Ethnic Chauvinism And The Implosion Of The NPP: An Open Letter To Yaw Osafo-Maafo

Dear Mr. Osafo-Maafo,

First, I think congratulation is in order on your induction into the Hall of Fame of ethnic chauvinists in our beloved country. This is a major achievement and I am proud of you as a nephew.

Your recent meeting with a group of NPP members in the Eastern region during which you allegedly attacked Asantes, and by inference, other ethnic groups in the country, has reference.

You see, Uncle, it does not take just a single utterance or action for a person to join the pantheon of ethnic chauvinists in a country that is still struggling to build a nation. This is not the first time that you have betrayed your hatred for ethnic groups other than your own in the country.

Recall that in the heat of the 2016 campaign, you expressed a similar sentiment to a group of party stalwarts in the same Eastern region to the effect that the distribution of the country’s development projects must be skewed towards communities in “cocoa-growing areas”.

Your reasoning was that these so-called cocoa areas produce the bulk of the country’s wealth so they must be favoured at the expense of least-resourced areas.

You would agree with me that the only reason why your verbal diarrhea in 2016 did not attract any significant attention was that “cocoa-growing areas” are, by definition, Akan areas so your ethnic chauvinism then included all Akan groups, who, out of self-interest, remained quiet.

Mr. Adviser, since your ethnic diatribes have far more broader implications beyond any hidden or open animosity you seem to suggest between Asantes and Akyems, I wish, in this maiden letter, to set the record straight on the issues raised by your unsavoury utterance at the said meeting of the NPP faithful.

Allegedly, you told the gathering that Ghana is synonymous with the Eastern region because of the historical role the region played in wrestling political independence from the British colonialists. According to your narrative, the Asantes (My undergraduate History Professor, Kwamena Poh, hated the anglicized term “Ashantis”) were never part of this gargantuan achievement chalked by the Akyems.

You also said that the supremacy of the Eastern region is demonstrated by the fact that it has always been the site for piloting every major socioeconomic policy and programme before it is rolled out to the rest of the country.

Wofa, either wittingly or unwittingly, by these incessant statements, you always seem to be suggesting that some sections of the country must suffer discrimination on some “primitive” or non-rational grounds.

Mr. Honourable Presidential Adviser, for those of us who have been following your ethnic politics, you always exude the posture of a person who knows it all in the whole country. However, the fact of the matter is that you are a mere Jack-of-all trades but master of none in your knowledge of what makes a country ticks.

Despite your self-elevated view that you are an erudite par excellence, you failed woefully to realize that your infamous diatribe against Asantes in front of the members of a party that draws its largest support from the region you were berating was inherently counterintuitive. So much for your intellectual prowess!

Mr. Adviser, in case you and your fellow ethnic chauvinists do not know, the history of the NPP cannot be revised to suit any particular narrow ethnic agenda as you are wont to do with this mantra of yours.

The NPP rose from the ashes of the National Liberation Movement (NLM) which was born in the Ashanti region at the behest of the Asante Monarchy at the height of the independence struggle.

All the other precursors of the NPP—The Northern Peoples Party, the United Party, the Progress Party, the Popular Front Party, and NPP 1.0—were led by party greats like S.D. Bombo of the Northern region, K.A. Busia of the Bono region and Victor Owusu and J.A. Kufuor of the Ashanti region.

Yet, to my knowledge, no citizen of these regions has either historically or contemporaneously claimed ownership of the party. Indeed, Mr. J.A. Kufuor is credited with making our otherwise elitist party attractive to the masses of Ghanaians with his myriad Centre of Left policies during his tenure but this man has never created any impression of owning our party!

On the contrary, it is people from your region and in fact, from your ethnic group (most of whom were CPP anyway), who have captured the party and created the impression that you own the party of Dombo and Busia.

We were all in the country when, beginning from the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, word went round within the party that (Nana) Akufo Addo had “decreed” that he couldn’t work with certain individuals in the national executive of the party. Whaat?

Does the party belong to Nana or any individual for that matter? This is the sort of hubris that is gradually eating away at the fabric of the party and culminating in the party shedding its parliamentary majority and a near-miss with regard to the presidency.

Interestingly, we are told, it was the same “Nana doesn’t want this person as chairman…. “Nana wants this as chairman…” etc. sentiment that led to that meeting where you made those divisive ethnocentric utterances about Asantes.

Mr. Adviser, the party’s history can never be silent on the fact that in 1979 the same group that has captured the party today broke away to join the United National Convention (UNC) under Mr. William Ofori Atta, an action that cost us the election that yea.

Mr. Adviser, when in March 2001, I hosted you and your wife in my house in suburban Cape Town in South Africa, after you had attended a conference in nearby Stellenbosch to come and meet our fellow Ghanaians and party faithful, I did not do so because I was from the Eastern region.

When in 2016, as Vice Chairman of the South African Branch (SAB) of the NPP, I led a fundraising drive to support four constituencies (the party won two out of the four constituencies the SAB adopted), I did not do so because I was from the Eastern region or I was an Akyem.

When in January 2017 I wrote an article in the Daily Guide Newspaper to vigorously defend the indefensible plagiarizing of the Presidential inaugural address, I did not do so because I was from the Eastern region or I was an Akyem.

Unfortunately, for your thesis, I am neither from the Eastern region nor an Akyem by ethnicity. No, I am neither of those two Holy Grails of inclusiveness; I am from the Bono region and an ethnic Bono.

Mr. Adviser, your revisionist history of the country’s fight for independence lacks traction at the very least. The struggle against colonial rule is a non-starter because that struggle did not start in the middle of the 20^th century but rather from the turn of the 18^th century onwards until the height of the Asante resistance prowess in the middle of the 19^th century (The ‘Sargrenti’ war was 1874, while the Yaa Asantewaa war was in 1900).

As a country, our political history is replete with accounts of the myriad so-called “Anglo-Ashanti” wars that portray the heroics of the Asantes in resisting the imposition of colonial rule in the country.

Even a ten-year old Ghanaian child knows about the story of the legendary Ashanti Queen mother who led her fellow Asantes to resist colonial rule. So once again, your use of history to justify your hegemonic views has failed miserably.

In conclusion, my humble advice to you is that you have passed your sell by date in our politics so simply go quietly into the night and leave the country’s politics to the modern ones. You have become disdainful and toxic in our politics.

After all, you have replaced yourself two or three times over by placing your children--who never toiled like some of us in bringing the party to power--in the present administration. Good riddance, Uncle!

Yours truly,

Acheampong Yaw Amoateng, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of Sociology based in the US