DO NOT HUMOUR GHANA'S TRIBAL SUPREMACISTS!

Hmmm, Ghana - ayeasem oo! Opanin, you sound like a very mature and well-educated gentleman. Please don't fall into the same trap that those semi-literate Okaompa Ahofes have fallen into: needless stereotyping and making endless generalisations.

Opanin, tribal supremacists like the Okaompa Ahofes exist in all the ethnic groups in our homeland Ghana. Mercifully, and thankfully for our nation, they only constitute a tiny minority in every tribe - and they are invariably to be found in the progeny of the pre-colonial feudal ruling elites in all our tribes.

However, the reality in our country, thanks to Nkrumah's enlightened leadership and non-tribalistic nature, is that ordinary people in our country never really think in terms of tribe, in their everyday dealings, with their fellow Ghanaians.

That, my brother, is why there is virtually not a single extended family in our country, that does not have at least a few family members who hail from areas other than their family clan's hometown and tribe.

United by blood ties and through marriage, the average Ghanaian extended family today, consists of many different tribes. In my own family, for example, there are cousins from the north, from Asante, Akim, Ga, Anlo, Krobo, and even from Bunduku in the Ivory Coast! Amazingly, every single one of those cousins, is a blood relation of mine.

Do you now see why someone like me despises Okaompa Ahofe and his ilk - be they Akans, Ewes, northerners, Gas, Kwahus, etc etc.? Believe me, I am not the only Ghanaian who despises the tribal supremacists in our midst, either.

The unfortunate thing for mother Ghana is that the current ruling party has been hijacked by a tiny cabal of greedy and dishonest Akan tribal supremacists. It is for this reason that the present regime's more cynical critics unfortunately insist that our current leader, also doubles as the nation's "hypocrite-in-chief".

People often condemn former president Rawlings (said by some of his more cynical critics to be our our number two "hyocrite-in-chief"!) as being tribalistic whiles in power, but the truth of the matter is that he was not. The Ewes dominated the public sector then, as they do now, simply because there are more Ewe graduates in our country than there are graduates from other tribes.

Our former president, Flt. Lt. J.J. Rawlings, is also often seen as a danger to Ghanaian democracy. He may also have earned a place in our history as the most brutal dictator ever to rule Ghana, in the years preceding the day he successfully morphed into an elected civilian president - but he never ever sought to make Ewes and his own family clan dominate our country as a policy, did he?

That particular point I make, is illustrated perfectly by the fact that it was during the dictatorship of the military junta that Rawlins led in the years of the pre-1992 constitutional era, that Sargent Amedeka, an Ewe soldier who is now a fugitive from justice, once had the temerity to slap the most important of the traditional rulers of Anlo, in the face: an act that even today is an abomination everywhere in the African continent.

Although my mentioning it will probably raise the ire of the many "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidons who flock to the comment web pages of www.ghanaweb.com, the truth of the matter, is that current President J.A. Kufuor had a historic opportunity to change our country for the better, in many ways, when he first assumed power on 7th January, 2001.

Unfortunately, he failed our country dreadfully in that respect - with what some equate with pure treason: his active promotion of certain tribal supremacist traditional rulers, who sought to create a de facto state within a state in our country by stealth, throughout his tenure.

For many independent-minded and patriotic Ghanaians, it is therefore no surprise that he is leaving office with our country more divided than at any time in its history.

Sadly, too, he is also leaving office after having presided over an era in which greed amongst our ruling elite reached a level seldom seen in our country before.

Above all, his regime went to great length throughout its tenure, to give the world the impression that somehow there existed a state within a state in Ghana - which apparently was the new successor to a great West African empire of our pre-colonial feudal past.

The annoying thing for many decent and independent-minded as well as non-tribalistic Ghanaians, is that he and the tiny cabal of Akan tribal supremacists who dominate the ruling party so completely today, abused the power given them by the constitution, in the most egregious of fashions.

Incredibly, for almost eight years they succeeded in getting away with marshaling the whole machinery of state to help one of the most megalomaniac of traditional rulers ever to sit on a major "stool" in Ghana, to indulge himself in his absurd fantasies.

For many a Ghanain patriot and nationalist that was an irritating example of the most blatant and shameful abuse of power: which generated a lot of resentment amongst many ordinary Ghanaians - who felt annoyed by the false impression the world was being given, that to all intents and purposes, there was only one truly significant traditional ruler in Ghana: a falsehood they felt was an insult to their own traditional rulers too.

I have no doubt that Otumfuo Opoku Ware 11, for example, will be judged by history, as one of the greatest of the modern-day traditional rulers of post-independence Ghana - precisely because he understood that the best contribution someone in his position could make to Ghanaian society, was to ensure the cohesion of our country: and to do so by keeping an extremely low public profile.

Yet, paradoxically, that posture did not diminish him in any way - and in fact led to many non-Asantes revering him, eventually. He earned a great deal of respect amongst ordinary Ghanaians right across the country, throughout his period as Asantehene. May his soul rest in peace.

It is the hope of most ordinary Ghanaians that many more of his kind, and in his position, will follow in his footsteps, going forward into the future.

May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Posted by Thoughts on Ghana