George Bush Highway? Whose bright idea was that? I will be willing to bet that you cannot find anyone in the United States who will vote to name a chicken coop after George Bush. I am convinced that you can find people in even Houston who will like to change the name of their airport now. This is a guy who moved a whole army to another country looking for weapons of mass destruction that wasn't there and had thousands of people killed. How much louder can you say "Yesser Masser" than that, Uncle Tom? What's next; name a major landmark in Ghana after Dick Cheney?
Streets are named to honour statesmen and people who have a little more scruples than George Bush. Are we out of heroes in Ghana? Have we honoured Kwame Nkrumah enough? In just about every community you go to in the United States you can find many things and places named after George Washington. Have we honoured Kwame Nkrumah enough to name a highway after George Bush? Yaa Asantewa fought against the colonial masters when "men" wouldn't and paid dearly for it; have we honoured her enough?
If you go to Washington DC, you will find streets named after just about every state in America. If you go to New York City, you will find streets named after just about every city in New York State. Does Accra, the capital of our country, reflect our history enough that we have to name a very major street after George Bush? Whose bright idea was that?
We have African heroes. How many of them have we honoured? We have Kofi Annan. We have Nelson Mandela. We have Oliver Tambo, and if we have to go overseas, we have Martin Luther King. There are many whose work in Pan Africanism sowed the seed that eventually lead us to independence. Have we no heroes?
Is there anyone in Ghana who has the "testicular fortitude", (as one man put it) to demand a change in this? Shame, shame: we have too many in Ghana who are too eager to suck up. Unfortunately the only one that I have seen who believes that we have two feet to stand on is Kwame Nkrumah, may he rest in peace.
Tony Pobee-Mensah
