A BRIEF NOTE TO MISS MALAIKA!

Dear Ms Malaika, I refer to your comment on the 12th August, 2008 feature article by Abena Pokuaa Atuahene Ackah (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=148169&comment=3951816#com)

Ohemaa Awhofe Malaika, do please permit me to take you along a path of digression for just one brief moment. With respect, the people whom we should watch out for in this nation today, are those in our country who wish to dominate Ghana, by dividing us along tribal lines.

Ordinary Ghanaians are not in the least bit interested in promoting tribalism in our homeland Ghana. And that is why there is virtually no extended family in this nation of ours, in which there aren't a variety of ethnic groups bonded together as a family - all united in one extended family unit, either through blood ties or by marriage.

That is also why most ordinary Ghanaians don't particularly care if our rulers pack government departments and other public entities with Ghanaians of a particular ethnic extraction - as long as they are qualified: for they are all Ghanaians.

However, what ordinary people care about greatly and resent deeply, is when those of our rulers, who are tribal supremacists (our local version of the odious white supremacists of the Western world - and who by the way, can be found in the palaces of traditional rulers throughout our nation: from our eastern borders to those of the western edges of Ghana, to the northern-most edges of Ghana to the coastline of the southern reaches of the Ghanaian landmass! ), misuse the machinery of state: to deliberately promote particular traditional rulers.

We then end up with the unedifying spectacle in which mediocre and intellectually-challenged traditional rulers suddenly grow wings: and are allowed by those in power to go as far as illegally selling parcels of land owned by the Ghanaian nation-state, with impunity; and virtually conduct their own personal foreign policy more or less.

That is why certain traditional rulers in the Ghana of today, can get their lackeys in power to even use Ghana's state protocol department to direct foreign dignitaries to pay homage to particular traditional rulers in this country - as if there were no other traditional rulers of significance, anywhere else in Ghana.

But above all, irritatingly, the megalomania of certain traditional rulers is given free reign - to the extend that they can even meddle freely in affairs of state at the highest levels: without their ever being sanctioned.

It is that kind of situation that is intolerable: because it amounts to treason for any Ghanaian to help any part of Ghana to act as if it were a state within a state in the Ghanaian nation-state: which legally is a republic in which there exist no kingdoms - in a strictly legal and constitutional sense.

That, Ohemaa, is what tribalism actually entails, today. The plain truth is that in spite of all the efforts to stoke up the embers of tribalism in our country by certain politicians and traditional rulers, ordinary Ghanaians still get along with each other perfectly: and relate to each other on the basis of their individual character traits - to which they may, as individuals, either feel attracted to, or be repelled by.

It is for that reason that the majority of ordinary people in this country, when falling in love, are not interested in the slightest, which particular part of their homeland Ghana, the object of their amorous and romantic attention, hails from.

That is also the same reason why most ordinary Ghanaians regard the few Akan tribal supremacists who now dominate this ruling regime so completely, sadly, as being traitors to the enterprise Ghana - and who, in the category of Ghanaian public enemies, they regard as far worse than even Ghana's serial coup-makers.

For, at least our serial coup-makers do not seek to divide our country along tribal lines, by making common cause with tribal supremacist traditional rulers: some of whose tiresome megalomania is leading them inexorably to destroying the cohesion of our dear country.

With respect that is not a subject any Ghanaian ought to treat in the usual "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" parochial manner that those wretched myrmidons, who are manipulated by selfish and tribalistic politicians are won't to do, Ohemaa.

True patriots don't care which political flag Ghana's tribal supremacist politicians fly, Ohemaa. As far as we are concerned they are all enemies of the people: who ought to be prosecuted for treason - together with those megalomaniacs amongst Ghana's societal dinosaurs from our feudal and calcified past, our Chiefs: with some of whom they are in hock to destroy the enterprise Ghana, by stealth.

Inherited privilege, Ohemaa, is the greatest enemy of any meritocracy - and if we want to power ahead as a dynamic, prosperous and egalitarian society in which there is equality of opportunity (but, naturally, not of equality of "outcomes" of personal effort!), then we must quickly rid ourselves of these parasitic personages: who daily worship at the cult of the mediocre and are responsible for our still being a largely superstition-ridden society, in the 21st century ICT age!

May I humbly ask you, therefore, Ohemaa Awhofe Malaika, just whose side you are on: that of ordinary Ghanaians who love mother Ghana - or those who would rather Ghana was subsumed in the delusional dreams of would-be, latter-day "emperors" : forever seeking to revive a bygone pre-colonial glory (read era!) that ordinary people will never allow to be revived again, in Ghana?

That, Ohemaa, is the point about the whole anti-Nkrumah enterprise - in case you have not yet cottoned on to that bald fact! Hmm, Ghana, ayeasem oo: asem ebeba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!