Not Again, Asantehene!!

After a short spell of absence from the public sphere, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has re-appeared as if with a vengeance. A Daily Graphic news report carried by JoyFM News on Sept. 10, 2009 (“Akufo-Addo will be good president—Asanteman”) had the following highlights:

• The Asanteman Council has declared its confidence in Nana Akufo-Addo as a thoroughbred politician with the capability to lead the nation to progress when elected president.

• Kufuor asked for blessing for Akuffo Addo to which the Otumfuo obliged and said, “I bless you to have a successful election, especially as you come from the Oyoko Clan of which I am the leader.”

• Otumfuo Osei Tutu said even though, as Asantehene, he could not publicly declare his support for any political party, “I can tell you that it is where I look that my people also look”.

In this write-up, I take issues with the Asantehene, not as a person, but as a chief who is debarred from partisan politics but whose public posturing and utterances at the durbar, particularly, give cause for concern. I am particularly bothered by these happenings at Manhyia, not because I see them as necessarily translating into an electoral victory for the NPP but because of their implications for the institution of chieftaincy itself within the context of national politics and the public perception of the Asantehene himself.

Let me tackle the aspect of chieftaincy first. Whoever discounts the place and role of Ghanaian traditional rulers (both males and females) in the country’s life will be doing a disservice to posterity. Whether for good or bad, the traditional rulers have played their part in the development of Ghana’s political history and will continue to do so for as long as the institution lasts.

Despite the onslaught on the chieftaincy institution by modern systems of governance that is gradually whittling away the authority of these traditional rulers, Ghanaians of various ethnic extractions still recognize them as not only an embodiment of their communities’ values but also as important authority figures to be recognized, respected, and deferred to because of their calling to unify the various cultural, social, political, and economic strands of the society.

It is for this reason that successive governments have preserved chieftaincy through various means, including creating a whole Ministry to be responsible for Chieftaincy Affairs. So far, our history tells us that it was only Dr. Nkrumah who openly flexed his muscles against them when he threatened chiefs who had joined the camp of his political opponents (led by the Danquah/Busia United Party) to rock the boat of governance. His utterance that [those] chiefs would run away and leave their sandals behind is still fresh in people’s minds. That was about 50 years ago.

Whether Nkrumah was right or wrong belongs to history. However, the picture is clear: that if chiefs take sides in partisan politics, they create conditions for disunity and tension, which invariably could explode into social unrests if not curbed in the nick of time. Probably, it is only a new-bie to the Ghanaian political scene who will dispute this claim. I am not a new-bie.

I know that chiefs who have ever openly aligned themselves with political forces have felt the consequences of their incontinence as the political pendulum swung from one historical period to the other. They are complicit in the creation of bad blood in the body politic, which sets them up for scrutiny. The participation of the Asantehene in the politicking that took place at Manhyia last Tuesday is a case in point. As George Orwell said in 1949, “Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent, but the tests that have to be applied to them are not, of course, the same in all cases.” Replace “saints” with “chiefs” in Orwell’s statement above and you can place the Asantehene’s posturing in perspective.

Such claims as made by the Asantehene are flyblown and will not do anybody any good. At best, they betray the one who makes them and reveal him as an inveterate hypocrite. Following Orwell’s admonition, the test that I will apply in holding the Asantehene as guilty is from his own admonition to his subordinate chiefs sometime last year to desist from open partisan politics or face the consequences—obviously, heavy fines and destoolment!! Barely a year after that injunction, the Asantehene himself has fallen foul of that very prohibition.

I think that although his larynx was busily working, churning out those words, his brain was not involved in the articulatory process. He should have known better than saying what he was reported to have said.

He shouldn’t allow himself to be carried away by parochial political interests as to turn against his own admonition to the paramount chiefs he presides over in his capacity as their Asantehene. He must stop tinkering with people’s emotions. He might claim to be the embodiment of everything “Asanteman” but it doesn’t mean that he can determine and control the political allegiance of the Asante people. Already, he should have seen the picture clearly: that although the NPP bigwigs that he is upholding may claim the Ashanti Region to be the “NPP’s World Bank,” resistance to the NPP is obvious in many parts of that very region. That claim of a “World Bank” status for the NPP doesn’t mean that the NDC or the other parties don’t have that much following there. What does he have up his sleeves to neutralize that resistance? Join the NPP with his clout as Asantehene to intimidate the electorate?

If he wants to be conciliatory (as I suppose is the essence of chieftaincy), then, he must be guarded in his posturing. Commanding the respect of the society demands that he must not continue to be openly (and overly) partisan in his display of political faith. Doing so will likely give rise to scorn for him, which might have unpleasant consequences for the position he occupies. In my lifetime, I have seen three occupants of the Golden Stool; but none of them except this current Asantehene has entered the public domain and attracted much coverage either because of controversial renderings or something else.

One major development for which he is appreciated is the Asanteman Educational Endowment Fund (that provided funds to support Ashanti citizens seeking higher education). However, I know that other happenings have converged to detract from his good standing. One of them is the circumstance surrounding the $35 million World Bank loan that he contracted for water projects in Ashanti and what has become of that money. His attempts to extend his domain to parts of the Volta Region and the impasse between him and chiefs in some parts of the Brong-Ahafo Region stand tall as a blot on his occupancy of the Golden Stool. The Committee of Eminent Chiefs tasked to ensure peace in Dagbon, which he chairs, appears to be at its wit’s end. The over-exposure (or preferential treatment) given him by the Kufuor administration has attracted concern over the years. Then, here he comes, taking sides in partisan politics.

In our current political dispensation, it is important for us to make pretentiousness unfashionable. That’s the more reason why this display of double-standards by the Asantehene must not be countenanced at all. It is capable of sharpening political differences. We are already being threatened by the ever-worsening political disconnect between the NDC and the NPP in several parts of the country and don’t need anything more to fuel this tension.

Add the numerous chieftaincy disputes to this volatile political situation and you can see the danger that lies ahead. Within this context, I consider it as highly impolitic for the Asantehene to make such invidious utterances. I don’t begrudge Asanteman for hosting the NPP gravy train to a durbar at Manhyia; but will the Asantehene honestly say that he and his Manhyia cabal will accord other political parties that kind of recognition and attention when they show up in the Ashanti Region (beginning from Kumasi) on their campaign trail?

For reference, here is the Daily Graphic’s report:

“The durbar [presided over by the Asantehene] was organised on Tuesday to welcome Nana Akufo-Addo and his running Mahamudu Bawumia, at the start of their eight-day campaign tuor (sic) of the Ashanti Region.”

Even though Orwell’s words ring loud and clear that in our age, there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics … [because] … all issues are political issues,” I daresay that the constitutional provision, which bars chiefs from active partisan politics, was not framed out of spite for the chiefs. To all intents and purposes, it is well-intentioned because of its ability to keep chiefs out of what the late A.A. Munufie called “dirty Ghanaian politics.” This perception supports Orwell’s stance that “politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia...” (“Politics and the English Language,” May 1945).

Political developments confirm such a stance and our chiefs should be the first to support any constitutional move to insulate them against the fallouts of partisan politics. It will not be too drastic for me to suggest that the advocacy of this kind of political quietism for chiefs must be taken further to ensure that our chiefs serve as bastions of unity. One can probably bring about some improvement by abstaining from partisan politics and starting at the point where the constitutional provisions are followed in their letter and spirit.

One need not swallow such absurdities as portrayed by the Asantehene, because one ought to recognize that the emerging threat of political chaos is connected with the posturing and biased public utterances of people like this Asantehene who glibly denounce political violence in one breath only to turn round to do what promotes it in the same breath.

If the Asantehene and other chiefs do what is expected of them, they will be freed from the worst follies of political partisanship. Once they expose their political allegiance and detract from their role as unifiers of society, they set themselves up for scrutiny and will incur the displeasure of those in opposing political camps. They cannot anymore command respect from people across-the-board because of their lack of self-restraint in partisan politics; and when they make themselves stupid through unguarded political remarks and posturing in public, the consequences of their stupidity should be obvious, even to themselves after the event. If they fail to recognize it, we have to point it out to them. And that’s exactly what I have set out to do.

The Asantehene’s open declaration of partisanship is nothing but a “lump of verbal refuse [that should be consigned] into the dustbin, where it belongs” (George Orwell’s words again!). It will not wash with clear-minded people who know that a traditional ruler cannot play the unifying role by aligning himself with one political faction in this manner. By this public display of partisanship, the Asantehene has turned full circle in alienating those not subscribing to the NPP. At the end of the day, when the fog clears after the December elections, he should come back to tell us what went wrong.

Email: mjbokor@yahoo.com