Why always zongo?

As a typical Zongorian, I feel heavy in heart, when this
under-privileged and under-developed Community that raised me, is in
the news for all the wrong reasons. A regular
Columnist on this web, Rockson Adofo, and few others accused Alhaji
Moro Guarma of organizing the Kumasi Zongo Community to unleash
violence on the Staff of Kessben F.M.
Alhaji Moro Guarma may be the brain behind that
irresponsible assault on the Staff of Kessben F.M, but I take strong
exception to the generalization of the attack, as an Orchestration by
the Kumasi Zongo Community, even though I also condemn that savage
and uncivilized attack on Kessben F.M.
Off course, Alhaji Moro Guarma is a member of the
Zongo Community, but he's not the embodiment of the Zongo, and he can
never be. Any idiot can organize thugs from his Community to
perpetrate violence on the citizenry.
The leadership of the Zongo Community, from the
Council of Zongo Chiefs to the Sarkin Zongo chiefs should bury their
differences, in their Struggle for traditional authority and rescue
the sinking image of the Zongo Community.
If the alleged attack on Kessben F.M was to have been master-minded
by a Citizen of Kumawu, would Rockson Adofo had accused the whole
Kumawuman for the attack?
Would it be fair on our part to accuse either
Bantama, Asafo, Ash town, Dichemso or any native Community of crimes
committed by individual hooligans, and hoodlums from such Communities?
Intolerance and violence; radicalism and extremism
is not peculiar to the Zongo and I don't intend to rationalize this
matter.
In any case "there's Mensah in every home"
Having said that, our
leadership in the Zongo Community have been reduced to symbolic and
ceremonial tigers and lions who have failed to change the face of the
Zongo from scorn and ridicule.
Many were those among us who blindly sacrifice
their logic and dignity to religious, ethnic and political bigotry and
dogmatism.
Out of Homo-phobia and stereotypical "hogwash", we
tolerate, accommodate and encourage demagogues, propagandists,
populists and the bourgeoisie, to incite us against some group of
people, organizations, and individual opinions and beliefs.
The paradox of this scenario is that the
bourgeoisie, populists, propagandists, and the politicians dump the
Zongos, and treat us like fake useless coins which are only needed
for dirty transactions in the event of violence and mayhem.
And because we have failed to realize that
democracy transcends an event; is rather a process, but not an
electoral event, those politicians and the bourgeoisie will have no
cause to worry that the Zongos would have the logical and intellectual
ability to read between the lines, in holding them accountable for
their promises, and stewardship, by keeping them on their toes, from
the commencement of their mandate till the end of their tenure.
We leave them off the
hook, and go to sleep for three years, only to wake up in an election
year to demand "a bite at the political cherry" which is nothing more
than cups of rice and sugar, and some few Hajj tickets to some of our
so called opinion leaders whose leadership neither helps develop nor
empower the Zongo Community. As the rap musician Tupac Amaru Shakur,
put it "role models Today are not meant to be put on the pedestal;
they're more like Angels with broken wings"
The Zongo Community do not need ethnicity,
propaganda, religious, and ideological bigotry to survive; the Zongo
Community need three square meals a day, a good health care, and
economic empowerment through easy access to affordable education that
will lead our youth to the path of empowerment and enlightenment.

Tanko Ali Yahaya,
Independent Minded Zongorians.
[email protected]