Legitimisation Of Terrorism, Tribalism And Lies Under President Mills (10)

'Action and reaction are equal and opposite,' Newton's Third Law of Motion.

'As a football manager, you have to be held responsible for results, as a player, you have to be held responsible for performances,' Graham Taylor, former England Football Manager.

'If they come for your brother in the morning and you don't speak up, they will come for you in the evening,' Malcolm X.

Thinking back, I remember one incident. One day, after a meeting, I offered to drop Kennedy Ohene Agaypong at his office since he came to the meeting without his car. After I had dropped him, I deiced, as a matter of courtesy, to spend a few moments with him in his office. During the conversation with him, it transpired that on many occasions, he had entreated President Kufuor to take action against persons with strong evidence of wrongdoing against them including periods going back to the NDC era. The normal response of President Kufuor had always been a gentle tap on the laps of Kennedy Ohene Agyapong telling him to take it easy. I am reporting this story here because I do not have any doubt in my mind that the passion which Ohene Kennedy Agyapong has against wrongdoers in society must have forced him to tell others this story of encounters with President Kufuor.

The lesson to me is that if President Kufuor had not taken it easy on wrongdoers, the NPP might still be in power and Kennedy Ohene Agyapong would not have found himself in the present predicament. It leads to the story of the sparrow which refused to take the advice of the tortoise to keep quiet until the sparrow fell to the gun of the hunter. The sparrow fell close to the tortoise. So when the hunter came to pick up the sparrow, he found the tortoise. The hunter naturally picked up the sparrow as well as the tortoise as a bonus.  While I do not have any intention to hold brief for Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, I hope those who have so callously descended on him will be a little bit charitable with him on hindsight.

Let me end this piece by offering a word of advice to my Ewe and Ashanti brothers and sisters. Many people do not want to listen to or read the truth. However, the truth must be told if we are to solve our problems rather than tickling with the symptoms. First, let me address my Ewe brothers and sisters. The Ewes and the Ashantis have mutual respect as well as mutual fear for each other and collaborated in many fields, prominently among them is the staging of coup d'états and party  politics in the past. While the Ewes have been involved in the entire four successful coup d'états this country has experienced, the Ashantis have collaborated with the Ewes in three of them. There is a large degree of intermarriage between the Ewes and the Ashantis. I do not have any voodoo statistics to prove but I have the strong feeling that more Ashanti men are married to Ewe women than Ewe men married to Ashanti women. There are large settler communities of Ewes scattered all over Ashanti Region. Indeed, there is a whole township of Ewe community called Anloga in the heartland of Ashanti, Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti Region.  New Edubiase in the Ashanti region has one of the largest Ewe settlements in this country.

The picture I am trying to paint is that the Ewes and Ashantis on the micro level do not have any problems with each other. The problem arises at the macro level where the intellectual and traditional leadership of some arch-Ewe tribalists are making serious attempts to draw a wedge between the Ewes and the Ashantis for narrow political gains. This dishonest leadership has created the impression that the NDC is the natural haven for Ewes because from its inception, the NDC has been led by an Ewe, J.J. Rawlings, as the recognized founder. Unfortunately, there appears to be a historical connotation to this. Indeed, Flt-Lt Rawlings's PNDC lasted for so long because he made sure Ewes were put in the commanding heights and key areas of the security, especially the Armed Forces.  Indeed, there are recorded cases where Ewes were unduly promoted above non-Ewes and put in command positions for security reasons. Despite all these, what those Ewe tribalists leading the crusade to drive a wedge between the Ewes and the Ashantis is that they forget that the UP tradition, of which the NPP is a natural successor, had many prominent Ewes as prominent, credible and worthy members.

What the Ewe tribalist leaders  must note is that there is no way NDC can win this year's presidential election with just the overwhelming Ewe votes and without support from Ashantis in particular and Akans in general. Without the Akan votes, Candidate Mills could not have become President Mills. Sadly enough, President Mills and the NDC have forgotten that.  However, any of the other political parties currently in contention can win this year's presidential election without the Ewe votes since the NPP has proved that in the past. The time has therefore come for the Ewes to accept that in politics, the talk is of permanent interest and not permanent friends. If Ewes should find themselves in opposition, it is their own doing and cannot blame any other tribe, not the least Ashantis or Akans. I therefore advise my Ewe brothers and sisters to discard the negative tendencies of their leaders and start voting on issues and principles rather than on tribal lines. There are enough political parties around outside the NDC for them to make a worthy choice.

The last shameful attempt by the parochial leadership of the Ewes was the futile attempt by some traditional rulers from Volta Region to bring President Rawlings and President Mills together. The attempt was shameful which all discerning Ewes must condemn. Where were the traditional rulers when President Rawlings was insulting President Kufuor? These acts of omission and commission of these Ewe tribalist leaders create some lingering impressions non-Ewes have about the Ewes, which could be positive or negative, depending upon who is doing the analysis. Non-Ewes believe that Ewes love themselves to the exclusion of other tribes and that is why K.A. Gbedema's NAL and J.J. Rawlings's NDC received overwhelming support of the Ewes.  Non-Ewes believe that Ewes find comfort among their own kith and kin and therefore a common observation non-Ewes make is that once an Ewe heads an institution, not long after, that place becomes a colony of Ewes. In much the same way, the belief among non-Ewes is that institutions owned by Ewes almost invariably employ only Ewes. It is the translation of these beliefs into partisan politics which can have a negative impact on Ewes in particular and the nation in general.

Another observation by non-Ewes is that Ewes believe in living together as homogenous citizens in settler communities instead of integrating with the people on whose land they settle. The recent terrible violence between the Ewes and the Fantis in the Central Region did not happen by accident. Non-Ewes have the suspicious belief, either rightly or wrongly that Ewes in general indulge in human ritual murder for juju purposes. That was why when the Fantis discovered the body of a headless Abuasuapanin in his farm, they immediately concluded that the chief had been killed by somebody from the Ewe community for juju. Sadly enough, it was a false belief. Why did the Fantis not attack the Zongo community?  My concluding advice to my Ewe brothers and sisters is if they feel discriminated against, they should stop behaving like the Jews of this world, blaming other people for any negative image they perceive others have of them and clean up their act.

Now let me turn to my Ashanti brothers and sisters. There is no way Candidate Mills could have become President Mills without the Ashanti votes he received. Today, the NDC has proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the NDC is a mortal enemy of the Ashantis. Today, the NDC has deliberately destroyed health delivery system in Ashanti with its experimental capitation grant and put an incompetent party man at the helm of affairs at the largest hospital in Ashanti Region, who is systematically destroying that famous hospital. The NDC has also created the impression that Ashanti Region is the source of all gargantuan electoral fraud in this country while closing its eyes to more gargantuan electoral fraud which is often perpetrated in the Volta Region.

The NDC created the greatest mayhem in Ashanti Region and other Akan speaking areas during the recent biometric registration to deny Ashantis and other Akans their right to register. Worst still, the NDC is trying everything possible to draw a wedge between the Ewes and the Ashantis not only politically but also socially. The ordinary Ewe has no problem with the ordinary Ashanti and vice versa. THE END

E-mail:  makgyasi@ug.edu.gh mailto:makgyasi@ug.edu.gh

Tel: 027 - 7588256
By Kwame Gyasi
 

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