Disturbing Community Issues in Chicago, level Heads Must Prevail!

As leaders of the Ghanaian community here in Chicago have been reinforcing the need for members of the Ghanaian community to register and join any Ghanaian Association here, one wonders what goes on in some of these organizations warrant the need to do so. Some of these leaders call themselves leaders for the sake of it. They don’t have any programs and ideas to move their organizations forward. Meanwhile, our kids are slowly but surely migrating away from our culture, and their peers. There are no programs in place to bring them together! Majority of them don’t understand our language! What are we as a community doing about these issues? Most of our leaders don’t know when to call it quits! Leadership is a service not a right to impose oneself on others! A reference case in point is what is going on in the Ga-Adangbe Community Organization here in Chicago which is getting worse every month they attend meeting. As a matter of fact no one knows how the next meeting in June will end! Although the present chairman of the Chicago Ga-Adangbe Organization’s term of office ended in May 2009, he is stubbornly holding on to power and crushing all opposition with shear brute force. His latest victim was an aspiring lady candidate to the chairmanship position! Her only crime was that she dared stand against the de facto chairman, Abdul Brimah. Abdul Brimah and a few like minded members of the Ga-Adangbe Organization believe that the organization must be led by the “anointed wise men”. The rest of the members have to be their courtiers and are supposed to nod and follow their marching orders.

The chairman, Mr. Brimah has managed to overstay in office for the past one year. Whenever members call for elections, they are labeled with bad names, insulted and verbally abused. When some members finally garnered the courage and called for elections this year, the chairman, Mr. Abdul Brimah, who was elected in May of 2007 for a two year term decided to wrestle all opposition by fair or foul means. The general membership of the Organization who have the final authority in the decision making of the organization accepted five volunteers in November last year to conduct a free and fair elections for executive positions. The chairman will neither allow the electoral committee to work independently or allow constitution of the organization to be used to decide candidates who qualify to stand for the elections. Apparently he has his own hidden rules and agenda that must leave him unopposed! The first report the electoral committee presented in March this year, did not go down well with the chairman. That meeting ended in confusion, name calling and abusive language. The following meetings after thatl ended in similar manner!

The electoral committee declared that Brimah’s opponent is qualified to run for the position of chairman of the organization based on the constitution and the financial records submitted by the executives headed by Brimah. Mr. Brimah would however not accept that decision. He wants to pick the referees and judges for his own election hence, the decision by the independent minded electoral committee enraged him. The electoral committee’s decision brought the wrath out of the self righteous chairman. He unilaterally disbanded the electoral committee, though the electoral committee was approved by the members of the organization who are the highest adjudicators in matters of the organization. The chairmen ridiculously claim that he nominated the electoral committee to the membership for approval so he has the right to remove them! Why didn’t he propose their dismissal to the members if he had earlier proposed the committee members to be approved? Where is his moral standing?!

The chairman, Mr. Brimah and his protégés were demanding that the traditional council members be elected the same day as the executive members else the elections of new executive officers will not go on as planned by the electoral committee! The Ga-Adangbe constitution does not support the stand taken by the chairman to stall the elections till he ends up as the only candidate on the ballot.

As a matter of fact, not until the previous chief of the Ga-Adangbe Community Organization, Nii Lante Okunka Blebodzan relieved himself of the position due to illness; he had “reigned” graciously for over 18 years without being re-elected! Until the constitution is amended, the electoral committee is right in their assertion that the rules as they are now do not warrant the re-elections of the royal court! There is no time frame in the constitution for their service. In traditional Ga culture, a chief does not succumb to periodic re-elections. To show how serious and dire the chairman wants to keep a strong hold on his position, he was in a brawl with his opponent, a lady, in an attempt to prevent her from speaking at a recent meeting! Mr. Brimah ended up scratching and twisting the lady’s finger in his obvious rage! One can now easily predict that he and his cronies will continue the “sayoo” behavior till they have their way. As if rehearsed to appeal to the chairman, other supporters of the chairman verbally abuse this lady without any justification at the meeting! Brimah did not ask them to put a stop to that appalling and disgraceful behavior! For years, members of the Ga-Adangbe organization have been demanding from their leader’s transparency and accountability but those requests were always met with intimidation, anger, heckling and what have you. Members of the organization were shocked when they discovered recently that it was a common practice among their leaders to give “sweetheart” deals to their spouses when it comes to membership dues payment. The spouses of the executives were paying 90 dollars instead of the 120 dollars a year stipulated in the constitution. One problem we have as a people is that, some in leadership positions falsely assume that without them the organizations they lead cannot survive without them! They do not realize that the organizations they are leading have already run out of ideas and progress and can definitely be better if they embrace new ideas and leadership.

It is believed that a former executive member is behind the chaos Ga-Adangbe Organization is experiencing now. We hope and pray that level heads will prevail in the Ga-Adangbe organization sooner than later so that free and fair elections can be held to restore sanity.

The unity, peace and progress of the Ga-Adangbe and all other organizations in the community must prevail. We wish all the organizations in Chicago well in their endeavor to creating a better community for all of us.

Source: Kwasi A. Mensah, Chicago.