Cultural differences must unite, not divide us – NCCE

Josephine Nkrumah, Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), has urged Ghanaians to embrace each other’s culture to promote national cohesion.

She said living in peace and harmony was an essential instrument for the country to develop.

Madam Nkrumah, who was speaking at a forum organized by the NCCE on national cohesion in Prampram, said regardless of one’s racial, ethnic, religious, or socioeconomic group, there was the need to establish relationships with people whose group you might know very little about.

“We are different in many ways in Ghana; we have more than 15 languages, different ethnic groups, religious groups, political groups, and that’s the beauty of what makes Ghana a unique country, our differences must bring us together, not divide us,” she said.

She said the idea of transferring some civil servants from one place to the other was a way of adjusting to various cultures and fostering national unity.

The NCCE chairperson said intermarriage was also one of the tools for building and fostering harmony among the various cultural groups in the country “because after marrying someone from a different tribe, you don’t throw the person’s culture away.”

She explained that the idea of boarding houses in schools was to bring people with different opinions, religions, tribes, cultures different political parties together to learn how to live peacefully with one another.

Madam Nkrumah added that irrespective of socio-cultural differences, there was the need to put Ghana first, as the country could achieve more, if we accept our differences, saying that Ghana is a unitary state as such, we must find ways to coexist in peace.

She expressed concern about the activities of the secessionist group and urged that nobody must allow violence to gain ground in the country.

Madam Nkrumah said Ghana was blessed with a huge youthful population size and it was time parents studied the manners of their children to be able to identify suspicious acts.

She said unemployment was a major issue affecting the youth, adding it had paved the way for some politicians to prey on the youth to do their bidding.

“If we don’t study the youth and instil our values in them to understand their roles in national development, they’ll become agents of destruction instead of development,” she added.