Mr. President, Please Hand Over Power to the Akans!

This article will be as pithy and straightforward as possible. Now, the title’s phraseology may come across to some Ghanaians as outrageous and controversial, but I will implore the reader to read through the entire piece before making his or her remarks. Ever since Dr. John Fiifi Atta Mills became President of the Republic of Ghana in early 2009, Ghanaians of differing political proclivities and ethnic backgrounds have had a thing or two to say about the president’s leadership style, convictions and nation-building goals for Mother Ghana. While not every Ghanaian is expected to love the sitting president, for a number of contradictory reasons, the personal attacks on the president have led some of us to reach this dreadfully difficult decision: that he must hand over power to the majority Akan group immediately!

I hope that the reader is still holding his fire, because I am not done yet. Not a day goes by when visitors to pro-Ghanaian Internet portals, especially ghanaweb.com, are not bombarded with irresponsible and indecorous comments about the sitting president, such as his appointing Togolese agents to positions of authority in government and his being a leader of only Ewes (and Fantes?)! Some have actually accused Atta Mills of consulting a Trokosi shrine on a regular basis as part of his leadership vision for Mother Ghana!


Whether Atta Mills is effectively doing the job for which Ghanaians elected him in Election 2008 is not what I am attempting to discuss in this article – but rather the fact that some Akans are using Mills’ election as an excuse to say unprintable and reprehensible things about Ewes and other Akans. It is very saddening to read on a daily basis some of the insidious and acerbic comments on the Internet about how other Ghanaians feel about their Ewe brothers and sisters. And what better way for the former to malign the latter than to tie the insults to both Atta Mills’ election and his present role as president of the republic! Very convenient, indeed!


Not too long ago, I coined the term “Ghanaian Jews” to describe the increasingly disparaged Ewe people of Ghana, but I now realize that what started as a compassionate comment to compare the plight of a needlessly persecuted Ghanaian ethnic group to Jews has been taken totally out of context and hijacked by a few people bent on stoking the embers of dissension among the Ghanaian population. As of this writing, I have applied for a patent involving the term “Ghanaian Jews,” as far as Ewes are concerned, and once the patent is approved, no one may use the term, unless my permission is first sought! To those who have capitalized on my benign use of the aforesaid term, please desist from any further use of it in your writings, so as to diminish the cinders of animosity now presumably burning in many Ghanaian hearts.


Due to the persecution of Ewes in Ghana, I am calling on President John Fiifi Mills to hand over power to the first Akan citizen eligible under the Constitution of Ghana (I will, however, recommend the Minority Leader of Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu!), so as to save the Ewes – and the Fantes – from the interminable and nauseating insults being heaped upon them regularly by others, especially in the last few months.

But wait, folks! Is Atta Mills not an Akan too? Oops! I guess we have a stalemate! For a strange reason, I completely forgot that the leader of the nation is not of Ewe descent! Okay, it is Jerry John Rawlings who is of Ewe extraction, but did he not leave office 9 years ago? I thought that the Akans have been ruling the country since 2000? Not so? Well, I am calling on my Akan brothers and sisters to support our first Fante president (I think the Fantes had waited long enough for one of their own to become president of Mother Ghana!), until he completes his first term in January 2013 – and, perhaps, until he completes his second term in January 2017!


If Fiifi Mills makes it to 2017, it will then be the turn of the Ga nation to produce the next president, which may take us to 2025. At the end of the Ga president's tenure, the northerners will have their turn, which, hopefully, should take us to the year 2033. Shortly after that it will the turn of Ewes, going by basic logic. Well, scratch the Ewe thing! Since Ewes have exhausted their political capital, due to Jerry Rawlings' long and tyrannical rule, the Ewes would have to wait for another Akan president to rule from 2033 to 2041, before another Ewe can confidently rise out of the ashes! Folks, based on my algorithmic analysis, it is reasonable to conclude that the next Akan president will be presiding over the affairs of state no earlier than 2033! I should have the wisdom of a sage by that time!


Once again, I hope that my dear Akan brothers and sisters will rally behind John Fiifi Atta Mills, their own kinsman, in his efforts to improve the economic conditions of all Ghanaians! Of course, if Mills and his fellow National Democratic Congress (NDC) members err or flout the law, we must take them to task, just not via the incessant disparagement of Ewes! And definitely not on the already “contused” necks of the poor Ewes of Ghana!


The writer, Daniel K. Pryce, holds a master’s degree in public administration from George Mason University, U.S.A. He is a member of the national honor society for public affairs and administration in the U.S.A. He can be reached at dpryce@cox.net.