The unending struggle – The Ashanti destiny

Through this open letter to the President and President Elect of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo, from Ashanti People in the Diaspora, I wish to remind my readers of the world renowned Nigerian female writer Mrs. Obianuju Ekeocha and her Book Target Africa.

In a foreword written by Robert George he wrote the following:

“This book reveals the Western influence over Africa that is rarely talked

about.

Drawing from a broad array of well sourced materials and documents, it tells

the story of foreign aid with strings attached, the story of Africa targeted and recognized by wealthy, powerful donors.” Ghana openly rejects foreign aid but the EU tries through the backdoor to Through this open letter to the President and President Elect of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo, from Ashanti People in the Diaspora, I wish to remind my readers of the world renowned Nigerian female writer Mrs. Obianuju Ekeocha and her Book Target Africa. In a foreword written by Robert George he wrote the following: “This book reveals the Western influence over Africa that is rarely talked about. Drawing from a broad array of well sourced materials and documents, it tells the story of foreign aid with strings attached, the story of Africa targeted and recognized by wealthy, powerful donors.” Ghana openly rejects foreign aid but the EU tries through the backdoor to let foreign aid continue. As I write, the EU is planning to hijack any attempt to form a combined African Defense Force, by by dealing with AU in Addis Ababa. With the help of Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Ethiopia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Angola, Ghana – we can have a 2 million strong army. Here we are apparently reluctant to defend ourselves.

The Author writes further: “Thus many African nations are put back into the protectorate positions of dependency as new cultural standards conceived in the West are made into core policies in African capitals.” Examples are the French-German axis in Mali, the French in Ivory Coast, Guinea and Togo. What a shame? This dependency is due to pure African leaders' incompetence.

Dear Mr. President, the people of Ashanti have collectively made you President-Elect of the Republic of Ghana. There are those who doubt your ability to lead our Nation and contribute efficiently to the African Union. To prove your capabilities, please provide us in writing your published coherent policy (not manifesto) on the following topics:

1. Education, including the actual content of that education policy

2. Health coherent policy

3. Job -creation policy

4. Policy on African total independence

5. Policy on Racism

6. Policy on defence

7. Policy on the Environment

8. Policy on inter-ethnic relations

9. Policy on religion

10.Policy on African Integration

11.Policy on Economy

12.Policy on the informal sector.

We demand these coherent concrete policies to be openly published – not a State of the Nation address – on GhanaWeb within two weeks. Failure to publish these policies to the People of Ghana will justify our desire for the people of Ashanti to want to govern ourselves. Please note, 80% of the Ghanaian public are not appropriately informed about government policies. Admittedly it is about this information that we can all effectively make up our mind about where you are taking us to. I appeal to the Ashanti Diaspora, everywhere they may be, to demand to be informed about the government policies, not manifestos. The Ghanaian Electorate are mainly influenced by bribery and corruption to chose our leaders. That is why we want the chosen on to tell us what he is capable of doing for us. Questions about Justice Delayed. There are questions about justice delayed in Ghana.

1) When is ex-President Mahama going to be indicted for the alleged bribery and corruption with regard to the Airbus affair?

2) Does the government agree with Mr. Amidu that the Flagbearership exempted

Mr. Mahama from interrogation? If not, why has the government up to now

not taken any action against Mr. Amidu?

3) When is Mr. Amidu going to be indicted for suspected obstruction of justice?

4) The President has been openly accused of bribery and corruption. Many

people like myself consider this to be false accusations. If you agree with us, why have you not taken any legal actions against these Northerners ?

The claim to have videotaped an illegal transaction. It should be in your

interest and the interest of the nation to have asked these your accusers to

provide evidence to their (false) claims. You have not done that. Why?

5) When is the murderer of the Ashanti chief, the former driver of Asantehene going to stand trial ?

6) When are those who planned kidnappings and to cause mayhem in Ghana

going to be tried and judgement declared?

7) When are the murderers of the three Takoradi girls going to be judged and

sentenced ?

Bribery and Corruption

Bribery and Corruption is admittedly rampant in Ghana.

What supports and nurtures bribery and corruption is our party system.

Since we cannot stop the corrupt party system in Ghana, we should act to discourage this cancerous entities that sustain this system. Our newly formed NGO, an African Extra-Parliamentary NGO, shall seek to extinguish this evil. There are mathematical and practical solutions to this question. Since now exists a hung parliament (no. It is no more a hung parliament. NPP+1 independent were declared majority) with the danger of coalition of party members who will increase bribery and corruption to unexpected higher degrees. Our aim as the African Extra-parliamentary Opposition is to fight corruption in conjunction with IMANI.

There Must Be a Stop to Borrowing.

There must be a stop to borrowing. The government must live according to their means. No more borrowing for projects. Everywhere you look various African governments are having problems with their economies. We are told that Zambia has been declared bankrupt and they are unable to pay their debts to China. South Africa is equally in deep economic crisis, complicated by COVID-19 problems. Tanzania is doing well, because of an efficient leadership. Angola is broke and Nigeria is not much better. What we think these African countries should do, is to have foreign economic advisers forming economic committees with the sole purpose of having sound coherent economic policies. My country Ghana finds itself in the same soup. If these countries realise that their people are the source of wealth they will attempt to invest in their people. If you find a country like Ghana with only 1,6 % of the population paying taxes, then we are in big trouble. The solution is to create self-sustaining jobs and such jobs can only be created, if drastic reforms are being made. In projects like road infrastructure construction it is uneconomical to give a huge contract to a company for road construction costing over 584 million Dollars, when Ghana definitely does not have that money. The upshot is that since Ghana has signed such a contract with a company it has somehow got to find that money to pay the company accordingly. This is a typical example of what I mean by poor economic practice or short poor governance. What Ghana should have done is either to defer the construction for that road until Ghana has the funds for it or create a public works department, employ two million low paid workers from Ghana and get materials for construction from Dangote company in Nigeria. Supervisors from road construction could be provided from contracted retired German civil engineers. I had written this twenty years ago, even to President Kufuor, and it is still not done. Why ? Because the it will minimize the ability for politicians to get kickbacks.

Dear Mr. President, the people of Ashanti solidly stood behind you in the crucial time of your life and supported you to victory. We congratulate you for this achievement. However, we hope as a sign of gratefulness or at least acknowledgement, that you will consider our wishes.

These are our requests:

We have witnessed over the years the erosion of our presence in our own Capital city of Kumasi. Those people who openly attempted to disgrace you by falsely accusing you of taking bribes, I mean the Northerners in our Country, have kept their regions intact and invade our only Capital City of Ashanti, Kumasi. Our People, sisters, wives and children are at risk of being hurt or raped in Kumasi in the night times. It is an open secret that an Ashanti Chief was a victim of highway murder. The suspect happens to be a Northerner and is still alive and enjoying life and the expense of the taxpayer in jail.

This is not the only incident, for robbery, drug trafficking is rampant on the streets of Allahbar in Kumasi. This time, Mr. President, the Ashantis in Kumasi have been invaded by the Northerners with the approval of their party, NDC. They are many in the Ashanti capital and thereby suppressing the NPP votes in Ashanti to the advantage of NDC. The only solution therefore, Mr. President, is the reform of our present Constitution which makes this imbalance in our electoral landscape a possibility.

We demand devolution now. You were an object of attack. These people conspired to openly disgrace you. We need a new constitution which will make Ashantis live and vote for progress in their own Region. We do not want this strange religion, we want to govern ourselves. We are thus not asking for an impossibility. Why should a resident Northerner vote in Ashanti and not in the North where they come from ? You Mr. President voted at Kyebi, where you come from and and not in Accra, where you live. Is this not a paradox ? This must be corrected.

We are demanding the following ten (10) Ministerial positions from you for Ashantis. Some Candidates we recommend are:

1. Mr. Kwame Addo Kufuor, a brilliant and Cambridge-trained doctor

2. Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the renowned cardio-thoracic surgeon

3. Mr. Alan Kyeremanten, the Minister of Trade, for Vice-President

4. Mr. Kwasi-Prempeh, a brilliant lawyer, as Minister of Justice,

5. Dr. Edward Kwame Poku, myself, as Minister for African and Diasporan Affairs or as an Adviser.

Further Posts for Ashantis we are demanding:

6. a Minister of Science and Technology, especially Physics, Chemistry, Genetics.

7. a Minister of the Informal Sector (i.e. market women), also a new Ministry which should be financed by donations of Ghanaian

Diaspora through our contributions (e.g. 10 Dollars a month for 12 months).

The market women deserve to be considered for loans and restructuring for

economic survival. (I am thinking of cooperatives with mobile markets !)

8. Sir David Adjei, another brilliant Ashanti Architect, for the Ministry of Infrastructure and Highways. Please, while we respect our traditional Chiefs we do not anticipate Chiefs’ participation in the governance of our country.

Foreign Affairs. Please stop French and Arabic language teaching in our schools in Ghana. Those who have previously enslaved us deserve being mentioned in our history lessons in our schools as who they are. We request our past history, e.g. the slave trade facilitated by Arabs, Europeans and Americans to be taught in our schools.

Each and every country that has relations with us has to have outlawed racism, which means that it has to have laws specifically about racism. European countries, the USA and Arabian countries have found a way around this issue and only pretend to deal with it. They have to prove that racism itself is a crime in their jurisdiction and that they fight this crime against humanity in each and every form it appears. Also, this has to be made a fundamental Pan-African position. We demand as a matter of urgency a military alliance of West-African states to combat the Arab aggression against our people - presently in the Sahel-zone and at the moment in Mozambique. We need rapid reaction forces. Please, please, please, this is urgent! Please act immediately! We demand full participation of the private sector in all our endeavours and limited government-participation. Strict rules for public-private-partnerships. Contracts for party supporters should be considered illegal with immediate effect. This is the source of corruption in our country. This is poor governance. The gains from our investments abroad, could be utilised for our infrastructure at home. Borrowing cannot for ever be the solution to our problems.

We want our own Ashanti

1. Cocoa Marketing Board

2. Gold Marketing Board

3. Bauxite Marketing Board

4. Timber Marketing Board

5. Manganese Marketing Board, all in Kumasi. The boards of these companies should be placed in Kumasi and should be managed by Ashantis. When the Northerners are gone, Kumasi shall once again become The Garden City of

West Africa. We want to control the resources of products found and produced in

Ashanti. We shall no more be deprived of our resources. Our Gold shall not be sold in

Jersey. This is pure and simple theft. Never is anyone going to steal Ashanti's wealth.

Examples of misuse of our financial resources

1. Free tickets for pilgrimage for Muslims visiting their religious sites in Saudi

Arabia. Why should the Ghanaian taxpayer pay for this?

2. Mahama sent 200 Muslims to Cuba to train as doctors with the hope that on

their return they will treat the “untouchable” Muslim women in Ghana. This is an insult against doctors in Ghana and pure and simple discrimination against Christians, which is on top of all paid by taxpayers. A Present to the People of Ashanti Regional News on GhanaWeb on 12th January reported that President Akufo-Addo fulfils his promise to the Anglican Church in Kumasi by donating an Eicher-branded bus to the St. Cyprian’s Church/Cathedral in Kumasi. He furthermore expressed gratitude to the electorate in the Ashanti Region for their massive support resulting in his victory in the December 7th 2020 General Election. Dear Mr. President, we Ashanti People do not want gifts or presents from you. What we need is our freedom and the rights to make decisions on our own.

We want to determine our future ourselves. We do not want gifts, Sir! The People of Ashanti want to continue what Barfuor Nana Osei Akoto of The Blessed Memory fought for, and that is, the right to govern ourselves. Ghana needs devolution like in the UK, where Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland rules itself. No more centralized dictatorship! I remember when the former President Kuffour asked for an office in Accra, the Ga youth prevented him from having a building as an office. He was forced out because he happened to be an Ashanti. A non-Ga citizen should not occupy Ga lands, they said.

You all looked on and did nothing against this unjust behaviour. Mrs. Konadu

Agyeman Rawlings was not permitted in Cape-Coast to enter the town hall because she was an Ashanti. We, the Ashantis, say enough is enough. The fight for devolution has started. We shall persevere. We prefer peaceful means to achieve our goals but the time is now. We do not create wealth only for it to be taken away by the Northerners, who abuse and disgrace you openly. Abuse of Power Mr. President, ex-President Mahama, Pepeni, is alleged to have used the Presidential Jet as a Taxi. He abused his powers and remained President. He took Abedi-Pele as a guest in the Presidential jet and flew to Libya to visit Ghaddafi. From Libya he flew to Burkina Faso, to visit the then President. If that is not an “abuse of power”, then I do not know what that is. This same person is alleged to have taken five million GBP kickbacks for touring military plane from Airbus. This is an allegation. It has not been investigated because he is flagbearer of a party that Mrs. Rawlings and I helped to restructure.

We Ashantis say enough is enough ! With our money the Northerners’ Party NDC are cleverly using the excuse of democracy to develop their regions . We shall no more tolerate this injustice any-more. Airport in Tamale, technical college in Bolgatanga, medical school in Tamale. Their plans are to use the Ashanti and Western Region resources to develop their Regions. We say enough is enough. We demand DEVOLUTION and not buses. We do not want anybody's help! President Akufo-Addo we demand justice. We want to take our fate in our own hands. The Northerners must create their own wealth. We do not want what you describe as a “fair share of development”. We want to make our own decision about our future like it is in Wales and Scotland in the U.K.

Migration to the South must not be abandoned but be regulated.

“Fair share of of development” must come from equal work.

My Grandfather was ASEMHENE where today Jubilee Park is in Kumasi. The People of Asem are reclaiming our land where today the Northerners have used as their Zongos. The Norterners have taken over people's land from Asem/Fanti-Newtown up to Manhyia Palace. They settle where they want. This must be reversed. The People of Ashanti reject Zongos. We want integration and not segregation. If they want Zongos, they can have them – but not on Ashanti lands. Mr President, are we going to use the taxpayers' resources to pay for the utility bills of our Northern brothers ? Why should we treat the Northerners differently from other ethnicities in Ghana ? You, Mr. President, have erroneously but not intentionally talked of Zongos without considering that these people settle on other people’s land to form their Zongos. The land they settle on is not theirs. This is illegal and wrong. The people from the North of Ghana should stay in the North where they were born, and work and

generate liquidity for their future. Zongos settlement should not be at the expense of other people’s land and resources ! This is primitive party politics and it has to stop. Since 63 years Ghana is practically at a standstill because of our indulgence on primitive party system and the danger that poses for our future because we are not prepared to change. Over-centralization is a curse and must be abandoned. Every decision that has been made in Ghana is based on party affiliation and party politics. There is no living principle of a common national interest. That must stop. The radio stations which are encouraging hatred should be regulated. Our whole governance system must change for the better. People are being abducted, killed, insulted, blackmailed – for how long should that go on? We have defamation, abuses, cheap money bribery and corruption in the Parliament. Imagine a Member of Parliament, a woman, sitting on the lap of a strange man.

The behaviour extremely unbecoming of a parliamentarian. The attire they wear in our Parliament is horrible, primitive, the language is strange and filthy and yet parliamentarians earn more than our doctors. Why should that be even possible? Mr. President, we want Devolution and Devolution is the devolving of power by the central government to local or regional administration.

We want a prime minister in charge of all ministries we have in the central

government except defence. This government shall be responsible for Ashanti affairs. Ashanti is a nation state in the Commonwealth of Ghana. Ashanti and Ahafo is one entity. This is our wish. Please respect it. Disastrous Economic Situation All African (Black) Nations despite abundance of possibilities are always in debt. The reason is poor governance. Hardly do they cut their coat according to their size.

People like Mahama knew nothing but projects. The governments of Africa are totally incompetent. Nigeria builds magnificent edifices, huge modern cities like Abuja and Lagos, but do not realize that you build with your gains from investments and not from borrowing. They do that because projects will bring them the required kickbacks. Another source of disasters are the contracts for their party supporters. The more you can shout the more contracts you get. Soon the governments are broke and have to resort to borrowing. Ghana is not an exception. Poor governance, poor economy and we are always broke. When we are broke, we resort to illegal means to acquire wealth by selling Ashantis' Gold in Jersey.

The effect of Galamsey is unimaginable. The government looks on.

Today, with the use of weaponised drones, we can deal with these people from

above. What has happened to Ghana with Galamsey is a true tragedy and

incompetence. The whole country has been destroyed by Chinese invaders.

I had a lengthy discussion with the late President Rawlings about the damage the Chinese people are doing to our country. As a result, I bought a book, entitled “The Way the Chinese People Think”, for Rawlings and Akufo-Addo. The late President Rawlings immediately called me to thank me for the book, up to now not a single word from President Akufo-Addo. The lack of empathy manifested by President

Akufo-Addo is unbelievable. Three girls from Takoradi have been murdered by

Nigerians, an Ashanti Chief has been murdered, people are being killed on a daily basis, and not one word of sympathy or punishment for the culprits from the President of Ghana. Is this what we are going to experience the next four years ? If that is the case, then God Bless Ghana.

Mr Kenneth Thompson writes about “Ghana faces economic challenges in 2021.”

Mr. Thomson writes that the Ghanaian economy was in recession after two

consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product growth adding that the standard prescription for a recovery from recession was an economic stimulus package and yet Ghana is broke. The cause of our misery is the system of governance. This is built purely on party politics and projects. Mr. Thompson asserts that “the only way the country could start to fund a half-way decent stimulus package in 2021 was either to borrow about 5 billion Dollars on the international capital markets or the country must reign in expenditure and increase tax revenue.”

How many people pay tax in Ghana?

How to Reduce Expenditure

1. The government has to reform.

1. We need Regional Governments, as previously mentioned.

2. No-more provision of accommodation for doctors, civil servants

university students, nurses, judges, police men, parliamentarians etc

No developed country provides accommodation for parliamentarians. Why do we still do that? Because of the unitary government system. In Germany policemen live at home and from there they go on duty. In Ghana it is the other way around. We cannot afford it but we do it

because we've always done it so!