Sankofa: No room for unitary government now

Ghana, are we human or inhuman? A united front is built upon nationalism. A Nationalism generally means patriotic feeling for one's country signifying a political ambition to achieve national independence and freedom from a ruling imperial power through national unity irrespective of languages lines of several regions.

The United Kingdom was built upon the above and Gold Coast being colonised by the Imperial British also developed the same nationalism by forming United Gold Coast through convention with the main objective of self-government for the chiefs and the people of Gold Coast at the earliest opportunity, but all to be achieved by legitimate and constitutional means.

The United Kingdom was federal in disguised as can be proved from Daily Graphic of Wednesday, January 25, 2017, under "Parliament must give Article 50 go-ahead on Brexit"

The court ruled that the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies did not need a say.

The court also rejected, unanimously, argument that the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly should get to vote on Article 50 before it is triggered.

The two above statements prove that United Kingdom was federated by Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland. These places are not districts but full-fledged regions that constitute devolution of power to vote on any article before it is implemented and not a single parliament made up of 275 districts.

From 1945 to 1957, of truth, Gold Coast was a country with less than five (5) million inhabitants and was alleged it could not support four (4) federated governments and the fact never rested on financial grounds since there was enough money worth £200,000,000.00 left for Gold Coast by the Imperial British.

But the fact was pointed out by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah that Gold Coast was not only small with less than five million inhabitants, to divide into separate States, it was too poor in trained personnel to staff four (4) different governments.

The same Kwame Nkrumah in July 1953 announced in the Assembly that the country would have to reply on expatriates for some years to come and added that every appropriate means, for expediting Africanisation would be adopted, yet not at a speed harmful to efficiency or to the interest of overseas officers. But what happened, just within a span of three years after independence the same small population or inhabitants of less than or equal to five million were fit for republic, a nation just like the state of Oregon in the United States of America.

In 1955, Sir Frederick Bourne's report advised against federation demanded by the NLM, the National Liberation Movement, headed by Dr. K. A. Busia, as being unsuitable for so small a country, recommended a diffusion of power to regional assemblies which would have large responsibilities for local matters and which would receive grants-in-.aid from the central government. He held that the chiefs still had an important part to play in the local government, that their position should be safeguarded, and their experience utilised for the general good of the region.

Nkrumah's government stood for a modern, highly concentrated parliamentary state and as a consequence for reducing the position of the chiefs whom he regarded as a 'remnants of an outmoded feudalism' while the opposition were inclined to protest against excessive centralisation and favour that diffusion of power and that respect for traditional institutions which have characterised conservative bodies at all times and in all parts of the world.

The White man always looks hundred (100) years ahead. Standing for a modern highly concentrated parliamentary state at the time of Independence was due to the population of the Gold Coast before 1957 but they forgot that by 50 years to come they would not be able to control centralisation as it is now.

If at the time of Independence we were less than five million inhabitants, now we are almost thirty (30) million inhabitants and do not fit for Unitary form of government which everything was centralised in Accra.

We need federation now, where each region will preserve her culture for the future generation. What is going on in Accra will not save Ghana----congestion and the swollen population.