Birthday dedication my father

Sunday the 14th of June 2009 was the day I turned thirty-eight. As a rural boy, I have never been used to the concept of celebrating a birthday as such. Contrary to the popular practice whereby people make resolutions on the 1st of January every year, I tend to make my resolutions on my birthdays. This is because the date of my birth is the time that I consider to be the beginning of a new year for me and hence the appropriate time to rethink my life and consider or reconsider new ways of doing things.

However I found time to go to the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra to watch the much touted league match between Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Accra Hearts of Oak. Earlier on Saturday, I had posted on my face book page a birthday wish. I stated that my wish on the day was for Accra Hearts of Oak to give me a birthday present. It did not happen. Kotoko beat us by a lone goal. I took it in my stride even though it gave me a few reservations about the technical competence of Coach Kosta Papic. Herbert Addo certainly showed superior technical ability. I however consoled myself with the fact that willy-nilly, we shall win the league title this year.

By and large, I want to thank the Al-mighty Allah for my life and for that of my parents and my entire family. I want to dedicate my 38th birthday to my father. I owe a lot to my father. My father's strict discipline has done a lot to shape my life and put me on a sound footing in confronting the vicissitudes of life. As a child I did not quite like my father. He was too given to the use of his soldier's belt anytime in his judgment I had fallen foul of common sense laws. My friends who attended Ghana National College tell me that they were taught that any violation of common sense law is a violation of the school rule. I cannot agree more with that reasoning.

A friend of mine in Bawku Secondary School used to say that “common sense is not common to common people”. In other words, even though basic reasoning is called common sense, it is not at all common. Some times one wonders if indeed there is anything as common sense. When I drive behind certain vehicles, especially the commercial ones and people keep throwing waste out of the windows unto the streets, I cringe. Sometimes I say to myself that we shall indeed wallow in the abyss of under development for a very long time.

Today when I look back at the several years that I spent with my father, I thank the Al-mighty Allah for bestowing on me such a father. The fact that he instilled in me the love of God and Islam has helped to define and shape my life. The fear of the lord they say is the beginning of wisdom. He instilled a lot of it in me. Right behind our house where I was born at A. Ext. 27 near the Preby Church in Tamale, is the late Alhaji Ziblim's house. Attached to the house is a small community mosque where we prayed.

By the age of seven I was made the muezzin of the mosque. A muezzin is the one who calls Muslim faithfuls to prayer. Thus my father would wake me up at 4:00am every morning to prepare and be at the mosque by 4:30am to call the first azan and subsequently the second and last one before the dawn congregational prayer is said at about 5:00am. As a child, I hated it and went along with the practice solely because I was compelled to do it. The azan is the words that the muezzin utters in a loud voice or over a loud speaker that summons the faithful to prayer.

For those who know Tamale my father enrolled me at the Manhaliyya Islamic School. Islamic schools are popularly called Makaranta. Manhaliyya is situated behind the Kaladan Sports Stadium at what was then known as the Kaladan Barracks. The proprietor of our Makaranta was the late Alhaji Issah Bello. During holidays and on Saturdays and Sundays during school term, I would trek on foot, the entire journey from Sakasaka to Kaladan Barracks to attend Makaranta. In spite of the distance involved in trekking to and from Makaranta, my father will require me to be home at a particular time. If I was a minute late, I was sure to be at the receiving end of the soldier's belt.

Nonetheless I was excited about Makaranta. Manhaliyya was an English and Arabic school where instruction was in both secular and Islamic education. I was however considered by the head of the school, Afa Iddi to be way ahead of my colleagues in terms of the secular education. Therefore when Makaranta closed and the school session started I was required to become a teacher and instruct my colleagues in the English language. At Manhaliyya therefore I was a student-teacher. This gladdened my heart and encouraged me to be even more zealous in my learning of the Qur'an. It was a pity I stopped going to Makaranta altogether when my father went into exile.

Nonetheless I had become sufficiently proficient in the recitation of the Qur'an which to this day plays an important part of my spiritual development. I guess it was this love of Islam and the Qur'an that my father instilled in me which eventually informed my decision to pursue Islamic studies right up to the masters level and hopefully will begin my Ph.D in Islamic Studies before the close of this year. The study of religions is an interesting subject by all accounts.

Rather than being a dogmatic and stereotypical discipline, I can state with all the authority at my command that a study of religions will no doubt help to foster a spirit of understanding and co-operation among humankind. A distinction must be made between theology as studied in a seminary and the study of religions as obtains in a university setting. In a seminary the basis for investigation is the question, “what must I believe”? But in a university the basis for investigation is the question, “what is there that is believed”?

Thus while in a seminary the goal is to kindle zeal and fervor in the students for the defence and spread of the faith of which they form part, the goal of a religious studies department in a university is to question the basis of the faith that men live by. I remember that one of the popular questions that is asked almost all the time in Comparative Studies exams at the University of Cape Coast is, “what difference will it make if a Zoroastrian was called a Muslim”?

In other words one is being taught that labels don't really matter; that content is the most important determinant of religious belief. When one studies Zoroastrianism, one is amazed at the striking similarity between the teachings of Zarathustra who lived several thousands of years before the birth of Muhammad. Therefore I am amazed at the extent of religious bigotry that still pervades most societies.

Apart from my religious studies background, I am also identified in Ghanaian society as a politician. Even though I do not consider politics as a profession, the generality of the Ghanaian people generally refer to people who have a certain visibility and activity within political activity as politicians. To that extent, I accept the fact that I am a politician. This too I attribute to my father. And to the extent that I do not regret my involvement in politics, I thank God for the turn of events that changed the course of my destiny and added the designation, politician to my many designations.

My father was a soldier and therefore was essentially not politically involved or active. My father tells me that he is an Nkrumaist by orientation and inclination and had always voted for Nkrumaist parties in all elections in which he had voted except the last one in 2008 when he voted for the NPP in the first round. Unfortunately he could not vote in the second round because he had to report back to his base in London. He did not envisage that the election will travel into a second round and therefore did not have the permission of his employers to stay beyond the 16th of December 2008.

It must have been in June or July 1985, that I came home to Tamale on vacation from Bawku Secondary School to meet locked doors. Initially no body wanted to tell me where my father had gone. This was about midday. Later in the evening, the landlord of our house, Alhaji Yakubu told me that my father had been declared wanted by the PNDC government and therefore was on the run, allegedly for his involvement in an attempt to overthrow the PNDC government. I was heart broken. I was inconsolable. It was there that it dawned on me that I was never going to see my father again except the PNDC and specifically Jerry Rawlings was no longer in charge of the state.

It was then that I made the resolution that in the future I will have to participate in any activity or venture whose purpose will be to remove Jerry Rawlings from state control, so that my father can return to Ghana. Indeed my father was never to return to Ghana until March 2001 because the NPP had won the 2000 election. I remember that I wept uncontrollably at the Kotoka International Airport when I embraced my father for the first time since 1987. My father went into exile in Togo in April 1985. In 1986, I had the opportunity of meeting him in Sankansi from where we traveled together to Lome where he was domiciled. Sankansi is the popular Togolese border town that borders Widana in the Bawku District. It is a famous trading post for Ghanaians mainly from the Upper East Region.

The point that I want to make as far as this matter is concerned is that, but for my father's troubles with the PNDC and his subsequent flight into exile, I would perhaps never have been a politician. My decision to register with the Danquah-Busia Club in 1991 was heavily influenced by my desire to obtain freedom for my father; freedom that will allow him to visit the land of his birth as a free citizen and not as a fugitive. Thankfully, my effort finally paid off in 2000 when the NPP won the election. I have however remained a politician since then and will perhaps continue to participate in Ghanaian politics as far as I have breath in me.

I already have an article on this blog that talks about my philosophy. On reading that article, one will realise that most of my personal philosophies are shaped by my Islamic religious belief. This had been drilled into me by my religious father. Indeed I owe a lot to my father and that is the reason I dedicate my 38th birthday to him. I shall continue to pray to Allah saying, “Oh lord! Pardon me and my parents and all those believers on the day when account will be called for”. Amen!

Credit: Mustapha Hamid Bawre