Ethnicity: Mills` headache

The paramount Chief of Atebubu, Nana Owusu Acheaw Brempong on Monday threatened to cause mayhem and bloodshed in his traditional area if the Atebubu-Amanten district assembly endorses Mr. Sanja Ninja as the District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area. His concern was that the nominee is not a native of the area, and that he and his people wanted an indigene as their DCE.

Though the Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, Hon. Kwadwo Addae Marfo defied the threat to conduct the election under tight security, Sanja failed to get the required votes to confirm his position. Apart from the Atebubu incident, people from other parts of the country have also been protesting against DCEs nominated by the President on the excuse that the nominees do not hail from the area.

As the President ponders over the next step to take to resolve the issue, The Chronicle would like to revisit the suggestion it made sometime ago for government to appoint regional Ministers and District Chief Executives from outside the regions and districts they come from, as was experimented by the Rawlings' regime sometime ago. The President should not be surprised about the protests and reactions to his appointments, because Ghana is a multi-ethnic country where tribal sentiments could be easily exploited.

Despite the education being made by politicians and civil society organizations to minimize ethnic identity, and for each and everyone to see himself or herself as a Ghanaian first, ethnic matters have taken firm roots in our politics. To make matters worse, students from the various ethnic groups in the country have formed tribal associations on our University campuses.

One of the Professors from the University of Cape Coast, about two years ago, went public and warned that if nothing was done to stop this development, it could have serious repercussions in the forward march of this country. To us at The Chronicle, the best way to stop the emergence of this ethnic canker is for the President to start appointing regional Ministers and DCEs who are grassroot politicians but come from outside the areas they are going to serve.

For instance, if the President had appointed somebody from Bekwai in the Ashanti region as DCE for Atebubu, and sends Sanja Ninja to head the Bekwai assembly, then nobody would protest, because we shall all come to accept that it is the government's policy to appoint DCEs to areas they do not hail from.

Any student of Political Science would agree that ethnic identity is or was the cause of many wars in this world, therefore, our government must act quickly to nip this canker in the bud.