Mr. President, Please Hand Over Power to the Akans!
By Daniel K. Pryce Feature Article | Wed, 04 Nov 2009
Dr. John Fiifi Atta Mills
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Feature Article : "The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Modernghana.com."
This article will be as pithy and straightforward as possible. Now, the title's phraseology may come across to some Ghanaians as outrageous and controversial, but I will implore the reader to read through the entire piece before making his or her remarks. Ever since Dr. John Fiifi Atta Mills became President of the Republic of Ghana in early 2009, Ghanaians of differing political proclivities and ethnic backgrounds have had a thing or two to say about the president's leadership style, convictions and nation-building goals for Mother Ghana. While not every Ghanaian is expected to love the sitting president, for a number of contradictory reasons, the personal attacks on the president have led some of us to reach this dreadfully difficult decision: that he must hand over power to the majority Akan group immediately!
I hope that the reader is still holding his fire, because I am not done yet. Not a day goes by when visitors to pro-Ghanaian Internet portals, especially ghanaweb.com, are not bombarded with irresponsible and indecorous comments about the sitting president, such as his appointing Togolese agents to positions of authority in government and his being a leader of only Ewes (and Fantes?)! Some have actually accused Atta Mills of consulting a Trokosi shrine on a regular basis as part of his leadership vision for Mother Ghana!
Whether Atta Mills is effectively doing the job for which Ghanaians elected him in Election 2008 is not what I am attempting to discuss in this article – but rather the fact that some Akans are using Mills' election as an excuse to say unprintable and reprehensible things about Ewes and other Akans. It is very saddening to read on a daily basis some of the insidious and acerbic comments on the Internet about how other Ghanaians feel about their Ewe brothers and sisters. And what better way for the former to malign the latter than to tie the insults to both Atta Mills' election and his present role as president of the republic! Very convenient, indeed!
Not too long ago, I coined the term “Ghanaian Jews” to describe the increasingly disparaged Ewe people of Ghana, but I now realize that what started as a compassionate comment to compare the plight of a needlessly persecuted Ghanaian ethnic group to Jews has been taken totally out of context and hijacked by a few people bent on stoking the embers of dissension among the Ghanaian population. As of this writing, I have applied for a patent involving the term “Ghanaian Jews,” as far as Ewes are concerned, and once the patent is approved, no one may use the term, unless my permission is first sought! To those who have capitalized on my benign use of the aforesaid term, please desist from any further use of it in your writings, so as to diminish the cinders of animosity now presumably burning in many Ghanaian hearts.
Due to the persecution of Ewes in Ghana, I am calling on President John Fiifi Mills to hand over power to the first Akan citizen eligible under the Constitution of Ghana (I will, however, recommend the Minority Leader of Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu!), so as to save the Ewes – and the Fantes – from the interminable and nauseating insults being heaped upon them regularly by others, especially in the last few months.
But wait, folks! Is Atta Mills not an Akan too? Oops! I guess we have a stalemate! For a strange reason, I completely forgot that the leader of the nation is not of Ewe descent! Okay, it is Jerry John Rawlings who is of Ewe extraction, but did he not leave office 9 years ago? I thought that the Akans have been ruling the country since 2000? Not so? Well, I am calling on my Akan brothers and sisters to support our first Fante president (I think the Fantes had waited long enough for one of their own to become president of Mother Ghana!), until he completes his first term in January 2013 – and, perhaps, until he completes his second term in January 2017!
If Fiifi Mills makes it to 2017, it will then be the turn of the Ga nation to produce the next president, which may take us to 2025. At the end of the Ga president's tenure, the northerners will have their turn, which, hopefully, should take us to the year 2033. Shortly after that it will the turn of Ewes, going by basic logic. Well, scratch the Ewe thing! Since Ewes have exhausted their political capital, due to Jerry Rawlings' long and tyrannical rule, the Ewes would have to wait for another Akan president to rule from 2033 to 2041, before another Ewe can confidently rise out of the ashes! Folks, based on my algorithmic analysis, it is reasonable to conclude that the next Akan president will be presiding over the affairs of state no earlier than 2033! I should have the wisdom of a sage by that time!
Once again, I hope that my dear Akan brothers and sisters will rally behind John Fiifi Atta Mills, their own kinsman, in his efforts to improve the economic conditions of all Ghanaians! Of course, if Mills and his fellow National Democratic Congress (NDC) members err or flout the law, we must take them to task, just not via the incessant disparagement of Ewes! And definitely not on the already “contused” necks of the poor Ewes of Ghana!
The writer, Daniel K. Pryce, holds a master's degree in public administration from George Mason University, U.S.A. He is a member of the national honor society for public affairs and administration in the U.S.A. He can be reached at dpryce@cox.net.
Source: Daniel K. Pryce"The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Modernghana.com." To have your articles publish, please submit them to editor@modernghana.com.
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Comments To This Article
6 readers have commented so far on this story. And below this page is a sample of the latest comments published. Or you can also click view all to read all comments that readers have sent in.
Why this article
Ato | chicago -usa (Location: United States) | 11/5/2009 5:36:00 AM
y would any website publish this piece of bull crap.... pls give us a break..we are far away from this kinda politics.. the heck with where he is and where he was educated !! PLs spare us the bull crap
hand over power to akans
Rich | maysville-usa (Location: United States) | 11/5/2009 6:36:00 AM
Mr. Pryce (or so-called), I usually ignore your articles because most of them are very divisive and tribalistic and are intended to incite hatred and animosity between Akans and Ewes. I chose to comment on your latest article in the hope that it would help you see things from another perspective rather than always looking at things from the prism of tribe. It is easy for you to sit in the comfort of America and sing "tribal songs" intended to breed division among the akan and ewe brothers of our dear country. There are enough greedy politicians, on both sides, in our country who don't hesitate to play the tribal card to win political power, so we don't need people like you parading as pseudo-intellectuals, spewing tribal venom on the internet, to fan the flame.
Now back to your article. The most vocal critic of president Mills' administration is a guy by the name, J.J. Rawlings, a fellow ewe like you. It is also on record that Dr. Ekow Spio-Garbrah, a leading NDC man and a fellow Fanti openly criticized the president and the team he selected.
And , by the way, if we go by your twisted tribal logic, none of the leading Akan-NPP politicians would ever criticize the president because he happens to be a fellow Akan. President Mills would also not need to "hand over power to another Akan, unless, of course, you are implying that real power within the NDC lies in the hands of the Ewes, not the president.
As I said earlier, greedy politicians often use tribal differences to influence the voting pattern of a large section of our population who are less educated and may not be able to read and critically analyze the issues. It is however very disappointing for someone with your educational background to view every partisan, party-political discourse within the country as motivated by tribalism. When leading NPP members, who happen to be Akans, criticize the president and leading members of his party, who happen to be Ewes, they do so (I believe) based on party-political affiliation not tribal affiliation.
Hand Over Power
Teddy Bee | Accra-Ghana (Location: Ghana) | 11/5/2009 8:54:00 AM
Mr. Pryce (I doubt whether this is your real name), the article you put up is needless, to say the least. Presidents of Ghana have always been criticized by any citizen since time immemorial. The point that you have struggled to project in your piece is called 'stereotyping', and is a diminished perception of groups and their behaviors. I think you should rather exert your energies on championing good leadership irrespective of one's tribe or association. Although you try to make some fun out of rotating the presidency along tribal lines, there is no point you make in support of the advantages or usefulness of such an exercise. Sad to say that there are some others who think along the lines and I think that is no DEVELOPMENT or PROGRESS at all...Reason, look across the globe and tell me where such fancy thinking has worked. Obama did not rise to the high office on account of his tribe, he did so on merit. Mr Pryce, please rethink your stance and champion MERIT. Merit is what will move Africa and Ghana into advanced stage of civilization, not TRIBALISM.Thanks



