC. NAPO’s comment is distasteful, irrational, irritating and irresponsible to say the least. If this is not tribal bigotry, I wonder what it is. Haven’t previous Finance Ministers of NDC made provisions in their budgets for NAPO’s stronghold? Which Finance Minister made budgetary provision for Kejetia market and rehabilitation of the Kumasi Airport in NAPO’s stronghold? Was it not an NDC Finance Minister?
Didn’t the Minister of Works and Housing, Hon. Asenso Boakye assure Ghanaians at his press conference and in Parliament, that he had discussed the phase 2 of the Sea Defence project with the Finance Minister and that, my brothers and sisters in Keta, Ketu South and Anloga areas would be provided for in the budget? So when the Finance Minister “forgot” to capture same in the budget after his assurance, what crime have the Eʋes and the Minority Caucus in Parliament committed by demanding that the Finance Minister make amendments to cater for the project?
Rather than threaten a demonstration, couldn’t NAPO have lobbied the Finance Minister for allocations in the budget for his Kumasi flood victims too? Is lobbying not part of the roles of an MP in addition to his legislative duties? Hon. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh should know that, if he has to destroy other tribes to become successful, destruction will definitely be the ladder to the first floor of his success.
ANTECEDENTS
- Didn’t the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia fly to West Mamprusi in September 2017 to present Ghc100,000 cash and other relief items to flood victims?
- Didn’t he present
relief items to flood victims in Wa and other areas in Upper West in the same year? Didn’t the alacrity with which the Vice President acted even cause him to include expired goods in the items presented? - On 29th June 2020, didn’t NADMO travel to Katanga, Republic of Togo, to donate relief items including fishing nets, mosquito nets, fridges and outboard motors to Ghanaian fire disaster victims? These Ghanaians to whom the relief items were presented, were later prevented by a deterrent military occupational force from crossing the border to register for the 2020 elections because, in the imagination of the powers that be, these fire victims had miraculously metamorphosed into “Togolese Eʋes” who were once accused by the Father of the nation, of “voting one way” in elections.
- Were we not in this country, when on 22nd July 2018, the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, again led a delegation including his wife and the Defence Minister to far away Freetown, Sierra Leone, to donate relief items such as sugar, maize, medicine, mosquito nets, mattresses and generator sets to landslide disaster victims? Didn’t he even add a cash of US$1 million to the relief items and promise our brethren in Sierra Leone, that fund raising would be organised in Ghana to raise additional funds to support the victims when his delegation returned to Ghana?
If the President of the Republic and the Vice President could extend their magnanimity and love for humanity across borders to victims in far away Sierra Leone, why can’t the same thing be done to Eʋe citizens within the borders of their own country? Or is it because we are Eʋes who “vote one way” in elections? These tidal wave victims are the same people whose livelihood has been destroyed by the continued closure of the Aƒlao border for close to two years now. Why such level of naked hatred for a whole tribe?
CATASTROPHIC SILENCE OF THE VOICES OF CONSCIENCE
In all these discriminations and expressions of hatred targeted at a particular tribe, the voices of conscience which used to be vociferous in the past, have all kept a catastrophic silence. Where are the true followers of Mohammed? (Peace be upon him). Where are our Christian Men of God? Wither hideth the “Wise men” of my former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Martey? “Nyansafoɔ ee, mo wɔ hen o o?” My Moderator, why have you disappointed me, your Presbyterian congregant, and my uncle, a retired Presbytery Chairman of the Dangme-Tongu Presbytery like this?
I have not forgotten the derogatory remarks made against my tribesmen in the past. The President of the Republic himself, the Father of the Nation, our father, had earlier told the Paramount Chief of Aƒlao, Torgbui Fiti, to complete an E-block school in Aƒlao himself if he was dissatisfied with the undue delay. This was said in the presence of an experienced Radio/TV host, Kwame Sefa Kayi, who himself is an indigene of the Anlo State. He appeared intimidated and all he could do was throw himself back in his seat, giggle and say in Twi, “Ɔsee, w’abrɛ” (He said he is tired). Torgbui’s appeal to the Minister of Education through the Minority MPs to help complete the school for students to use in February 2022 was politically labelled, and tribally painted as an ultimatum. No doubt, mindful of this embarrassing comment, Torgbui Fiti has restrained himself from making any request to government on the Sea Defence project to protect his people. Who knows if he would be told again to complete that one too himself?
The National Chairman of the ruling party, had also at one time, referred to our revered Paramount Chief of Asogli, a former President of the National House of Chiefs and an accomplished Entrepreneur, as a “palmwine tapper. Jesus Christ! Strangely, no Eʋe in the NPP Government, no Chief in and outside Eʋenyigbadzi, not even the Houses of Chiefs, saw anything wrong with the derogatory comments made by the National Chairman so as to call him to order because, Torgbe Aƒede is an Eʋe.
In the tidal waves disaster, we did not again hear our Eʋe brethren in NPP speak against the neglect of their brothers and sisters, and the threat of demonstration by Hon. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh if provision is made in the budget to protect their people from the destructive tidal waves. A detribalized Eʋe, Hon. Alexander Kwamena Aƒenyo Markin, MP for Efutu, whose father hails from Tsiame in the tidal waves disaster area, and who Eʋes in Efutu have been voting for to go to Parliament, even pointed his left finger at his origin (Dziƒenyigba), and falsely and shamelessly accused his brethren of bringing the disaster upon themselves through sand winning. He even tried to prove his provocative lie about his father’s brethren, with a picture of sand winning in coastal Freetown, Sierra Leone, as an occurrence in Keta. Indeed, Hon. Aƒenyo Markin’s conduct is like a matter of the axe and the forest. The forest is shrinking, is being destroyed by the axe, yet trees in the forest continue to see the axe as one of their own; because the handle of the axe is made of wood. My Eʋe compatriots in Efutu, are you listening?
Oh, oh, my Eʋe brethren in government and NPP, why have thou forsaken us? Hon. John Peter Amewu, Hon. Kofi Dzamesi, Dr. Archibald Letsa, oh, where are you, and why have you all abandoned your people? My younger brothers, Pius Hadzide, Richard Ahiagba and Perry Okudzeto, why have you all hidden your faces from us in this trying moment?
Tears of pain roll down my cheeks whenever I see and hear Hon. Dzifa Abla Gomashie battling it all alone, with some support coming only from her colleague MPs from the minority side. Our ancestors, and Creator Mawuga Sogbolisa, Krɔnkrɔn Asaasewura Nyankopɔn, are grieving in pain against you for betraying your people. If however, you share the pain with us, yet the system is suffocating and constraining you from speaking, lest you lose your job and daily bread, then pardon me for calling you out; “Mawuga Sogbolisa ne tu tsi na mi sia.” Maybe, fear has coiled in your stomach like a python for which reason you have all decided to keep a dignified silence. You are like men dressed in a three-piece suit, walking under a hot tropical sun, yet shivering with cold. May our Ancestors recognise your predicament and grant you pardon.
TIMES THE VOICES OF CONSCIENCE WERE ACTIVE
If such derogatory comments about our Eʋe Chiefs, and hate speech against Eʋes like the threat by Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh were directed against other tribes by an Eʋe or NDC person, by now the whole media, youth groups, traditional authorities, the learned men in law and academia, political party attack dogs and the clergy would all have been mobilized to the battle front. John Mahama and the entire NDC party would have been banned from that traditional area until rams are sacrificed and libation poured with Aromatic Schnapps and Kasapreko Biegya bitters to appease the gods, ancestors, chiefs and people of that tribe.
National Media Commission would have issued a statement castigating the media house and the host that interviewed that Eʋe or NDC person; National Peace Council would have condemned and declared it a threat to national peace and security; Presbyterian Church would have asked the “Nyansafoɔ” to take over the reigns of government from the “men and women with no wisdom; and Women Aglow, would have held an All Night Vigil at the Independence Square, to exorcise the demons and principalities disturbing the peace and unity of our nation.
Not long ago, NDC MP, Hon. Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, was doing his oversight job as Ranking Member of Parliamentary Committee on Health. He challenged government to provide funding sources for its “Agenda 111” program. A Moderator of my Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev. Prof. Joseph Obiri Yeboah MANTEY, said the MP and all those who demanded sources of funding for the hospital project were possessed by witchcraft, and needed to be exorcised by fake Prophets. In all this, Presbyterian Church of Ghana leadership has been dead silent. No admonition of Moderators. The Former Moderator, Rev. Prof. Emmanuel MARTEY had earlier referred to people in NDC as lacking wisdom. He posed a rhetorical question, “Nyansafoɔ, mo wɔ hen?” (Where are the Wise people?). The Voices of Conscience were awake then. Anyway, the only difference is an “R” in MARTEY and the “N” in MANTEY. The value might thus be the same.
It is sad that all voices of conscience, who hitherto, had been active, have now gone on sick leave because they have toothache, waiting to recover and spring back when another political dispensation regains the reigns of power.
My memory is not so short to forget how the NDC Regional Secretary for Ashanti, Kwame Zu, was roasted alive by almost all the now loudly silent Voices of Conscience, when he made an unfortunate comment about a tribe benefiting from potable water provided by John Mahama’s government. Hell broke loose, the Devil came down in its full regalia, and John Mahama and the NDC were declared persona non grata in that land. The atmosphere was tense and only a spark was required to produce a conflagration. Peaceful John Mahama, respecter of our chieftaincy tradition, had to send a delegation to quench the inferno. Peace was restored only after sacrifices were made to appease the gods, ancestors, chiefs and people of the area.
I can also vividly recount the time NDC’s Kobby Akyeampong, in an encounter with the late Sir John (may his soul rest in peace), described the latter’s posturing as reminiscent of a “Kokoase Krakye”. The whole might of Ashanti, including the youth, supported by the media twisted Kobby’s comment as insulting the whole of Ashanti tribe and its revered Royals. Coming from the group of “unwise men,” Kobby had to render an apology to bring the issue to rest. The furore, cacophony and condemnations that greeted John Mahama’s “Boot for Boot” and “Do or Die” comments from the Voices of Conscience, including the National Peace Council, are still fresh in our minds.
But what do we see today? When a Minister of Food and Agriculture mocked many ethnic groups of the five regions of the north, that it was his “Planting for Food and Jobs” program, that provided the means for the people to transition from constructing their houses with clay to cement, and from roofing them with thatch to corrugated roofing sheets, the whole country was as silent as the grave yard. Some Voices of Conscience even tried to recap the comment to make it appear inoffensive. Same was the insult of the Asogli Chief by the National Chairman of the ruling party. NAPO’s hate speech, the latest in the series, is still in traffic jam yet to reach the ears of the “Voices of Conscience” who were so cacophonous in the recent past.
Perhaps, we may not blame the haters of a particular tribe or political dispensation as we would those silent over the irritating abuses. For, as Albert Einstein said, “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
The opportunity awaits all those Voices of Conscience to regain their lost voices. A fair, just and united society is not the one in which wrong is wrong, and right is right, depending on who is, or the time involved. Let our Chiefs, Political Actors in government, Clergy and Regulatory Bodies take a cue from the current IGP and move to deescalate the tension engulfing our governance system.
I conclude with these spoken words of one of Africa’s greatest leaders, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia: “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who should have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that, has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
Let Love Lead.
Dated: Thursday 9th December, 2021
