Time To Confront All Ghana’s Tribal-Supremacists!

The tragedy of our country, is that the elitist tribal-supremacists in our midst, whose secret agenda is to enable today’s descendants of the pre-colonial tribal elites, regain the power their forebears lost when the British occupied our country, are successfully able to cloak their narrow-mindedness, their bigotry and their ill-disposition towards the Ghanaian nation-state, with the pretense that they believe in constitutional democracy and the rule of law.

It has enabled them pull the wool over the eyes of many in Ghanaian society (as to their real intentions for Mother Ghana), for decades.

Incidentally, before one proceeds any further, it is important to make the point, whenever these narrow-minded individuals are discussed, that tribal supremacists can be found in all the ten regions of our homeland Ghana.

They are usually to be found in the palaces of traditional rulers – which are the last bastions of tribalism in Nkrumah’s Ghana.

In the wake of his recent altercation with a political opponent, it is little wonder that the Ashanti Region’s share of our nation’s tribal-supremacist elitists, have quickly pounced on the admonitions of the young deputy minister for tourism, the Hon. Kobby Acheampong: who, in effect, told the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) general secretary, Mr. Owusu-Afriyie, to the face, that he has a provincial-mindset – and more or less advised him to try and cultivate a more cosmopolitan outlook.

Those sly and shameless Kokofu-footballers-supreme, are using the deputy minister’s remarks to whip up tribal sentiment in the Ashanti Region – mainly amongst the region’s large crop of myrmidon-types, who, like their counterparts elsewhere in Ghana, have the mentality of serfs written into their DNA (and form the core of the nationwide army of “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” dim-wits, whose blinkered support of political parties is slowly destroying our democracy!).

Incredibly, some of them actually think that their tribal Chiefs are gods whose respective palaces they see as the centre of the universe, for all of humankind. Amazing.

“Onyame entise Alata ni enti,” and unluckily for them, as it turns out, the Hon. Kobby Acheampong actually hails from the Ashanti Region of Ghana: not the Central Region of our country.

The question is: Why would the Hon. Kobby Archeampong, who indeed is a very sane gentleman, insult fellow-citizens who are Ghanaians of Asante descent, like he is?

The plain truth, dear reader, is that he did not – his choice of words may not have been the wisest: but he was merely telling a loquacious and arrogant politician with a provincial mind-set to grow up.

It is time it was made plain to all Ghana’s tribal-supremacists, whichever part of our nation they hail from, that we are all one people: citizens of the ethnically-diverse Ghanaian nation-state. No tribe is superior to another in our homeland Ghana. We are one nation with a common destiny.

We may be descended from various ethnic groups, but out of the great melting-pot called Ghana, a new and modern-oriented African personality and identity has been forged: the Ghanaian.

It is also time to tell those fawning politicians who humour the godfathers of tribalism, by referring to some of them as “Kings,” that there are neither kingdoms nor “Kings” in Nkrumah’s Ghana. Period.

They may think they are being respectful when they call certain tribal Chiefs “Kings,” but they are playing right into the hands of ruthless individuals who think their sole mission in life is to regain the sovereign power their predecessors’ lost, when the British occupied our nation.

If they do not know our history well, let them be informed that on November 20, 1956, the bloodthirsty Akan tribal-supremacist and elitist National Liberation Movement (NLM), and their counterparts from the north, the Northern Peoples Party (NPP), made a declaration of secession.

It was only the sense of nationalism, and strength of character, of the leader of the Bono-Kyempem, Nana Akumfi, of Takyiman, which saved our nation from a bloodbath. Prelude to that cynical move by the NLM and the NPP, on March 14, 1956, Dr. J. B. Danquah, and his blood-relation Nana Ofori-Atta 11, made it plain to a visiting parliamentary delegation, at a meeting in Kibi, that Akim Abuakwa would secede, if their concerns about the nature of the new independent nation to emerge from colonial rule, were not addressed.

Naturally, on top of their list of demands, was for traditional rulers and the pre-colonial tribal elite to be allowed to play a prominent role in the scheme of things in the new Ghana, which they wanted to be a federation of tribal entities, not the unitary republic, which Nkrumah and the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) favoured.

Incidentally, whiles Nkrumah wanted universal adult suffrage, Dr. J. B. Danquah & Co pressed hard for voting-rights to be restricted to property-owners and salaried workers only.

So, that, dear reader, is the genesis of the phrase "a property-owning democracy" in Ghanaian politics!

Is it not interesting, that whiles they grabbed many choice properties for themselves whiles in power during the golden age of business for Kufuor & Co, today, Danquah's political descendants are doing everything possible, to stop a housing project meant to provide accommodation for members of the security agencies, and other public servants, throughout the country? Hmmm Ghana, eyeasem oo! But I digress.

Do those politicians in the regime now in power, who give succor to traditional rulers whose secret desire is the fulfillment of the NLM’s agenda, not remember how the dishonest, greedy, and philandering President Kufuor, and his over-ambitious tribal Chief ended up dividing our nation of diverse-ethnicity, as never before, with their absurd and treasonable attempt to create a de-facto state within a state with a 'sovereign' as its head of state, in our country: and used the whole machinery of state to enable them foist him on Ghanaians, successfully?

We have the munificence of God to thank that they did not succeed in their aim. As we all know, so outrageous were their efforts, that in the end, the vast majority of fair-minded Ghanaians, decided that a divisive regime like that, simply did not deserve to be returned to power again, in a multi-ethnic African society: in a unitary republic such as ours.

Truly patriotic politicians must understand clearly that tribal-supremacists ought to be confronted wherever in our homeland Ghana, they seek to impose their will on others.

No politician who wants to rule Ghana must support such Chiefs under any circumstances. Let them always remember that inherited privilege is the greatest enemy of meritocracy. If they want our country to progress they must keep all traditional rulers at arms length – for the seeds for the destruction of our nation lies in the treasonable and foolish ambitions of the megalomaniacs amongst them.

They must not think for one moment, that the drawing into the Kobby Acheampong cocoa asie krakyie palaver, of certain traditional rulers, by the elitists amongst the Akan tribal-supremacists in the Ashanti Region, is accidental.

No part of the landmass of the territory of the Leviathan known as the Republic of Ghana, must be allowed to become a "no-go" area, from which those Ghanaian citizens exercising their right to freedom of expression, are banned – simply because a section of Ghanaian society there does not like what such plain-speaking individuals say openly.

This is a multi-party democracy in 21st century Africa: not the personal fiefdom of some absolute monarch in the dark days of the Middle Ages. Our politicians must wake up – and confront all Ghana’s tribal-supremacists nationwide: no matter their positions in society.