The Politics of Ethnicity

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MUGU YARO 12 years ago

You stated that "Under the Mills administration the five regions cheated were Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Eastern, and Western. Ashanti received 6.9% of appointments despite having 19.5% of the population. Brong Ahafo, wit ...
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You stated that "Under the Mills administration the five regions cheated were Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Eastern, and Western. Ashanti received 6.9% of appointments despite having 19.5% of the population. Brong Ahafo, with 9.4% of the population, had 5.6% of ministerial appointments."
Can you tell us how you arrived at those figures? Many of us believe that Under the Mills' administration B/A was not only cheated but also punished. The only person from the region with a ministerial appointment was Collins Dauda. Many people claim that Dauda got his appointment because he is from the north. No true Brong or Ahafo got any ministerial position in Mills government. The policy continues under Mahama's government.
Che 12 years ago

Whoever did this work needs to go back to school. If it was done by a research center, that center should be closed down immediately. You work is woefully inadequate and I will give a grade of F. Your motive is not genuine. Y ...
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Whoever did this work needs to go back to school. If it was done by a research center, that center should be closed down immediately. You work is woefully inadequate and I will give a grade of F. Your motive is not genuine. You are not in to do a scientific analysis but to used isolated fact to misinform. SHAME ON YOU.
Theo 12 years ago

Infact Ghanaweb is a refuse dump meant for shit like this. A research indeed!

Infact Ghanaweb is a refuse dump meant for shit like this. A research indeed!
Plumber 12 years ago

The premises on which this study was done is wrong. I don't know who approved or supervised this kind of skewed study. First of all Ghana is not running a unity Govt, so if a region like Volta Region with 10% of the populatio ...
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The premises on which this study was done is wrong. I don't know who approved or supervised this kind of skewed study. First of all Ghana is not running a unity Govt, so if a region like Volta Region with 10% of the population votes en block for NDC, and there is no NPP Mp from Volta region, the constitution says 60% of all Ministers must come from Parliament, how would any Govt be able to give the Volta region who did not vote for it a proportional represntation of minsters? The argument is the same for an NDC govt in a predominanlty NPP region. Only this time there is no such region, where NPP enjoys absolute dominance in Ghana, because of the settler phenomenon. Not to forget of the over-riding issue of competence versus mediocrity. Next time situate your study on a strong premise or theory.
Mensah 12 years ago

If these people reported the reverse with Volta Region getting fewer appointments than their percentage population you will be posting trash here in response.

If these people reported the reverse with Volta Region getting fewer appointments than their percentage population you will be posting trash here in response.
AMINA 12 years ago

What do you mean by competence over mediocrity? Atta Mills government was the most incompetent we've ever had in history, is it because the region he chose most were not competent?there is a saying that kwatrikwa s3 obema wo ...
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What do you mean by competence over mediocrity? Atta Mills government was the most incompetent we've ever had in history, is it because the region he chose most were not competent?there is a saying that kwatrikwa s3 obema wo ntama a ey3 a tie ne din.Over to you.
william 12 years ago

Extremely deceptive write-up! Lacking in data and analysis!

Extremely deceptive write-up! Lacking in data and analysis!
Agyeman 12 years ago

Akans vs non Akans,Gas vs Ewes,Mamprusis vs Dagombas,Chinese immigrants vs natives,northern Ghana vs southern Ghana....eish,Ghana i tell you is a very divided country.Yet here i was believing the int'l media that Kenya was t ...
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Akans vs non Akans,Gas vs Ewes,Mamprusis vs Dagombas,Chinese immigrants vs natives,northern Ghana vs southern Ghana....eish,Ghana i tell you is a very divided country.Yet here i was believing the int'l media that Kenya was the worst tribalist country in africa due to its much publicised kikuyu tribal hegemony.We're worse bcoz we in Ghana give a false sense of nationhood just held together by cold peace yet underneath it all the tribal embers are burning fiercely.We're not any special and the kikuyu vs Luo,Hutu vs Tutsi,Shona vs Ndebele conflagration that has burned other africans can happen here.Lets not kid ourselves.
CHARITY 12 years ago

GHANA IS SUFFERING BECAUSE OF THE INFERIORITY COMPLEX OF SOME OF THE ETHNIC GROUPS IN GHANA. THOSE WHO SUFFER FROM INFERIORITY COMPLEX ALWAYS ACCUSE OTHERS OF SUPERIORITY COMPLEX. ALL THE ETHNIC GROUPS IN GHANA MUST BE PROUD ...
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GHANA IS SUFFERING BECAUSE OF THE INFERIORITY COMPLEX OF SOME OF THE ETHNIC GROUPS IN GHANA. THOSE WHO SUFFER FROM INFERIORITY COMPLEX ALWAYS ACCUSE OTHERS OF SUPERIORITY COMPLEX. ALL THE ETHNIC GROUPS IN GHANA MUST BE PROUD OF THEIR ETHNIC IDENTITY AND HISTORY. WE ARE ALL ONE PEOPLE BECAUSE WE ARE ALL CHILDREN OF MOTHER GHANA. TODAY IN GHANA SOME PEOPLE HIDE THEIR ETHNIC IDENTITY AN TAKE NAMES FROM OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS OR EUROPEAN OR AMERICAN NAMES. ALL THE ETHNIC GROUPS IN GHANA ARE BEAUTIFUL AND WE MUST NEVER FORGET THAT WE ARE ALL CHILDREN OF MOTHER GHANA. MOTHER GHANA IS PROUD OF ALL HER CHILDREN.
AKASI MARTHA NZEMA 12 years ago

CHARITY YOU RIGHT EVEN EX PRESIDENT KUFOUR, THE SAHWI MAN MUST BE PROUD OF HIS ETHNIC IDENTITY FOR THE HISTORY SAKE.

CHARITY YOU RIGHT EVEN EX PRESIDENT KUFOUR, THE SAHWI MAN MUST BE PROUD OF HIS ETHNIC IDENTITY FOR THE HISTORY SAKE.

Kofi 12 years ago

It's not just NPP-NDC. I remember a students' group from the North, appealing to Mills to appoint a VC from the North for University of Devt Studies. They forgot that people from the North are given positions in schools in th ...
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It's not just NPP-NDC. I remember a students' group from the North, appealing to Mills to appoint a VC from the North for University of Devt Studies. They forgot that people from the North are given positions in schools in the south. That is part of the politics of ethnicity.
C.Y. ANDY-K 12 years ago

I think this study reflects a politics of regionalism more than ethnicity. There are so many ethnic groups comprising each region of Ghana. It would have been better for you to use the ethnic origins of the appointees in orde ...
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I think this study reflects a politics of regionalism more than ethnicity. There are so many ethnic groups comprising each region of Ghana. It would have been better for you to use the ethnic origins of the appointees in order to prove or disprove a case of ethnic politics in appointments.

The fact that G/A or Ash/R have a high pop. doesn't mean all the people are Gas or Asantes! And all the appointees from say the VR are not necessarily Ewes; they might as well be Akans, Guans or from any of the many ethnic/tribal groups in the VR, which indeed was the case.

I don't think your study has proved what it claims. If it were done properly, using the proper variable, it'd have shown an overbearing (statistically significant) appointment of Akans by both Kufuor and Mills in their regimes.

Andy-K
MINOR CASE 12 years ago

I bet 90 percent of Mills appointees from the Volta Region were EWes. Trying hard to defend the indefensible. Your propaganda machine keeps telling Ghanaians that Kufuor Asantesized Ghana to the exclusion of other tribes. No ...
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I bet 90 percent of Mills appointees from the Volta Region were EWes. Trying hard to defend the indefensible. Your propaganda machine keeps telling Ghanaians that Kufuor Asantesized Ghana to the exclusion of other tribes. Now the truth is out and you don't like it.
MR ODI ASEMPA 12 years ago

WHAT A BOGUS RESEARCH,EVEN YOUR TITLE IS WRONG.IF IT IS A CASE OF ETHNICITY THEN KUFFOUR WOULD HAVE APPOINTED MORE ASHANTIS...LIKEWISE MILLS,MORE FANTIS.CHECK TONY BLAIRS GOV MINISTERS AND SEE HOW MANY WERE SCOTS.SCOTLAND HAS ...
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WHAT A BOGUS RESEARCH,EVEN YOUR TITLE IS WRONG.IF IT IS A CASE OF ETHNICITY THEN KUFFOUR WOULD HAVE APPOINTED MORE ASHANTIS...LIKEWISE MILLS,MORE FANTIS.CHECK TONY BLAIRS GOV MINISTERS AND SEE HOW MANY WERE SCOTS.SCOTLAND HAS A POPULATION OF 5MILLION OUT 62MILLION.DO YOUR RESEARCH PROPERLY IF YOU WANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
C.Y. ANDY-K 12 years ago

It is a good thing that bets are not scientific despite the calculation of odds. So your bet on Ewes being 90% of appointees from the VR is just that, a gamble! If these people had done their research properly, there would ha ...
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It is a good thing that bets are not scientific despite the calculation of odds. So your bet on Ewes being 90% of appointees from the VR is just that, a gamble! If these people had done their research properly, there would have been no need for you to be taking bets on a thing like that! As it were, we have often been regaled with even Akans and Ga-Adangbes as Ewes! Adu Boahene famously mentioned Prof. Akilagpa Sawyerr as one such "Ewe" who was given the VC post in Legon instead of him in his famous British Council lecture that IMANI bloke mentioned recently. Ah! The Ewes, they are so ubiquitous and every where you look!

As for me, I rely on empirical data and proper scientific methodology. I am thus aware of proper researches which tackled the issue of ethnicity in Ghana's politics which found out that Ewes were not over-represented in the public sphere even under Rawlings.

Over the years, I had made references to some of those literature. By the mid-1970s, the ONLY ethnic group found to be statistically significantly over-represented in the state sector were the Gas. But this is to be understood in historical terms dating back to colonial era advantages rather than in crass tribalistic terms of Gas conspiring to fill the those jobs with their own people. In like manner, the same argument can be made for the emergence of Ewes in the public sphere, dating back to colonial era period when they were preferred employees for the commercial houses and the colonialists. There is even a small obnoxious guide to prospective British investors written in the 1930s specifying who do employ for such and such jobs and their xtics. It wasn't nice reading, with those stereotypical images whites have about us, much of which we see reflected in things people say about each other here.

Anyway, I am not the one doing the research, so I won't bother to write a lot on this crappy one.

Andy-K
Zoobie-Zoobie 12 years ago

Thanks for your insights. can you point me to the 1930 article you mentioned?

Thanks for your insights. can you point me to the 1930 article you mentioned?
C.Y. ANDY-K 12 years ago

I wish I could. It was a small pamphlet, not an article. I think the British Library at St Pancras or so here in the UK would have it. I found it in our school library way back in the 1970s, one of the best in the whole of Gh ...
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I wish I could. It was a small pamphlet, not an article. I think the British Library at St Pancras or so here in the UK would have it. I found it in our school library way back in the 1970s, one of the best in the whole of Ghana, thanks to a Peace Corp, Mr Gmuir. I tried to read as many as possible of the books in the library unlike my fellow classmates who had fun taking others to the library and betting them to pick a book and Andy-K would have subscribed to it!

Andy-K
C.Y. ANDY-K 12 years ago

Upon second thought, here is one book you can easily get from a good library in these parts since you are interested in finding out yourself about these things. It is a scholarly comparative study of poverty in the Third Worl ...
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Upon second thought, here is one book you can easily get from a good library in these parts since you are interested in finding out yourself about these things. It is a scholarly comparative study of poverty in the Third World up to the mid 1970s. Ghana was one of the cases studied.

In it you'd find statistics and other references, including even a PhD dissertation, on the subject of ethnicity and which ethnic group dominates various sectors in Ghana too, to even Makola Market!

The Stats Services under the PNDC years made it difficult for researchers to get the raw data from their censuses, if they collected that at all, to do similar analysis and studies. I recollect Prof. Francis Dodoo's - one of the most qualified Africans in pop. studies in the '90s - annoyance when he got some of that data from a white academic colleague when he was denied. I went there to collect data myself in the 90s and I wasn't impressed at all. My Norwegian counterparts who went to Asia, e.g., the Philippines, came back with stats on even the number of fowls, goats, pigs, coconut trees, etc. in each district! We are indeed a backward nation! BTW, during the colonial when the grandfathers, etc. of some of us were helping the British to rule the country, such data was being collected and analysed! We have a joke in the family: when things started going badly in Ghana, the grown ups would say, "you see why why Torgbui said they should leave one white man for him?" That was after Gbedema took Nkrumah to Anloga to get Torgbui's support for the independence movt.

Here you are:

Elliott, C. (1975): Patterns of Poverty in the Third World: A Study of Social Economic Stratification. Praeger Publishers, NY.

Start with this. From that you can examine the few and newer scholarly literature and even make your own extrapolations.

Andy-K
Kofi Ata, Cambridge, UK 12 years ago

Andy, I agree with you that the research is more of regionalism than politics of ethnicity. In addition to the ethnic compositions of each region not being homogeneous, I do hope the research did not rely on the names of mini ...
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Andy, I agree with you that the research is more of regionalism than politics of ethnicity. In addition to the ethnic compositions of each region not being homogeneous, I do hope the research did not rely on the names of ministers and their deputies to determine their ethnicity.

For me, what is more important is not the ethnicity of ministers but more important, their performance and how the national cake is distributed among the regions and various ethnic groups.
Apatupr3 12 years ago

Do you know the actual ethnic make-up of populous regions like Ashanti and G/A regions? I see this is only a cover to generate an unnecessary debate about tribal politics in this country at this time,nothing more!
Look, anyb ...
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Do you know the actual ethnic make-up of populous regions like Ashanti and G/A regions? I see this is only a cover to generate an unnecessary debate about tribal politics in this country at this time,nothing more!
Look, anybody who is familiar with how the govt functions knows that there are certain infuential people who influence policy much more than a bunch of these 'yesmen' who hold nominal ministerial positions!

Mahomet 12 years ago

This is a study as the author claims. If you doubt the authenticity of the data say so; else it really illuminates.
It is technical and academic studies that can determine which of the 2 big parties is more ethnocentric, not ...
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This is a study as the author claims. If you doubt the authenticity of the data say so; else it really illuminates.
It is technical and academic studies that can determine which of the 2 big parties is more ethnocentric, not newspaper articles and call in radio shows.
MINOR CASE 12 years ago

Use your head .Are you saying it is possible that Asantes are minority in Ashanti region , and you call a ministerial appointment nominal ?

Use your head .Are you saying it is possible that Asantes are minority in Ashanti region , and you call a ministerial appointment nominal ?
MINOR CASE 12 years ago

Ethnic statistics of the current NDC will even be more skewed in favor of one Region than that of Uncle Atta. Check the list of 250 students sent to Cuba to study medicine .

Ethnic statistics of the current NDC will even be more skewed in favor of one Region than that of Uncle Atta. Check the list of 250 students sent to Cuba to study medicine .
Create, loot and share 12 years ago

Sure it will be skewed towards the Volta Region and they will justify it by saying that they were selected based on merit. These are crooks, having formed a cartel to ditch Ghanaians.

Sure it will be skewed towards the Volta Region and they will justify it by saying that they were selected based on merit. These are crooks, having formed a cartel to ditch Ghanaians.
Kontopiaat 12 years ago

Hogwash of a study, too simplistic and an exercise in futility which proves nothing. Which premise did you posit for this study, and what postulates, assumptions or hypothesis did you attempt to prove oer disprove? What instr ...
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Hogwash of a study, too simplistic and an exercise in futility which proves nothing. Which premise did you posit for this study, and what postulates, assumptions or hypothesis did you attempt to prove oer disprove? What instrumentality of data collection did you use? Did you establish internal and external validity? How about researching Mahamisation of the current administration which is pertinent and germane to this crucial discourse?
JENGBERA JENGBE 12 years ago

What is the real purpose of your effort?

What is the real purpose of your effort?
Real Jones 12 years ago

The writer's analysis are flawed from the start. The writer starts off by stating that they want to investigate ethnicity and immediately launch into comparing ministerial representation against population per region: these a ...
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The writer's analysis are flawed from the start. The writer starts off by stating that they want to investigate ethnicity and immediately launch into comparing ministerial representation against population per region: these are the flaws:
- Ministers who come from a particular region do not necessarily live in that region. A minister of Akan extraction may reside in Accra. Likewise, a minister from upper East region may reside in Ashanti region. So do you count the minister as part of the population of Ashanti region or upper east region?

- tribes are not homogenous per region. In fact, Ashanti and greater accra regions have a mixtures of tribes that it will be untrue to say voters in those regions are either Gas or Ashantis
- people don't necessarily vote in the region of their tribal origin so tribal representational may not necessarily be proportional to regional populations. Regional populations are simply the sum of the total residents of the region. This total comprises of citizens of many and varying tribal extraction.
The entire cabinet of Kuffour's cabinet at one time was of the Akan extraction regardless of the region they reside in for the purposes of a population census.
The writers needs a bit more education.
Honestman 12 years ago

Irrational study. Very useless

Irrational study. Very useless
OSEI 12 years ago

I am not sure of the COMPOSITION of your organisation but whatever it is, I believe you are far off the mark from your analysis!!!

When you talk about POLITICS OF ETHNICITY but dwell on GOVERNMENT appointees, I find that N ...
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I am not sure of the COMPOSITION of your organisation but whatever it is, I believe you are far off the mark from your analysis!!!

When you talk about POLITICS OF ETHNICITY but dwell on GOVERNMENT appointees, I find that NOT to be the real issue.

THE problem with this ETHNICITY lies rather in the 'TRIBAL' or 'REGIONAL' voting PATTERNS.

ASHANTIS, NORTHERNERS & VOLTARIANS VOTING FOR THEIR KIND!!! BELIEVE me, this stands out in everybody's mind rather than POLITICAL APPOINTMENTS.

Please do not UNDERESTIMATE the avalanche of ACCUSATIONS that -even- emanated from the NPP HIRACHY for being seen as an ASANTE/AKAN party - AND the VOTING PATTERN seemed to confirm this.

How many NPP candidates were elected in the VOLTA or NORTHERN regions?? WAS THIS NOT THE TOPIC OF FEVERISH DISCUSSION ALL OVER GHANA?

How then can you base your argument of the 'POLITICS OF ETHNICITY' ON APPOINTEES?

Probably my ignorance has not helped - BUT it has NEVER occurred to me what the ETHNIC ORIGINS of these appointees are AND besides, DO WE REALLY HAVE TO APPOINT MINISTERS TO REFLECT THE SIZE OF A TRIBE???

DO YOU HAVE A HIDDEN AGENDA?

FINALLY, I WAS MUCH MORE AWARE OF THE NPP BEING AN ASHANTI/AKAN BASED PARTY THAN THE ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF PREVIOUS & PRESENT GOVERNMENTS!!!!
Germano 12 years ago

I am hoping that the Government is aware of this research , and also 250 scholarships with only 6 Akans.

I am hoping that the Government is aware of this research , and also 250 scholarships with only 6 Akans.

Create, loot and share 12 years ago

Akans following evil NCc are digging graves for their own children. What a shame!

Akans following evil NCc are digging graves for their own children. What a shame!
Agyeman 12 years ago

Long live Akans.

Long live Akans.
TONY BENNEH 12 years ago

ON NO OCCASION SHOULD WE ALLOWED TWO REGIONS TO RULE US. TO BE PRESIDENT OF GHANA ONE SHOULD WIN AT LEAST 6 - 7 OF THE TEN REGIONS OF GHANA

ON NO OCCASION SHOULD WE ALLOWED TWO REGIONS TO RULE US. TO BE PRESIDENT OF GHANA ONE SHOULD WIN AT LEAST 6 - 7 OF THE TEN REGIONS OF GHANA

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The Politics of Ethnicity

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