The 1956 Plebiscite Was Not Held Nationwide

There is absolutely nothing organic or “natural” about the boundaries of any of the 10 regions in the country. And so it is not clear precisely what the so-called Warlord of the Asogli Traditional Council or tribal enclave, in the Volta Region, means when Togbe Adzi Lakle Howusu [Agyei Owusu?], XII, means when he imperiously asserts that in creating the proposed Oti Region out of the present-day Volta Region, extreme care must be taken to protect the “sanctity of Eweland.”

Well, as far as the overwhelming majority of us, bona fide Ghanaians, that is, are concerned, the so-called Eweland has no greater or any more significant right to constitutional sanctity or integrity than any other ethno-regional polity in the country (See “ ‘We Will Resist Illegal Partitioning of Volta Region’ – Asogli State” Ghana News Agency / Modernghana.com 10/2/18). I am also not sure of the ethnic homogeneity of the Ewe people of Ghana.

For example, it is as crystal clear as day and night to observe that my Peki-Blengo kinsmen and women do not identify ourselves as Anlo-Ewes; nor do we owe any allegiance, whatsoever, to Togbe Afede, XIV, the Agbogbomefia of the so-called Asogli State. Well, “so-called Asogli State” because there are absolutely no sovereign nations within the present postcolonial confines of the Democratic Republic of Ghana. And yes, Togbe Adzi Lakle Howusu, XII, may envisage himself and may, indeed, be envisaged by his Anlo-Ewe tribesmen and women as their “Warlord” or Commander of their decidedly non-existent armed forces, but he is just that, the Commander of a Chimerical Armed Forces.

Needless to say, the only legally and constitutionally established and recognized Armed Force or Forces in Ghana is headquartered at Burma Camp, in our nation’s capital of Accra; unless either Togbe Afede or Togbe Adzi Lakle Howusu can forensically and credibly point us to any garrisons or regiments in Ghana or the Volta Region that go by the name or designation of the Armed Forces of the Asogli Kingdom of Eweland. This running or perennial Anlo-Ewe Madness or siege mentality must promptly cease.

If the so-called Asogli State is this woefully lacking in the presence and/or availability of mature-thinking human adults, the rest of us bona fide pre-Anlo-Ewe Ghanaian citizens would gladly send over platoons or even battalions of some of our own to generously tutor these apparently morally and culturally bankrupt and pathologically benighted Neanderthals in the ways of civilized humanity and modernity.

Foremost among the grievances of these congenitally cantankerous Asogli chieftains is the right to be allowed to vote in the upcoming referendum that is scheduled to enable the people of the Oti River Basin area of the Northern Volta Region to democratically determine whether these bona fide and veritable Ghanaian citizens desire and deserve to have an administrative region of their own or intend to continue tugging at the coattails of arrogant Anlo-Ewe warmongering chieftains like Togbe Afede and Togbe Howusu.

There is something inexcusably grotesque about such warped ratiocinative trend, in much the same way that it would be to argue that the 1956 United Nations-sponsored Plebiscite that precipitated the incorporation of the former Trans-Volta Togoland into Ghana ought to have included the entire population of Ghana at the time, and not just that of the present-day Volta Region. Indeed, had a wholesale polling been conducted at the time, it is very likely that the overwhelming majority of Ghanaians would have voted against the incorporation of the primitive Trokosi Culture into a shared space and geopolitical destiny with the far more enlightened Akan-Ghanaian ethnic majority.

At any rate, neither Asogli chieftain has, so far, been able to point to a single instance in which the country’s 1992 Republican and Democratic Constitution of Ghana has been either flagrantly flouted or criminally breached in a bid to creating Oti Region out of the present Volta Region. From the afore-referenced news report of the press conference presentation by Togbe Howusu, XII, it is quite clear that these woefully misguided Asogli chieftains are fully aware of the fact that any dastardly attempt to use the patently uncivilized language of threats and intimidation to eviscerate or abort the unstoppable and morally and socioeconomically justified creation of the Oti Region will be fiercely met with the necessary countervailing force.

No sub-tribal chieftain or even groups of chieftains have a right to impose their parochial interests and will on the destiny of another discrete or distinctive ethnic group or sub-nationality. You see, there was a time when Ghana consisted of just three regions, and then five, seven, nine and ten regions. The determination of regional demarcations is a veritable matter of socioeconomic and political necessity, not the ethnocentric madness of any narcissistic or self-infatuated tribal warlord or chieftain. There are no slaves in Ghana anymore. We are, all of us, bona fide Ghanaian citizens with equal rights, privileges, liabilities and responsibilities before the law.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
October 4, 2018
E-mail: [email protected]