– OPEN LETTER TO KWABENA AGYEPONG AND SIR JOHN
It has always been my policy to keep myself away from politics of unproductiveness. One of them is tribal/ethnocentric politics which have never-ever done any good to humanity. Their biggest brother/sister is Racism.
This very last one – racism, has been fought with exacting precision which has paid off dividends to especially the black race in the United States of American, which has replicated down the European continent.
The forebears of this human/civil rights activism suffered grave physical casualties not based on their violent nature which was non-existent – but their belief in non-violent approach to fighting for their basic freedoms. Thousands also lost their lives.
The towering figure of this hard won battle is the now near immortalized Martin Luther King Jr. Today, both the violators and the violated celebrate his day in January of every year for his stance against this major and worst form of human injustice.
In the African continent, racism is not our problem. Tribalism/ethnocentric engagements are what have almost brought down most African states. Rwanda, Burundi and lately the Central African Republic – are ugly examples that one can point at.
The conflicts don’t start without the creation of under-currents which gradually trigger them into these ugly situations.
In Ghana – my dearest country, the crime I have committed, just as any other Northerner – is that ‘I AM A NORTHERNER’. This is the reason why I always feel my heart is being torn apart anytime my PRIDE as a GHANAIAN is being subjugated and insulted just because ‘I am a Northerner’.
Prior to the 2012 general elections there were ‘free-for-all’ in terms of vulgar insults to all Northerners, including the sitting President whose fault was that he should have been a ‘cattle herder’. Others had their crime being that their fathers were watchmen/labourers so they shouldn’t have been through education which they claim we had no right to enjoy it FREE?
The results of the 2012 elections pointed to what ‘foul-mouthing’ can cause us in politics. Very well-meaning people within the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have told the party in honest assessment of their political ‘by-heartedness’ which culminated to the big LOSS they suffered.
Despite this blatant fact, some personalities within the NPP, in whom I have a very high degree of respect for, have also decided to crawl into the pond of incivility. One such personality is Mr. Kwabena Adjei Agyepong and ‘Sir’ John.
I really felt disappointed when Kwabena Agyei Agyepong descended heavily on Justice William Atuguba without any provocation from the Justice of the Supreme Court.
On February 13, or thereabout, a Citi FM morning show hosted by its ‘pilot’ Bernard Avle, had the aspiring General Secretary as his guest in studio. Much as I was enjoying his courteous and erudite responses to questions, he suddenly, and with the arrogance that he is alleged to be made of – run down the poor Justice.
What I can vividly recollect the host alluding to was this “…political gallamseyers…” the Justice stated when Sir John was summoned before the nine Justices in the course of the electoral results challenge.
Mr. Agyepong at that stage verbally took on Justice Atuguba and in fact pounced on his ethnicity.
What would have been the motive – if not to spite his ethnicity when he, with some level of sarcasm said and I am paraphrasing, that ‘when he was in Bolga and not known, only to be lifted and brought to the limelight by…’
I personally take serious exception to his statement and wish to caution him and others in the NPP that there are rational-thinking Akans within the party who are against these un-necessary invectives directed at Northerners each time they are made.
I earlier on talked about racism which was effectively fought and the battle won. That is the reason why our own kinsman, Mr. Kofi Annan had the privilege and opportunity to head the United Nations as its Secretary General.
How would Kwabena Agyepong and other Ghanaians/Africans have felt if he were referred to as ‘A BLACK MAN WHO WAS HIDING SOMEWHERE IN GHANA ONLY TO BE BROUGHT TO NEW YORK AND MADE POPULAR’?
Sometimes these insults are so vitriolic that one wonders what at all have Northerners done to deserve them. The penchant by the Danquah/Busia traditional activists who always see us as not deserving to live must rethink this warped mentality.
Dr. Abrefa Busia is on record to have said in Bolga when he went and saw the giant Ghana Commercial Bank building and questioned derogatively, whether we were to store ground nuts in it. The same social anthropologist is also alleged to have stated that ‘the northerner should use his strength whilst they (Southerners) use their intellect to guide us.
That was a well educated man who remained captive to his mental biases. He left behind a tradition which is still threading this type of dislocated line of thinking as is being espoused.
And a ‘Sir’ John is also alleged to have embossed his campaign T-shirts “VOTE FOR SIR JOHN AND SHAME ATUGUBA”.
That is the man who stood before the Justices as if he had had a twelve-hour rain-beating before his appearance at the Supreme Court to face the Justices.
Well, it is not my duty to tell the NPP that these evil spewing is going to further worsen their future electoral WOES. For, Napoleon Bonaparte once said “…Never interrupt your enemy [opponent] when he is making a mistake…’’
You can go ahead denigrating other tribes. But remember the day of the polls will follow soon.
Camillus Maalneriba-Tia Sakzeesi
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