Reconciliation Must Go Beyond '79 - Essikado Chief

The Omanhene of Essikado traditional area in the Sekondi -Takoradi metropolis, Nana Kobina Nketiah IV, has observed that any one who refuses to confront what has happened in the past has skeletons in his cupboard which he does not want exposed.

According to him, almost all the successive governments that this country has produced used what he termed as a super structure, which was created by our colonial masters to suppress the indigenous people.


He mentioned one of these as the crafting of certain policies which were used to suppress those who did not belong to the camp of those controlling state apparatus.


He said the use of this super structure by most of the successive governments divided the country and the only way this could be remedied is to confront what happened in the past with the view to reconciling the people, once and for all.


Nana Kobinah Nketia IV, known in private life as Dr. Baffoe Maison, a lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, was commenting on the National Reconciliation Bill, which has already been placed before Parliament, in an interview with the Chronicle at his private residence at Essikado on Monday.


He said fully supports the reconciliation bill, but opposes the time frame which the government had proposed, limiting the issue to the Rawlings era.


"Nobody knows how a bomb was planted to kill Nkrumah, our first president.

Neither do we know how J. B. Danquah and Obetsebi Lamptey died. So we need to go into all these things and reconcile the country once and for all," he said.


Nana Kobina Nketiah, however, accepted the fact that it was during the Rawlings era, especially in 1979, that a lot of blood was shed, including the Citizens Vetting Committee that was set up, hence the searchlight on that period.


He said the country experienced similar situation during the tenure of other military regimes, though they were not as heavy as what was seen in 1979.


"If we are to really reconcile this country, then we need to go into all these regimes," he added.


Nana Kobina Nketia further told Chronicle that the need to reconcile the people in the country would not have come about in the first place if all the successive governments that the country has so far produced had indigenised our system of government and done away with all oppressive forms that were adopted and used by our colonial masters to suppress us.


He, therefore, suggested to the government to have a critical look at the issue and try to indigenise our system of government to eliminate a future occurrence of what happened in the past.