Breaking News: Ghana Has An Interim Female President!

President John Mills has been replaced by Mrs. Agyeman Konadu –Rawlings.

Is he a victim of tribal cleansing?

THERE HAS BEEN A CHANGE IN the Presidency in Ghana today. The news report has confirmed that President John Evans Atta Mills is going abroad to seek medical care, and therefore he is on medical leave, indefinitely. He has been replaced by Mrs. Agyeman –Konadu Rawlings this morning. She’s going to finish up the rest of his term in office.

Though, the Ghanaian constitution allows the vice- president John D .Mahama to replace the president in case of any eventuality .But, the NDC honchos think Mrs. Rawlings will do a better job, to steer the wheels of the nation. The NDC party’s insiders also believe that her presidency will divert the nation’s attention from her husband,-JJ, ---who doesn’t have much love among the Ashantis.

But, the political Pundits, who are focusing in on the latest development in the country have a different picture. They think the former President, J.J Rawlings is using the political porous in the system to elevate his wife’s stature, and also hone her political skills to prepare her for the next presidential election. He can not run for the presidency again, but no one says she can not be president.

Humm! That makes sense. Doesn’t it? That was a good move!

As to the question of how the newly Presidential Palace is going to be used;the new-interim president’s lip is sealed with some crazy- glue, on that one. But, it has been rumored that the NDC party is going to turn the place into a pig farm—to raise varieties of pigs for home consumption and export. It’s projected to generate more revenue which will suppress that of cocoa and minerals combined. That is the best economic stimulus, right there. Gee, why didn’t I think of that?

Anyway, what happened to the chicken farm they talked about during the election campaign? So our Christmas holidays are going to be ruined for the lack of chickens? A lot of people were counting on the eggs from the farm for their breakfast, and now what are they going to do?

I guess the chickens are also gone with the win. You damn politicians; you can not keep your words! Next time if no chicken, no vote!

IT’S PAYBACK TIME:

Armed with all that unfolding development information dripping in from home I flashed my childhood friend, Guy Madison, (also known as CNN) at Twespease, on his cell phone to get his version of the story. He has unprecedented access to the local politicians and the parties’ leaderships. As soon as I hung up my phone he called me back. Guy gave me blow by blow accounts of how the Ashanti faction of the NPP is up in arms with the new political development in the country. Some of them are even proposing the annexation of the entire Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo regions and renaming it”Ashantiland”, with Kumasi as its capital.

He said they are mad as hell and nothing is stopping them from achieving their goal. But, there is one hitch .They have to figure out how to get their imports in without paying the imports -duty on their goods. They know they have no seaport and they surely do not want to use Ghana’s seaports any more. Fortunately, a solution has been found. Thanks to Okomfo Boakye, a renowned spiritualist leader from Ashanti Ntonso-- who has promised and sworn to his gods that he can move the Indian Ocean from Accra to Ejiuso, (in the Ashanti region), once the annexation process is complete. Who says the Ashantis are not industrious and ambitious!

“Hold on!” he said, with some fears choking his voice. We had been rudely interrupted by an intruder who was covertly spying for the NDC government. So he kept me on hold until his phone ran out of units. I hope he calls me back with more juicy news. I’m still waiting by my phone as I write this piece. So stand by!

“Say what?” Please don’t punch your computer screen yet.

I gotcha!

I will bet with my last cedi , your blood pressure was going into the stratosphere and you were probably calling all your friends , in Timbuktu to tell them the” latest bad news” . You can relax now. Go ahead and use the bathroom. And, get some water or a glass of orange juice to calm yourself down a little. Are you ok now?

Of course, this is an April Fool! Your nightmare should be over, now that you know that things are normal at the home-front.

I just wanted to see how this rubs you and pisses you off. I think it all depends on your own interpretation of things and events and your party affiliation.

TRIBAL CLEANSING AT WORK: Speaking of semantic explication and party affiliation, why are we so hooked on tribal diatribes? We are so wrapped up in tribal costume that it is preventing us from seeing the good in diversity. Making disparage remarks about each other’s tribe on the net’s forums has become a fashion, but it’s very distasteful—to say the least.

As you all know, for many years now I have been a regular contributor (make that a serial writer) on the web and I have noticed that for any piece to get the readers’ attention (it deserves) it has to be either using one tribe against the other or attacking a tribe. This is mostly done by using the Ashantis against the Ewes or the vice versa. These tribal –baiting attacks I read on the forum make my skin crawl

.The unfortunate part of the whole “TRIBAL CLEANSING “thing is that to the non-Twi (or non-akan)” speaking Ghanaian (the Nzima, Ga-Dangme, Dagomba, Fante, and others) an “Ashanti “is a generic name for anyone who speaks Twi or Akan dialect. And, to the people of Ashanti lineage, anyone who lives in the Volta region is an Ewe, The funny thing is that the Akyims, Akuapims , Kwahus and Brong-Ahafos are not considered by Ashantis as part of their “pure breed” lineage (whatever that means!).Yet, the other tribes see the people from Akyim Abuakwa and Kwahus as part of the Ashanti and refer to them as “Ashantinii”. Where do they belong?

THE MYTHS AND REALITIES OF TRIBALISM:

In fact, the long rumored by some Akyims have attributed the failure of Nana Akuffo- Addo to win the presidency to the door-steps of the Ashantis., They say the Ashantis not only did not help him, but did not want an Akyim man to be their leader, so they did every thing to undermine his candidacy .Unfortunately, the Akyims are still nursing the” pains” they sustained during the presidential election as if Nana Akuffo- Addo cares so much for them and their well-being. However, whether their assertion is true or not will be left to the historians and the social scientists to dissect and decide, because it’s too early to tell.

With tribal hatred and raw animosity engulfing the nation, any article laced with tribal ingredients and an overdose of tribal diatribes can either earn praises or tons of condemnations –depending on who reads it and one’s party affiliation and tribal makeup. In fact, there is no middle ground. One can not mention any tribe as a point of reference and gets away unscratched.

The tribally-charged discussions and debates always take over anything and everything else in the chat rooms and on the forums. Tempers flare on the forum as one’s tribe or party becomes the topic of discussion. We are so tribal -sensitive that sometimes there is a chance to overexpose ourselves socially and emotionally, when we mingle too much with tribal innuendoes. I wonder whether we are gradually descending to a “xenophobia” atmosphere. The post-election Ghana is so infested with tribal hatred that I‘m beginning to worry about our future as a nation . DON’T FOR GET RWANDA: We should be mindful of the fact that the genocide in Rwanda started 45 minutes after the President’s plane was shut down. It’s no doubt that the genocide was planned ahead of time, regardless of the reason. When people are consumed with hatred and tribal animosity one little thing can easily ignite the tribal cleansing fire -works.

We do everything with tribal mindset. We even vote, on the tribal lines. In my district, (Kwaebibrim) the voters will vote predominately for an elephant as long as it has an NPP emblem or paraphernalia. Ironically, the NDC government provided all the social amenities they enjoy today. What a Short memory!

To most, if you are Akan speaking individual chances are you’re an NPP sympathizer or a flag-waving NPP fanatic. And, if you’re an Ewe or Ga or a Northerner you are most likely a die-hard NDC’s party card holder. Sometimes, we discreetly play the “tribal card” to win political points and the politicians love it. Why is that?

It’s amazing how we tend to put too much premium on tribe fixation and party affiliation, irrespective of the candidates’ poor qualities and shortcomings and lack of vision. It’s true that most of us vote for a candidate because she/he’s from our tribes , without considering his/her skills and vision for his/her constituency .

The corrosive effects of tribal –baiting is enormous. It has made us very suspicious of each other and prevents us from bringing our skills together to work for the betterment of the nation. The bad thing about tribal fixation is that once you are able to devalue or dehumanize a person, based on his tribe, it makes it easier to mistreat him or her, in any shape or form.

This goes for the party foot soldiers and the tribal demagogues, who tend to feed on divisions and confrontations to propel their own personal narrow agenda or lack of it.

Undoubtedly, the last election uncorked the bad blood between the Ashantis and the Ewes.If you don’t believe me look at the comments JJ’s name generates on the forum every day. C’mon people, JJ is not an angel, neither is he a devil so let‘s give him a break a little. Yes, I know I’m going to be showered with insults here just by mentioning his name. Halba!

On the other side of the spectrum are the political profiteers who won’t make the last election’s wounds heal. They try to settle scores in any given opportunity. Was the last election filled with irregularities? Yes, there were some problems. Was it free and fair? Well it all depends on who does the counting and reporting. There is enough blame to go around. But, was there any wrong doing being perpetuated by one tribe against another? What is the superior or dormant tribe in Ghana? Do we have any? Nope!

This piece is hardly a newsworthy, but it has the resemblance of a piece with political and tribal bites and lineage-which are what we want. It also goes to show how sometimes good educative and informative articles never, ever make it to the headlines on the Blogosphere or webs.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that we’re infested with tribal sentiments, “tribalism” is overrated in Ghana. The fact of the matter is most people do not really care for one’s tribe as long as one is a descent human being .It’s only those who want to use tribalism as a shield to hide their iniquities or get a political mileage and personal favors dwell on their tribes. It’s the easiest way to score points and make excuses of ones’ failures.

Unfortunately, we the Have-nots tend to dwell more on ‘tribal costume’ than the Haves, who are too busy, inter- marrying, bonding and embracing everything positive about the other tribes. I cringe to think about Ghanaians who are trapped inside their tribal mentality which hinders them from reaching their potentials.

Probably, you are reading this piece on a web site created by Ghanaians who did not let their tribes to prevent them from pulling their individual resources together and create such a huge medium of which we have unfortunately, turned it into insults milling machine. The visionaries knew our problems are too huge for them to play with petty tribal innuendoes.

. We tend to trumpet on our few tribal mishaps and ignore our personal failures—or attempt to explain that personal failure or responsibility doesn’t count because the situation changes or we were basically right, but the timing was off.

WE CAN LEARN FROM THE KWAHUS:

Whilst, the rest of us are busy stirring up the tribal soup with a long spoon, the kwahus are busy honing their entrepreneurial skills, to maximize their socio-economic growth and laughing all the way to the bank. They are also too busy to get involved in the petty things. They obviously know that money is power and no political party in Ghana can survive without their money infusion and inputs. So they know how to make a living in an old-fashioned way—they earn it!

By the way, who owns all the big buildings in Accra and Kumasi? I rest my case!

Have you ever wonder why our business schools and academia are not studying the kwahus’ entrepreneurial prowess? No, we are too busy picking on each other than to learn from one of the most economically, successful tribes in Ghana. So don’t hold your breath!

And, internationally, our neighbors are busy formulating their agenda for this century and beyond whilst we are too busy fighting the tribal war.

I purposely incensed you by throwing in some few tribal jabs so as to conduct my own unscientific survey. I know many of you reading this are either bona fide NPP fanatics or die- hard NDC members so I calibrated and recalibrated my thought and words to gauge how you will react to this piece.

However, this is going to be the last time you will ever see me writing about a tribal leaning piece. I intend to write to inform and educate because too much is at stake for me to throw stones around our glass house. I say that unapologetically because that is what I love to do with my time and energy. That is my goal.

I hope this goes beyond the tribal sensitive gauge, because I know there are professional tribal fishermen and women who are standing by to hijack any debate about Ghana onto the tribal blogosphere. To them, they can not honestly separate one’s behavior from one’s tribe. So one’s mistakes are the responsibility of one’s tribe.

.We bad-mouth each other’s tribe as if one’s tribe has the patent on integrity, credibility, patriotism, honesty, generosity, openness, and empathy. In fact, each tribe is filled with the traits other cultures detest in people but, they seem be the ones we use to seek our successes. Our tribes are full of individuals with credibility –impaired ,selfishness ,stupidity , lack of integrity ,acquisitiveness, meanness, greed ,egotism and self-interest .Unfortunately these are the traits we admire in people, in our modern society.

.The root of our problems lie much deeper than the so –called” stolen election” or one group trying to be the “anointed leadership of Ghana “.The problems lie within ourselves—the way we see the country, our roles and individual goals in life. For one thing is certain; Ghana can not and should not make it without the collective inputs of all her sons and daughters. At the end of the day when Ghana sinks every tribe will sink with it. Just think about it: when things fall apart none of us would be at ease!

I can not wait to read the comments. So let them flow. But, please go easy with your attacks and insults.

Have a Happy April Fool Day!

Kwaku Adu-Gyamfi (Asuomgag@hotmail.com) NJ, USA

*The author is a social commentator and the Founder of Adu-Gyamfi Youth Empowerment Educational and Apprenticeship Foundation of Asuom, Akim.

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