KENNEDY Agyapong’s “declaration of WAR against Ewes and Gas” teaches very great lessons about national consciousness that we must not gloss over in our efforts to come to grips with his unnerving threat.
INDEED, his utterances contained nothing but misplaced political tenets, being so much attached to his political interests that he is willing to dare the devil in defending these tenets to the letter.
HE must not be blamed at all because unless he knows the benefits that he derives from such a resolute defence of such interests, he will not expose himself to so much danger as he has done, even to the point of wishing to die!
SPENDING three nights in the BNI cells, suffering the cramps of high blood pressure, and being granted bail on compassionate grounds should be enough to tell him the dangerous grounds on which he has chosen to tread.
BUT the bail granted him is just a respite. It does not absolve him from blame or danger.
AGYAPONG and all those supporting him (as is evident from the support given him by the NPP activists) need not go further into history to know that the various ethnic groups constituting Ghana may be separated by peculiar cultural traits but the line separating one from the other is too thin for use in any political game of the sort that he is leading the NPP to embark on.
THE main point is not to defend anything about the Ewes or Gas but to suggest that long before the Gold Coast became Ghana, a grievous injustice had been committed by the British and French against the people in this part of the world that a reasonable citizen would be expected to know better not to support, contrary to what Agyapong and all others playing the ethnic card in our national politics against the Ewes and Gas are doing.
ETHNIC groups are nothing but mere units in a system called “state” or country (as defined by political considerations otherwise called “territorial integrity”). Each unit may be distinct because of what it is; but in our Ghanaian situation, the various ethnic groups have more similarities than the differences.
THAT is why the Ghanaian consciousness of “one nation, one people, one common destiny” prevails and must be upheld to keep us together as we make efforts to develop our country. Nationhood may not be attractive in the current political constraints in the 21st century but it still has its merits.
WE may turn to the basics to recognise ourselves in our unique ethnic groupings as Ewes, Gas, Asantes, Assins, Fantis, Akwapims, Frafras, Kusasis, Nanumbas, and all the over 100 ethnic groups that constitute Ghana.
BUT in reality, we are just one big mass of Ghanaians, which we must uphold for our own collective good. What will one person gain, distinguishing himself as an Assin or Asante? Alone, such a person (no matter how self-fulfilled someone might think he/she is) only exposes himself/herself to danger from within or outside.
WE on Today believe, together, we can withstand the storm when it breaks out. We are Ghanaians first before anything else.
THAT is the ideal to cherish and sustain as we continue to search for the solution to our hydra-headed problems. We cannot develop our country if we work in separate ethnic groups.
