The Land Settlement Question and Politics in Brong Ahafo

: Our Leaders Lack Vision

As a region Brong/Ahafo is a child of the politics that has defined our country since before the attainment of political independence from Great Britain in 1957. Some leaders of that geographic entity called Western Ashanti during the last phase of colonial Gold Coast became “strategically” aligned to Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party (CPP) during its struggles with the Ashanti-based National Liberation Movement (NLM) for the control of the post-independence state. Specifically, such key traditional leaders of the region as Agyemang Badu, Akumfi Ameyaw, Ofosu Gyeabour, Yaw Frimpong of Dormaa, Techiman, Bechem and Kukuom traditional areas respectively who were unhappy with the Ashanti suzerainty came together under the banner of the Bono-kyempem Movement (BKM) which was later rechristened Bono Nkyempem Movement (BNM) to agitate for a separate Brong/Ahafo region.

It is needless to say that Nkrumah was a smooth political operator who sought to manipulate the people of Western Ashanti in the political chess game. He saw in the agitation of the leaders of Western Ashanti an opportunity to break the Ashanti front which, to all intents and purposes, stood between him and his life-long ambition to rule Ghana. Thus, he cunningly egged these Bono and Ahafo leaders on with other promises of political patronage to ensure his leadership of the post-colonial state.

Kwame Nkrumah and his CPP won the contest, Gold Coast became Ghana after attaining independence and true to his promise Brong/Ahafo came into being in 1959 for "administrative" purposes. However, it is worth reiterating the fact that the agitation by the aforementioned leaders in the Bono Nkyempem Movement did not represent the collective conscience of the people of the area as leaders of some key traditional areas and towns like Boakye Yiadom, Boakye Tromo, Kusi Apea I, Ansu Gyeabour of Berekum, Dua Yaw Nkwanta, Wenchi and Wamfie respectively were vehemently opposed to the haste with which the Bono Nkyempem Movement wanted a separate region with all its shortcomings.

It is significant, for the sake of the record, to mention that the latter group of leaders opposed the BNM because they wanted to remain under the yoke of the Ashanti Kingdom in perpetuity. Contrary to this myth, in 1939, that is, twenty years before the creation of the Brong/Ahafo region, this group had proposed the creation of a separate Bonoland region. Their opposition to the BNM stemmed from the fact that their proposal which was supported by Professor K.A. Busia who was working in the colonial bureaucracy at the time, would have resulted in a region with much more powers than the one proposed by the leaders of the BNM.

Thus, the group opposed the BNM because Nkrumah, in his political element, was playing off the two key Akan groups against each other. Specifically, this latter group of leaders saw through the machinations of Nkrumah and concluded that in trying to please both Asanteman and Western Ashanti, this so-called separate region was a sham as opposed to an arrangement that would bring about a total break in the Ashanti "imperial" yoke.

This is the historical root of the political bifurcation we are witnessing in the region today as the maternal nephews and grandchildren of this first generation of post-colonial traditional leaders are in the ascendancy in their chiefdoms; every traditional ruler in the region today is aligned to either the New Patriotic Party (NPP), a descendant of the NLM or the National Democratic Congress (NDC), an opportunist claimant to the Nkrumahist tradition.

But there is a clear generational gap between the first and subsequent generations of traditional leaders in the Brong/Ahafo region with regards to the pursuit of substantive issues of leadership. As I have outlined above, even though leaders in the Bono Nkyempem Movement and those opposed to them could not agree on the nature of the region they wanted to bequeath to the next generation of Bonos and Ahafos, they all saw the need for a separate region and its preservation as a prerequisite for the advancement of their people’s political and economic interests.

Moreover, while the first generation of post-independence traditional leaders' attachment to national political parties was inseparable from their pursuit of broader regional agendas, today's traditional leaders have become too individualistic and even narcissistic in their thinking and behaviours with regards to similar broader regional issues. Today, our leaders prefer to cruise around in Land Cruisers and other saloon cars donated to them personally by their national political masters instead of coalescing around crucial issues that affect the very survival of our region.

A classic example of the individualism and narcissism that have come to characterise the attitudes and behaviours of the region's traditional leaders is the very preservation of the geographical entity called Brong/ Ahafo region. No well meaning native of the region will doubt the fact that there is no greater cause to pursue in the region in the 21st Century than the issue of land and its settlement in the region by natives of adjoining regions, especially, those from the three Northern regions.

I speak specifically of the pace of the encroachment on the region's lands by groups who are neither Bono nor Ahafo and the lack of interest and foresight by our traditional leaders to preserve our lands for future generations of Bonos and Ahafos.

What is even sadder, in most cases, individuals and families in the region are busy in either leasing land on a long term basis or selling them outright to non indigenes with the acquiescence of our chiefs who couldn't care less as long as these settlers are members of their political parties.

Thus politics has become so primary in our region that our leaders have either deliberately ignored this crucial land question or are simply not able to see the long term demographic and social consequences of this infiltration of the region by outsiders.

In other words, as a region, Brong/Ahafo has become a victim of not only politics but also geography and ecology. There is no doubt that a combination of the increasing spread of the Sahara desert, geographical proximity and higher birth rates of our neighbours to the north are fuelling this southward movement. But it is also a truism that this situation is having adverse long-term social and political consequences for the region.

True sons and daughters of the region are being increasingly dispossessed of their source of livelihood by outsiders and rapacious local leaders, a situation which is likely to escalate naturally in view of the higher birth rates of the settler populations vis a vis the natives. Besides the fact of land occupation and dispossession, these settlers who have superior human capital by virtue of their access to free education in their home regions for many generations.

The net result of these processes is that the settlers in Brong/Ahafo are displacing the few Bonos and Ahafos in the regional and district bureaucracies with the support of the central government, especially since the NDC assumed office in 2009. In fact, many Bonos and Ahafos in several such regional and district structures were transferred to other places and replaced by these “foreigners”.

Damn anyone who reads into this piece an attempt to whip up ethnic emotions in the region. The fact of the matter is that whether we like it or not our country today is polarized along ethnic lines due to the ethnic card the ruling NDC has always played as a strategy to stay in power. I want those who see this as ethnic politics to first condemn John Dramani for urging Northerners to vote for him because he was one of their own.

It is significant to note that John Mahama’s ethnic agenda is not a mere rhetoric. He has, since his questionable ascent to the highest office gone ahead to operationalize it with some crucial Cabinet appointments. In a clear violation of the regional balance mandated by the Constitution, he has appointed mainly Northerners to key Cabinet positions. The pertinent questions our leaders in Brong/Ahafo must ask is: Where are the Bonos and Ahafos in this government? How many Bonos and Ahafos were in the Kufuor administration, especially, the key Cabinet positions? Why are the so-called Bono and Ahafo gurus in the NDC quiet about this marginalisation of the region in the present dispensation?

Does it surprise anyone that the Asiedu Nketias, Collins Daudas and Owusu Acheampongs are quiet about this ongoing ethnic cleansing in our region? The fact of the matter is that neither of these NDC gurus is Bono nor Ahafo; they are all descendants of settlers from outside our beloved region. Asiedu Nketia who speaks Seikwa is a descendant of the Khoulanga, an ethnic setter group from La Cote d’Ivoire, while Collins Dauda and J.H. Owusu Acheampong are descendants of Burkinabes and Grushies of Burkina Faso and the North respectively.

It is within this context of settler mentality that Asiedu Nketia’s statement in Wa during the recent campaign that Northerners must vote for John Mahamah because he is their blood must be understood. Such so-called B/A gurus in the ruling party couldn’t care less about the interests of true Bonos and Ahafos in the region. It is therefore time for the true sons and daughters of the region to have a date with history and destiny and call their leaders to account for the sake of survival because we do not have to be rocket scientists to know that in the present political and ethnic chess game, we are clearly an endangered species! Long Live Bonos and Ahafos! Long Live!

Kwabena Diawuo Sarpong

A true son of the B/A soil