Kennedy Agyepong Declared Justice, Not War!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

The dastardly attempt by some Ghanaian-Ewe groups, such as the so-called Council of Ewe Associations of North America (CEANA), to rope in Ghanaians of Ga ethnicity vis-à-vis the Agyepong tirade will not wash (See “CEANA Responds to Kennedy Agyepong’s Declaration of War” Ghanaweb.com 5/14/12). It is also interesting that thus far, no significant group of Gas has taken up the Machiavellian bait of this marriage of convenience deftly hatched by Anloga Mafia to advance the unholy cause of the Ewe-dominated National Democratic Congress (NDC). One just have to take a casual glance at the list of the key operatives in the office of President John Evans Atta-Mills to get a striking picture of precisely what I am implying here.
Anyway, the Gas have not taken up the rather cheap and obscene bait of Ewe nationalist groups like CEANA, because like the rest of us Ghanaians who are generously endowed with long-term memory banks, the scapegoating of Mr. Joachim Amartey-Kwei in the brutal assassination of the three Akan Supreme Court judges, and the retired senior Ghana Army major, by Messrs. Jerry John Rawlings and Kojo Tsikata, is too fresh and painful to be forgotten so soon. We shall devote ample space at an opportune moment to the Amartey-Kwei Tragedy.
At any rate, as any reasonably well-educated Ghanaian who has studied Ga history and culture knows, the Ga and the Akan people are so inextricably interlinked – fathom the image of the legendary BIG SIX, for example – that it is virtually impossible to tell us apart. And as I had occasion once to enlighten a northern kinsman who brazenly presumed to differentiate these twin-ethnic sub-nationalities not very long ago, a roll-call of the monarchs who have occupied the Ga-Mantse’s stool would strikingly confirm the preceding observation. At my last count, the percentage was nearly split halfway between Gas and Akans, largely of Akwamu lineage.
Likewise, the fact that the two major presidential candidates for Election 2012, namely, substantive President John Evans Atta-Mills, and main Opposition Leader Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, are married to two attractive and well-educated Ghanaian women of Ga ancestry is hardly an accident. We must also highlight the fact that the second wife of late Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia, of blessed memory, the recently deceased Mrs. Naa Morkor Busia, was also a Ga-descended Ghanaian woman.
In essence, my unabashed contention here is that virtually every Ghanaian of Akan ancestry has a mother or sister or sister-in-law or wife or niece or daughter who is a Ga! This is not to say that Ghanaians of Ewe descent are total strangers to the land. Personally, for example, the Paramount-King of Peki-Blengo, Togbui Kwadwo Dei (and there have, so far, been eleven on the Blengo-Abenase stool) is my maternal great-grandfather by way of the Akyem-Nkronso royal family!
Still, the foregoing fact of history ought not, in any way, shape or form blind me when a highly successful Akyem-Kukurantumi woman judge, a likely relative of mine, is savagely ambushed and brutally executed, Anloga Mafia style, on the highways of Hohoe. And then also, there is the rather harrowing case of the Akan-descended police chief who was brutally assaulted in the same town several years ago. And while, to be certain, I would never want to be forced to explode with the sort of anger that caused the Assin-North NPP-MP to call for immediate retaliatory action against the ethnic group of the culprits of the biometric registration center assaults, nevertheless, it would be quite refreshing and supportive of our common national development efforts if, instead of vacuously screaming “Wolf!” ultra-nationalist Ewe groups like CENA could muster the requisite courage and honesty to educate the nation-wreckers among their ranks to do some serious soul-searching.
Indeed, the brutal assassination of the judges was a veritable declaration of war on Akans by the Rawlings-led Anlo-Ewe Mafia. And did we, Akans of Ghanaian descent retaliate back then? And by the way, what is this Council of Ewe Associations of North America (CENA) about? I mean, I know of the New York City-based National Council of Ghanaian Associations (NCOGA). In sum, are these “CENA” Ewe nationalists a people who are really interested in forging a cohesive and common Ghanaian national identity, or they are simply a bunch of sick-minded comedians? Come on, get real, people!

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of “Danquah v. Nkrumah: In the Words of Mahoney.” E-mail: [email protected].
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