Apparently, the Ga Dangbe Youth Association is now demanding that the Akan word "Akwaaba" should either be removed altogether, or have the Ga Dangbe equivalent, "Mo Hee" placed beside it, on signage at the Accra international airport - because it is built on "Nii La's land". How absurd.
It is yet another example of the intolerance and prejudice, which accompanies virtually all the pronouncements, both public and private, of the small groups of tribal-supremacists dotted all over Ghana.
(Incidentally, it must be pointed out, dear reader, that these blinkered souls exist in all the tribal groupings in our country - and are invariably closely associated with the palaces of Chiefs: which are the last bastions of tribalism in Ghana.)
Tribalism is an affront to common decency - and poses a threat to the stability and cohesion of our nation of diverse-ethnicity: in which no one tribe is superior or inferior to the other. We must always confront those who seek to discriminate against their fellow Ghanaians, for such base reasons.
It is time it was pointed out to groups like the Ga Dangbe Youth Association and the Ashanti Youth Association (ditto their counterparts elsewhere in Nkrumah's Ghana!), that surprising though it might be to them, actually, there is no sovereign in Ghana - and every square millimetre of the land-mass of the Ghanaian nation-state is part and parcel of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Ghana. Period.
Their antediluvian demands and their tiresome narrow-mindedness, is beginning to grate - and they must heed those of their more broad-minded compatriots, who make the point, that Ghana is a modern African nation-state whose citizens are descended from different tribal groupings, but share a common identity as Ghanaians, and share a common destiny as well as one homeland. There is no place in our modern African society for tribal-supremacist individuals and groupings. Period.
If it hadn't been for the perfidy of Ghanaian politicians, who for entirely selfish reasons, decided to return land acquired by the Ghanaian nation-state decades ago, to traditional rulers and 'royal families', much of such pure nonsense on bamboo stilts wouldn't be occurring today.
It was stupid to come up with a government policy to give land acquired by the state and for which compensation had duly been paid, back to those from whom they were originally acquired.
The original land-use purposes for such acquisitions can change, but those lands should be seen as permanent national assets that can always be utilised for other common-good purposes - which by definition can change with the passage of time.
Who could have foreseen the need for a parcel of land for the Kofi Annan-India ICT Centre when that land was acquired to provide accommodation for civil servants and other public officials all those years ago, I ask?
We must stop kow-towing to tribal-supremacist individuals and groupings up and down our homeland Ghana - for they have no place in a modern and democratic African polity: no matter how exalted their positions in our Ghanaian society might be.
After all, are such individuals almost always not the beneficiaries of inherited privilege - and is that not the greatest enemy of meritocracy? We must never humour such blinkered individuals and intolerant groupings under any circumstances. Period. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
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