Flagstaff House Cemetery

Jubilee House

Whoever predicted that Jubilee House, oops, Flagstaff House, would be turned into a presidential cemetery one day would have been derided for venturing an outrageous forecast.

The facility, which was constructed to serve as a Presidential Palace in the face of an absence of one in the country, is on the verge of becoming a cemetery for presidents who either die in office or in retirement, so it seems.

A news story in this issue has it that a group of Chinese is seriously digging the graves, confirming government's decision to ignore the many concerns raised against it.

Refusing to listen to the demands of the people is not a new thing under the incumbent political administration and so the insistence of government, as represented by the Funeral Committee, has not surprised many of us.

The issue of interring the former president at the Flagstaff House has raged on for a while now, a controversy which could have been avoided. For those who believe in spiritualism, they hold that posthumous controversies do not offer the needed peace to the spirits of the dead.

From how the deceased passed away to a choice of a resting place for his remains, we have not been spared one form of confusion or the other.

For a president who said he would use the facility as a hospital and not what it was intended for; suggesting therefore how he was averse to using it as a residence in an ephemeral world, confining his remains to the place would be offending his spirit.

Information reaching us indicates that close to a dozen graves were being dug by some Chinese at the Flagstaff House and if this is suggestive of turning the place into a presidential cemetery, we do not know about what else qualifies for that description.

The graves are being dug close to the façade of the Presidential Palace and would attract the attention of whoever drives past the place.

We are tempted to believe that perhaps the Funeral Committee, oh no government, seeks to taunt those who constructed the Presidential Palace in the first place.

Apart from the late president saying he would use the place for a hospital, his foul-mouthed Spokesperson Koku Anyidoho's preference was to turn it into a poultry farm to perhaps breed broilers and layers.

In the absence of either a hospital or a poultry farm, we are going to have a cemetery at the Flagstaff House, a compromise decision of sorts.

While the people of Ekumfi Otuam will not have their son interred in the struggling town as they wish, those who toiled to have the palace constructed too will regret that their struggles have ended in a cemetery.

Both the remains of the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and the colonial General Officer Commanding the Gold Coast Regiment who lived at the Flagstaff House at different times would be squirming in their graves, wondering what informed the commission of this political sacrilege.