Ghana and Africa . A failed Democracy or a democratic Failure?

Democracy is a system that allows citizens to vote and participate in any events that are involved in a government system or electing representatives of that system. It can also be termed a place ,where the best golfer can be Black , the best rapper ,White and the President, a letter of the alphabet.. From it is derived Freedom , which is defined as the equality or a state of being free or an absence of necessity, coercion or constraint in choice or action, alternatively liberation from slavery or restraint or from power of another. Freedom then gives birth to Independence , the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous. But this come in with a word called RESPONSIBILITY , which is on ONES own or Authority

From the above we want to see if this is an ideal or it is practical , a theory or a reality Are we Independent? Are we RESPONSIBLE,? Do we have restraints? On the 6th March 1957, Dr Nkrumah later to be known as Osagyefo had pronounced “Ghana our beloved country is free forever” and we shouted hurraaaaaaah………….. Later I had asked my dad ,called Kwasivi , who had come out of Kweku Duah’ s cocoa farm for the occasion, what independence meant.? He told me, when I get older I will have my own apartment which I will have to work and pay for and have my own wife and children to look after , decide to eat what I want instead of yo ke garri and go out and come when I like if my wife will not nag me and a lot of other things I asked if I will be able to take Kweku Duah’s ‘koklo’ if I want and he said that will be stealing and I could get 3 months. So I realized I was not free , at least not for the moment . Was I then born free but everywhere in chains or was I born in chains and work my way to freedom? I realized there were constraints to Freedom and one of them was poverty .

Poverty is a lack of the necessary money or financial holdings needed to sustain a socially recognized standard of living .So long as we remain poor , it is obvious we cannot have true democracy . We have had elections , an aspect of democracy but has it alleviated poverty? According to Lewis Machipisa it has not . A massive 1.5 billion people still live on less than a dollar a day . Part of the problem has been the unfulfilled expectations of an accountable governments followed by donor field programs that are not always in harmony with the country specific needs and conditions . It was therefore obvious to me that so long as dad Akwasivi remained on Kweku Duah’s farm , he could not be the Black golfer in the scenario . Should we be striving to overcome this?

Education . If I was to be successful, to look after my family and pay for my apartment and make Kweku Duah’s farm more prosperous , I realized education was an inhibiting factor. Of course I was being educated in a way on the farm and already I could tell when the rains would come and which koklo was sick and which herbs to use to cure them .But my dad reminded me the world was changing . He gave me a quote from Aristotle “ For the things we need to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them’ So I learnt to read and write and to debate and be temperate . I learnt to play oware from Kweku Duah, s children who always won as they were always playing that game , but I knew more about cocoa and koklo than they knew . That is why when the aliens compliance order came and I had to leave and go back to Togo , they became broke as there was no one to work on the farm .You see we read every day about Awuna’s stealing koklo when they were on the farms . The truth is the Awunas are fishermen and they do not know about farming The departure did not only affect them , it affected the country as well , we went from number 1 to number 5 in cocoa production and Ivory coast became number 1. My dad’s cousin Akwasivi, the one who had the gun ’kafu gbeng’ but without a license went to Cote D’Ivoire with his knowledge . Dad was right again ‘ Knowledge is power “ and how interdependent we are . We need Kweku Dua and he also needed us if wealth was to be created and for survival It reminded me of two stories that are well known . One was the lion who caught a mouse and was going to eat it but released it after listening to its plea . ‘ What can you a puny thing do to help me?’ Soon after the lion was caught in a hunters net. The mouse came to its rescue chewing the net to set the lion free. Interdependence is what the world is about . My uncle Kweku Ananse alos talked of the other story where despite all his attempts to hoard knowledge he failed as he could not put it on top of the famous Iroko tree. Every body has some degree of knowledge . Harnessing this is our duty .So without education I could not be that White rapper Leadership . This is a factor that is difficult to define . Aspects of this include vision, getting things done, self knowledge, willingness to look to others for support, openness to change, desire to go the extra mile and communication. In it you have a mission statement and clearly communicate it to the followers . Nkrumah’s was Self government NOW , followed by Work and Happiness

My Leadership is not limited to only the presidents but all levels . Do the companies we run have clear vision statements clearly communicated and do the leaders walk the talk ? Example is an essential part of leadership . Can we say with all honesty if our leaders have the interest of the people at heart? My uncle ex president Kuffour declares Ghana an HIPC, then gets involved in ex gratia, and office squabbles. He is an attorney and knows the procedures . He allows his ministers to hide State Property , when as an outstanding leader , he should have ordered them to surrender these . Now we are involved in a tribal verbal war because of that. Nana accuses a people of making him lose . Fact? No . Good leaders apologize and accept responsibility , I was wrong The result is peace and Respect . It is not too late and I appeal to these two leaders to put Ghana first and do the right thing . No need for pataa pa

Discrimination is the unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice It may be on the grounds of sex, language , religion . Do these exist? Is the a fear of Tribal Dominance . Akans are the dominant tribal block in the country. The same scenario plays out in other African countries .In Kenya , we have the Kikuyus who incidentally have Nairobi as the capital , similarly the Baganda of Uganda, with Kampala as the capital . Kenyans use Swahili as their commercial language but the Baganda like the Akans have been trying to make Luganda or Twi the national language . Being a Luganda or Akan, it seems good. Prof Busia as Prime Minister had this debate in Parliament. It was vehemently opposed . However it brought resentment from the non Twi speaking people as it seemed an imposition . Then ,the question was , which version of Twi ? That this came even from the ground was brought home to me when in the Diaspora our Ghanaian Union Chair an Akan introduced this . I was the secretary and pointed out it will bring division. He did not pay attention to it At the meeting Nii a Ga but born and bred in Ashanti stood up and spoke in Ga . The Chair turned to me and all I could say was he had a right to. Then it was the turn of Mumuni in Dagarti . He got the point . It is like playing an away game where you are at a disadvantage It has brought resentment to the Bagandas from other tribes . In South Africa we had the Sharpeville massacre when the Afrikaaner tried imposing the Afrikaans on the Nation. The Blacks will rather have English as the medium of communication . English are White and the Afrikaaners are White . Both are classified as Settlers , but what makes one group more acceptable than the other? The answer is simple, attitude . The Afrikaaner tended to be arrogant and brutal and has little or no respect for the Black people . Like in Uganda when the other tribes sought to eliminate the influence of the Baganda and the King Kabaka . who also had a party with the Danquah/Busia ideology , The Kabaka Yeka through which they tried to use as a vehicle dominate the other tribes and the Nation. It was action and reaction . The result was bloodshed . Similarly in South Africa the majority would rather die so they took up arms

Why do I bring this up ? It is to find out the root cause of the tribal divisions in place and how we can cure it . In 1969 with Busia in power we had the first experiment of this dominance. The government was an elite , like two Ofori Atta(William and Jones) , Akuffo Addo , who we promptly named a beer after , Three Brongs , one Northener Jato Kaleo but the bulk coming from the interior . None from East or West Upper and none from Volta . Then came the Apollo exercise that was to even remove CIVIL servants from their posts and then a bill to make Twi the national and Parliamentary language . We see people come to Accra and go to Makola and speak to a trader from Chorkor who has never been out of Accra in Twi . Guys , is that not arrogance ? Then we talk about hatred What hatred? We love the individuals but it is the attitude which stinks. When you oppose racism it does not mean you hate whites but the practice. Most people will not understand it , but if you have never been Black you cannot know the effects of racism or discrimination , so Akans will not know the effect of being called koklo deka, or pepeni especially among children who can be very cruel not realizing the effect on the self esteem and psychological development of the young ones . Can there be a national effort .to remove the cancer which is fast spreading and stunting our ideal of democracy . Is it fair that through the accident of birth I am UNFIT for the highest post in the land because my language is non Akan? A lot is made of The Volta not voting for NPP on the grounds , it is Ashanti dominated . I cannot speak for the people but I know most Blacks voted for Obama because they felt he will better understand their problems ., not because the hated McCain . I cannot hesitate to say only a few Blacks will vote for an Afrikaaner in South Africa

. So with the playing field not level I cannot be that president represented by an alphabet ‘I appeal to you to collect all your machetes and throw them into the sea’ N Mandela I say, let us come up with ideas to make our baby democracy grow

Kojo Tamakloe

The writer believes in the ideology of social democracy . He worries about the tribal insults and division and as a freedom fighter believes our energies will be better spent in pursuit of economic emancipation in the context of a United African States . A pragmatist Nkrumaist he believes the fruits of independence lie in unity , not in Balkanization