Commentary/Ghana
Traditional Healers, Taxation, and Progress
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
“Prof” Aridu Sabo Azeez, who says he specializes in eradicating witchcraft and traditional healing, told the Accra-based “The Statesman” (11/08/2007) that “he treats people who have been cursed by a disease or bad luck by witches and those who have acquired the powers of witchcraft themselves using it for deviancies or crime.” More remarkably, Azeez, 45, is quoted as saying “he has cured three million people.”
In money terms, that’s could be pretty much dough. But Azeez, part of the expanding informal economic sector, is hugely distorted and un-refined in Ghana’s development process. According to Ghanaian health researchers, there are over 45,000 traditional healers/workers like Azeez Ghana-wide against 51,910 formal healthcare delivery workers. While the 51,910 formal healthcare delivery workers pay taxes from source, there is no record of Azeez and his sector from the informal economy paying taxes from their income, a good number very lucrative, despite the fact that over 85% Ghanaians access their health care from the informal traditional medicine system.
Generally, part of the shortcomings of the Ghanaian informal economy is that, like Azeez and his group, they are not factored in suitably when serious national economic planning are being made and this sector of the economy, according to experts like Marilyn Carr and Martha Chen in “Globalization and the Informal Economy” (2001), is growing rapidly in the face of economy predicament, pursuance of capital-intensive growth, “high tech” growth, “economic restructuring,” and the increasing “globalization of the world economy.” The central argument is not that the average income in the formal is higher than the informal economy; the key thinking is how citizens like Azeez and his sector can be fit into the formal economy in the context of the informal sector as a whole “accounting for a significant share of employment and output.” Already, hints from the well-connected Accra-based “The Statesman,” quoting the World Bank, says the informal, private sector is “a disappointing clip.” But Ghanaian planners can do better. In broader developmental thinking, given its rapid growth and multiplicity, Ghanaian policy-makers, bureaucrats and consultants have to use Azeez as a unit of analysis to look critically into the increasing relevance of the informal sector for national development planning. This approach, too, will help them refine some of the inhibitions within the informal economy for the greater progress of Ghana.
It is from such thinking that a few months ago that Ghana’s Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development issued a directive to the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to tax traditional healers/exorcists/fetish priests/workers like Azeez in their respective areas. The directive reveals the emerging developmental thinking that not only real progress starts from within the traditional Ghanaian values but that the informal sector is yet to be accorded the right attention and detail in the overall progress of Ghana. Still, the Ministry’s directive also indicate how for almost 50 years Ghanaian policy planners and consultants are yet to tap decisively into the informal economic sector so as to make Azeez and his sector brought into the formal economy and contribute meaningfully to greater progress. Part of the reason why such omission has occurred is not only because colonialism suppressed the informal traditional values but those post-independent Ghanaian elites’ inabilities to think holistically in this area, especially areas like Azeez’s that are the real engine of growth of the Ghanaian economy. From the traditional small-scale economic practices to traditional medicinal/pharmaceuticals to agricultural, Ghanaian planners are yet to tap fully into these traditional economic values in order to open and unearthed them for progress.The Local Government instruction, remarkable policy thinking, also reveals Ghanaian policy-makers and bureaucrats emerging from years of slumbering as directors of progress - “The decision to tax the fetish priests stemmed from the ministry’s conviction that their professions were businesses.” The Ministry’s directives, once again, shows Ghanaian policy-makers and bureaucrats tinkling with their traditional cultural values under a cloud of heavy Western structured and functionally imbalanced system. An act of balances will open the informal values for progress and show the importance of cultural continuity in the development process and not any “returning to some pristine traditional cultural milieu,” as a critic wrongly asserted.
For almost 50 years, there have not been any credible attempts by Ghanaian policy-makers, bureaucrats and consultants to correct the developmental distortions that have come about because of colonialism’s suppression and demeaning of the informal economy, driven heavily by traditional Ghanaian values. The distortions have occurred as result of the de-linking of Ghanaian values, openly, from colonial and Western values instead of mixing them. One of the tricks Ghanaian policy planners can learn from the Japanese is how they were able to tie their traditional values with that of the Western ones and opened the floodgates for their impressive progress.Such situation has come about because Ghanaian policy-makers, bureaucrats and consultants either because of the formal education system that does not help open up the informal economic values or colonialism suppressing Ghanaian values for long time, Ghanaian policy-makers, bureaucrats and consultants have not being thinking holistically from within traditional Ghanaian values in their midwifing of Ghana’s progress. This has made most Ghanaians in the informal sector, like Azeez, unknown to them, not paying taxes for progress despite the fact that they undertake fruitful economic practices. This means, as the Local Government Ministry has demonstrated, national policies minted from the centre – that’s Accra – should be tailored down to the respective local areas, whether “varied or heterogeneous,” informed by the informal economic values of the local areas in order to move the development process in a holistic manner.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Essay/Ghana:Witches, Traditional Exorcists and Progress
Essay/Ghana
Witches, Traditional Exorcists and Progress
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Despite the apparent incursion of Judeo-Christian tradition into Ghanaians’ spiritual life since they came into contact with the Europeans some 500 years ago, broadly, some aspects of traditional Ghanaian cultural cosmology see God as battling major evil, personified in fearlessly diabolical figures. The diabolical figures can come in all sorts of imaginations, images and physical attributes. Broadly, most of these major evil figures are interpreted as either witches or wizards.
In most traditional Ghana settings, misfortune are interpreted, cosmologically, in this sense – witches or wizards battling good, innocent people to visit all kinds of troubles on them for varied reasons, some as weird as looking good or being intelligent. The witches/evil spirits are chronic to progress; a process where in the larger progress of Ghana, has implications in poverty alleviation and democratization. Witches, wizards or evil figures have been attributed so much power of destruction that they are even feared more than God in certain traditional spiritual circles, making it difficult over the years, for some Ghanaians, no matter their education level, to extricate themselves from such believes.
It is such culture of witchcraft/evil forces that has given booming work for “Prof” Aridu Sabo Azeez, a Ghanaian-Nigerian traditional exorcist, based at a remote village in Ghana’s Eastern Region. Talking to the Accra-based “The Statesman” (11/08/2007), Azeez, milking the lucrative witchcraft-exorcist business, claims he can contain “flying children killing people, a tree filled with human body parts and a pregnancy lasting for six years.” While in some aspects of traditional Ghanaian cosmology this is believable, such believes is increasingly clashing with the increasing rationalization of the world - Ghana included. I know a woman who could not give birth for some time. Some members of her Asante families thought it was the mechanizations of witches/evil spirits in her family. For some time, she and some members of her family roamed through traditional Ghana, visiting the likes of Azeez, not only to know whether witches/evil forces have blocked her womb but also get traditional healing to cure her infertility. She was tipped to access modern medicine including the use of ultra-sonic – she got pregnant.
The conundrum is how to separate the interpretation of witches/evil forces from the administer of the actual traditional medicine so as to give an enlightened sense of how the disease occurred. This monumental challenge has affected many a modern science attempts, as part of the on-going Ghanaian/African progress, to refine some of the inhibitions in traditional Ghanaian/African medicine darkened by the battle between witches/evil spirits and diseases. The riddle, as Azeez told The Statesman’s Lauren Taylor, is how to scientifically explain how people allegedly “cursed by a disease or bad luck by witches and those who have acquired the powers of witchcraft themselves using it for deviancies or crime” and how this implicates on diseases. In a country where traditional medicine practitioners outnumber modern doctors, and where most Ghanaians access traditional medicine more than orthodox medicine, for obvious reasons, Ghanaians are yet to see openly at what length the two can walk together in order not only to get a sense of the two, but also, if possible, to explain, reconcile and sharpen the two to co-exist more healthily – more especially refine the excessive sway of witchcraft and other evil spirits in the interpretation of diseases by the Azeezs.
For the idea, traditionally, of exorcists, like Azeez, with all their incomprehensibly fearful accoutrements battling “the rage of witches,” gives witches/evil spirits fatalistically immense powers to cause diseases and not many a Ghanaians’ sanitation and human agencies. The innocent, ignorant Ghanaian, and they are in majority, caught in the cross-current of witches/evil spirits, growing diseases, poor sanitation, and traditional exorcists, is under the heavy sway of some aspects of traditional Ghanaian cosmology that sees God battling major evil spirits, personified in fearlessly diabolical figures. This is against the backdrop of a Ghana riddled by witches and other evil spirits in the face of disturbing poverty and other “drawbacks,” as President Kufour says. Sometimes, to some degree, the traditional exorcist wrongly muddles God by telling the ignorant Ghanaian that his/her disease is a punishment from God – thus wrapping God, witches, wizards and other evil spirits together in the average Ghanaians’ burden of diseases and helplessness.
Pretty much of Ghana’s Judeo-Christian tradition, more so the “in-your-face, born-again” Spiritual Churches mode that have taking on a good dose of traditional Ghanaian cosmology with their preaching of witches and evil spirits responsible for this or that – is not helping matters either, a good number playing the traditional Ghanaian exorcist card by attributing diseases and other misfortunes to witches and other evil spirits. So from either traditional Ghanaian cosmology or the Judeo-Christian tradition, the hapless Ghanaian is under the barrage of evil spirits and witches that stroll the Ghanaian environment, like “Milton's defiant Lucifer,” causing diseases and misfortunes and “flying children killing people, a tree filled with human body parts and a pregnancy lasting for six years.” In such ambiance, human agencies and scientific thinking are thrown into the Gulf of Guinea, and when this happens, “Prof.” Aridu Sabo Azeez, the traditional master exorcist, battle the “rage of witches” to free Ghana from diseases and misfortunes.
Witches, Traditional Exorcists and Progress
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Despite the apparent incursion of Judeo-Christian tradition into Ghanaians’ spiritual life since they came into contact with the Europeans some 500 years ago, broadly, some aspects of traditional Ghanaian cultural cosmology see God as battling major evil, personified in fearlessly diabolical figures. The diabolical figures can come in all sorts of imaginations, images and physical attributes. Broadly, most of these major evil figures are interpreted as either witches or wizards.
In most traditional Ghana settings, misfortune are interpreted, cosmologically, in this sense – witches or wizards battling good, innocent people to visit all kinds of troubles on them for varied reasons, some as weird as looking good or being intelligent. The witches/evil spirits are chronic to progress; a process where in the larger progress of Ghana, has implications in poverty alleviation and democratization. Witches, wizards or evil figures have been attributed so much power of destruction that they are even feared more than God in certain traditional spiritual circles, making it difficult over the years, for some Ghanaians, no matter their education level, to extricate themselves from such believes.
It is such culture of witchcraft/evil forces that has given booming work for “Prof” Aridu Sabo Azeez, a Ghanaian-Nigerian traditional exorcist, based at a remote village in Ghana’s Eastern Region. Talking to the Accra-based “The Statesman” (11/08/2007), Azeez, milking the lucrative witchcraft-exorcist business, claims he can contain “flying children killing people, a tree filled with human body parts and a pregnancy lasting for six years.” While in some aspects of traditional Ghanaian cosmology this is believable, such believes is increasingly clashing with the increasing rationalization of the world - Ghana included. I know a woman who could not give birth for some time. Some members of her Asante families thought it was the mechanizations of witches/evil spirits in her family. For some time, she and some members of her family roamed through traditional Ghana, visiting the likes of Azeez, not only to know whether witches/evil forces have blocked her womb but also get traditional healing to cure her infertility. She was tipped to access modern medicine including the use of ultra-sonic – she got pregnant.
The conundrum is how to separate the interpretation of witches/evil forces from the administer of the actual traditional medicine so as to give an enlightened sense of how the disease occurred. This monumental challenge has affected many a modern science attempts, as part of the on-going Ghanaian/African progress, to refine some of the inhibitions in traditional Ghanaian/African medicine darkened by the battle between witches/evil spirits and diseases. The riddle, as Azeez told The Statesman’s Lauren Taylor, is how to scientifically explain how people allegedly “cursed by a disease or bad luck by witches and those who have acquired the powers of witchcraft themselves using it for deviancies or crime” and how this implicates on diseases. In a country where traditional medicine practitioners outnumber modern doctors, and where most Ghanaians access traditional medicine more than orthodox medicine, for obvious reasons, Ghanaians are yet to see openly at what length the two can walk together in order not only to get a sense of the two, but also, if possible, to explain, reconcile and sharpen the two to co-exist more healthily – more especially refine the excessive sway of witchcraft and other evil spirits in the interpretation of diseases by the Azeezs.
For the idea, traditionally, of exorcists, like Azeez, with all their incomprehensibly fearful accoutrements battling “the rage of witches,” gives witches/evil spirits fatalistically immense powers to cause diseases and not many a Ghanaians’ sanitation and human agencies. The innocent, ignorant Ghanaian, and they are in majority, caught in the cross-current of witches/evil spirits, growing diseases, poor sanitation, and traditional exorcists, is under the heavy sway of some aspects of traditional Ghanaian cosmology that sees God battling major evil spirits, personified in fearlessly diabolical figures. This is against the backdrop of a Ghana riddled by witches and other evil spirits in the face of disturbing poverty and other “drawbacks,” as President Kufour says. Sometimes, to some degree, the traditional exorcist wrongly muddles God by telling the ignorant Ghanaian that his/her disease is a punishment from God – thus wrapping God, witches, wizards and other evil spirits together in the average Ghanaians’ burden of diseases and helplessness.
Pretty much of Ghana’s Judeo-Christian tradition, more so the “in-your-face, born-again” Spiritual Churches mode that have taking on a good dose of traditional Ghanaian cosmology with their preaching of witches and evil spirits responsible for this or that – is not helping matters either, a good number playing the traditional Ghanaian exorcist card by attributing diseases and other misfortunes to witches and other evil spirits. So from either traditional Ghanaian cosmology or the Judeo-Christian tradition, the hapless Ghanaian is under the barrage of evil spirits and witches that stroll the Ghanaian environment, like “Milton's defiant Lucifer,” causing diseases and misfortunes and “flying children killing people, a tree filled with human body parts and a pregnancy lasting for six years.” In such ambiance, human agencies and scientific thinking are thrown into the Gulf of Guinea, and when this happens, “Prof.” Aridu Sabo Azeez, the traditional master exorcist, battle the “rage of witches” to free Ghana from diseases and misfortunes.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Feature: Re-Designing Ghana’s Development Paradigms
Commentary/Ghana
Re-Designing Ghana’s Development Paradigms
Kofi Akosah-Sarpong discusses Ghana’s Health Minister, Mr. Courage Quashigah’s statement that Ghana’s progress should be driven it’s by culture
Ghana’s Health Minister, Mr. Courage Quashigah, part of the emerging Ghanaian thinkers, who are convinced, beyond all reasonable doubt, like all progressive thinkers world-wide, that Ghanaian/African norms, values and traditions should be hugely factored in Ghana’s development process. Not just factoring in the culture in the development process just for factoring in sake but rather that while appropriating the good aspects for policy-making, bureaucratizing and consultancies, at the same time the inhibiting parts, too, should be refined.
Why would Mr. Quashigah say that Ghana’s development should be driven by its culture? What is wrong with the on-going developmental dispensation? Why is Mr. Quashigah concerned about that? What informs Mr. Quashigah’s current transformation and vision? Where is Mr. Quashigah’s thinking coming from? Who is Major (rtd) Courage Emmanuel Kobla Quashigah?
Born on September 9, 1947 at Kedzi in Ghana’s Volta Region, Mr. Quashigah has brilliant military academic background, apart from military training at Britain’s prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy, had had distinguished studies in Ghana, United States and Canada, with strings of esteemed awards. Over the years, Mr. Quashigah has had long and illustrious career in various fields in Ghana and Lebanon. Overtime, Mr. Quashigah has been involved in civilian and military governments: apart from being Minister of Health, he had earlier being Minister of Agriculture under incumbent President John Kufour’s government, and Chief Operations Officer for the Jerry Rawlings’ military regime Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).
Against this rich background, Mr. Quashigah is famous nationally as a courageous and brave man - virtually saving Head of State, Jerry Rawlings, from being overthrown, armed with remarkable dexterity. Now in some sort of transformative way, Mr. Quashigah is tackling, among other emerging thinkers, one of the most pressing challenges facing Ghana – how to skillfully appropriate the suppressed Ghanaian values and traditions in its development process so that they can be opened decisively for progress. Still, Mr. Quashigah demonstrates a well developed mind, which has good holistic grasp of Ghana, its prospects and its challenges – pretty much of which is influenced by its culture. The challenge is not only to appropriate Ghanaian cultural values openly in its progress, the challenge are also how to refine the inhibitions within the culture in the development game.
And this will be done, more or less, by skillful and matured policy-making, bureaucratizing, and consultations, more driven by research owned by Ghanaians through their norms, values and traditions. Such challenges have occurred because either the extremely long-running colonial rule, which profoundly suppressed African values for developmental transformation, or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values in its progress, certain parts of Africa’s values deemed unconstructive have not seen conscious attempts to refine them for greater progress. Added to the above, the test, once again, is how Ghanaian thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants could hybridize Ghanaian values with their colonial legacies in the global development process. No doubt, Mr. Quashigah argues that “no country could development if it relegates its culture to the background and concentrated on Western values that were of little relevance to its people.” This has occurred because of weak confidence, more from the elites, as Mr. Kofi Annan, the former UN chief, says, for historical reasons, within the development process.
Ghanaian elites, as directors of progress, should “harness the human resources of the country, taking into account our cultural beliefs and accepting only good foreign cultures,” as Mr. Quashigah contends, will not occur just like that. The test is how Ghanaian thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants, with thorough grasp of Ghanaian values and traditions, will be able to play their values with the dominant neo-liberal structures currently running Ghana in the global development context. In the long term, as Mr. Quashigah asserts, it will demand “complete overhaul of the education curriculum in line with the people's beliefs and practices.” That means Ghanaian values and traditions will be accorded as much prominence as the Western ones in the content of education curriculum. This will have two-fold effects: raise the level of confidence among Ghanaians, more the elites, in regard to Ghanaian values and traditions, and help develop a new generation of elites who can think holistically from the foundations of their cultural values and traditions up to the global level, as the Europeans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Malaysians, and the South Koreans have been doing.
Like the Southeast Asians, Mr. Quashigah’s famed conviction, courage, and bravery will help midwife this new thinking in a society that fears change, that do not consider their values as good as that of the Europeans, through sustained advocacy and public education, as he has been doing for some time. This will help the new policy-making, bureaucratizing and consultancies that will be needed to appropriate Ghanaian values and traditions. And some of the references to rally this cause could be Ghana’s own Dr. George Ayittey, of the American University, – “Indigenous African Institutions” (2004), “Africa Betrayed” (1992), “Africa in Chaos” (1998), and “Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Development” (2004).
The task is how the refurbished Ghanaian thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants will be able to work with Ghanaian values and traditions in the context of the “problems facing the country and come out with workable measures to address them,” as journalist Kwesi Pratt Jr, has argued elsewhere. The test is how Ghanaian thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants will demonstrate the ability to communicate these new ideas and influence debate outside of it. It is when these serious ground works are done, as the Southeast Asians had, that Ghanaians will be able to reconcile their values and traditions, authentically, with the global ones for sustainable progress.
Re-Designing Ghana’s Development Paradigms
Kofi Akosah-Sarpong discusses Ghana’s Health Minister, Mr. Courage Quashigah’s statement that Ghana’s progress should be driven it’s by culture
Ghana’s Health Minister, Mr. Courage Quashigah, part of the emerging Ghanaian thinkers, who are convinced, beyond all reasonable doubt, like all progressive thinkers world-wide, that Ghanaian/African norms, values and traditions should be hugely factored in Ghana’s development process. Not just factoring in the culture in the development process just for factoring in sake but rather that while appropriating the good aspects for policy-making, bureaucratizing and consultancies, at the same time the inhibiting parts, too, should be refined.
Why would Mr. Quashigah say that Ghana’s development should be driven by its culture? What is wrong with the on-going developmental dispensation? Why is Mr. Quashigah concerned about that? What informs Mr. Quashigah’s current transformation and vision? Where is Mr. Quashigah’s thinking coming from? Who is Major (rtd) Courage Emmanuel Kobla Quashigah?
Born on September 9, 1947 at Kedzi in Ghana’s Volta Region, Mr. Quashigah has brilliant military academic background, apart from military training at Britain’s prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy, had had distinguished studies in Ghana, United States and Canada, with strings of esteemed awards. Over the years, Mr. Quashigah has had long and illustrious career in various fields in Ghana and Lebanon. Overtime, Mr. Quashigah has been involved in civilian and military governments: apart from being Minister of Health, he had earlier being Minister of Agriculture under incumbent President John Kufour’s government, and Chief Operations Officer for the Jerry Rawlings’ military regime Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).
Against this rich background, Mr. Quashigah is famous nationally as a courageous and brave man - virtually saving Head of State, Jerry Rawlings, from being overthrown, armed with remarkable dexterity. Now in some sort of transformative way, Mr. Quashigah is tackling, among other emerging thinkers, one of the most pressing challenges facing Ghana – how to skillfully appropriate the suppressed Ghanaian values and traditions in its development process so that they can be opened decisively for progress. Still, Mr. Quashigah demonstrates a well developed mind, which has good holistic grasp of Ghana, its prospects and its challenges – pretty much of which is influenced by its culture. The challenge is not only to appropriate Ghanaian cultural values openly in its progress, the challenge are also how to refine the inhibitions within the culture in the development game.
And this will be done, more or less, by skillful and matured policy-making, bureaucratizing, and consultations, more driven by research owned by Ghanaians through their norms, values and traditions. Such challenges have occurred because either the extremely long-running colonial rule, which profoundly suppressed African values for developmental transformation, or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values in its progress, certain parts of Africa’s values deemed unconstructive have not seen conscious attempts to refine them for greater progress. Added to the above, the test, once again, is how Ghanaian thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants could hybridize Ghanaian values with their colonial legacies in the global development process. No doubt, Mr. Quashigah argues that “no country could development if it relegates its culture to the background and concentrated on Western values that were of little relevance to its people.” This has occurred because of weak confidence, more from the elites, as Mr. Kofi Annan, the former UN chief, says, for historical reasons, within the development process.
Ghanaian elites, as directors of progress, should “harness the human resources of the country, taking into account our cultural beliefs and accepting only good foreign cultures,” as Mr. Quashigah contends, will not occur just like that. The test is how Ghanaian thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants, with thorough grasp of Ghanaian values and traditions, will be able to play their values with the dominant neo-liberal structures currently running Ghana in the global development context. In the long term, as Mr. Quashigah asserts, it will demand “complete overhaul of the education curriculum in line with the people's beliefs and practices.” That means Ghanaian values and traditions will be accorded as much prominence as the Western ones in the content of education curriculum. This will have two-fold effects: raise the level of confidence among Ghanaians, more the elites, in regard to Ghanaian values and traditions, and help develop a new generation of elites who can think holistically from the foundations of their cultural values and traditions up to the global level, as the Europeans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Malaysians, and the South Koreans have been doing.
Like the Southeast Asians, Mr. Quashigah’s famed conviction, courage, and bravery will help midwife this new thinking in a society that fears change, that do not consider their values as good as that of the Europeans, through sustained advocacy and public education, as he has been doing for some time. This will help the new policy-making, bureaucratizing and consultancies that will be needed to appropriate Ghanaian values and traditions. And some of the references to rally this cause could be Ghana’s own Dr. George Ayittey, of the American University, – “Indigenous African Institutions” (2004), “Africa Betrayed” (1992), “Africa in Chaos” (1998), and “Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Development” (2004).
The task is how the refurbished Ghanaian thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants will be able to work with Ghanaian values and traditions in the context of the “problems facing the country and come out with workable measures to address them,” as journalist Kwesi Pratt Jr, has argued elsewhere. The test is how Ghanaian thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants will demonstrate the ability to communicate these new ideas and influence debate outside of it. It is when these serious ground works are done, as the Southeast Asians had, that Ghanaians will be able to reconcile their values and traditions, authentically, with the global ones for sustainable progress.
Feature:In the Name of God
Feature/Ghana
In the Name of God
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
For sometime, and this is nothing new in Ghanaian political life, the word “God” has been on the lips of some politicians either when they face acute challenges or are short of words or reach the limit of their comprehension of Ghana’s development process. Generally, they like to hear themselves mention God – sometimes for nothing so important or indescribable or the word used brainlessly, but that is fine in a culture where God’s name is a daily diet. Most times, God’s name reels a powerful sense of stagecraft by the politicians, more so as the 2008 general elections near.
Most times, the word can mean different things at different places at different times, and though sometimes some Ghanaians may be confused about the use of the word, you may have to be a Ghanaian all the same to grasp it. And because all the politicians come from cosmology-driven ethnic groups that are heavily God-centred, the education and social standing of the politician does not matter in the use of the word in the larger development process. Still, some of the politicians may use God “in an in-your-face, born-again manner” but pretty much of this takes its tone from traditional Ghanaian cosmology that sees God battling major evil personified in fearlessly diabolical figures in a Ghana mired in disturbing poverty and other “drawbacks,” President Kufour says, which some Ghanaians think, wrongly, is the punishment from God.
From Ghana’s President John Kufour, who told technicians at the struggling Akosombo Dam, the Volta River Authority, that God will bring rain to restore the falling water level of the dam, to Ghana's Vice President, Aliu Mahama, saying "It is God who chooses a leader and most often, those people do not regard are those he appoints" and asked his supporters in the northern Ghanaian regional capital of Tamale to “pray for him and not look down on any of the Presidential aspirants” of the ruling National Patriotic Party (NPP), God is a serious business in Ghanaian politics, more so as the 2008 general elections close in. And the politicians business with God can come in all manner of schemes, most times against rational devices. Apart from praying and fasting, the some Ghanaian politicians can go the extra mile by employing the services of Malams, spiritualists, juju priests, marabou mediums, Shamans and “Men of God” to “read” God to know their political standing in a democratic dispensation that is becoming increasingly fierce and competitive. On the flip side, Ghanaians are yet to know whether the same politicians will go the extra mile to utilize services of the spiritual mediums and the “Men of God” to “read” God to know God’s standing on their material well-being – poverty, energy, diseases, ignorance, water, food, education, money troubles, etc.
Circling in the head of Ghanaians are the good God and the bad Satan, and it has been the nature of some politicians exploiting Satan for misfortunes, especially if they could not deliver their developmental eggs. This happens when God is tossed around recklessly. In a culture that sees God as giver in its progress and Satan as not, Primate S.K. Adofo, Spiritual Head of Ghana’s Brotherhood Church, sees God not only as giver but also argues that the blame of Satan, or evil forces, as responsible for the stifling of progress is not only wrong, "but also unacceptable…the tendency for people to always blame all evil deeds and misfortunes that come their way on Satan or the devil" and that "most of such evils and misfortunes, are created by people themselves and not necessarily by the devil as always alleged." All these arguments emanate from Ghanaian cosmology enhanced by the Judeo-Christian tradition.
From the 56 ethnic groups that form the Ghana nation-state, the name God is a big cosmological issue and forms their foundational ethos, and some politicians play into this in the face of developmental challenges – imagine President Kufour feverishly seeking God’s help and inspiring Akosombo Dam technicians, and by extension Ghanaians, who are worried about their worsening energy situation, that God will bring rain to fill the dam. Sometimes, this God-and-politics game is played with traditional politicians – the Paramount Chiefs, the Queen mothers, etc – for all sorts of reasons. To learn how politics and God blur in both traditional and modern Ghana is to get engaged in a complicated struggle toward God in a Ghana that is at the same time unusually religious and extraordinarily devoted to politics of all kinds.
In a world that is increasingly becoming rational - with its technological feats and advancing sciences and booming intelligences and transnationalities and increasing hybridization of all kinds of human endeavours – excessive use of the word “God” not only blurs reasoning, paradoxically, God’s ultimate gift to humankind, but also complicate the situation of majority of Ghanaians who are praying daily, as the highly filled churches and mosques show, to escape painful poverty, some caused by the very politicians who appear not to understand their situations. In this sense, the excessive use of the word “God,” in the face of poverty (most Ghanaians live on $2.00 a day) and diseases and ignorance and backwardness, is seen as a “primitive, frightening and atavistic.”
That’s difficult to comprehend in a culture where everything is interpreted from God’s angle. The Sierra Leone would say “na God makam” – it is God’s design - even in the face of dreadful poverty and massive corruption and crumbling infrastructure and brutal civil war with its rapes and amputations and arsons and looting. That pretty much makes God “primitive, frightening and atavistic” Being that should probably be expelled from enlightened Ghanaian discourse. But that cannot be done in Ghana, where God’s name has been tossed around irresponsibly, as the state of Ghana’s progress shows, in contrast to not only Ghanaian cosmology and other traditional values but also their belief in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
In the Name of God
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
For sometime, and this is nothing new in Ghanaian political life, the word “God” has been on the lips of some politicians either when they face acute challenges or are short of words or reach the limit of their comprehension of Ghana’s development process. Generally, they like to hear themselves mention God – sometimes for nothing so important or indescribable or the word used brainlessly, but that is fine in a culture where God’s name is a daily diet. Most times, God’s name reels a powerful sense of stagecraft by the politicians, more so as the 2008 general elections near.
Most times, the word can mean different things at different places at different times, and though sometimes some Ghanaians may be confused about the use of the word, you may have to be a Ghanaian all the same to grasp it. And because all the politicians come from cosmology-driven ethnic groups that are heavily God-centred, the education and social standing of the politician does not matter in the use of the word in the larger development process. Still, some of the politicians may use God “in an in-your-face, born-again manner” but pretty much of this takes its tone from traditional Ghanaian cosmology that sees God battling major evil personified in fearlessly diabolical figures in a Ghana mired in disturbing poverty and other “drawbacks,” President Kufour says, which some Ghanaians think, wrongly, is the punishment from God.
From Ghana’s President John Kufour, who told technicians at the struggling Akosombo Dam, the Volta River Authority, that God will bring rain to restore the falling water level of the dam, to Ghana's Vice President, Aliu Mahama, saying "It is God who chooses a leader and most often, those people do not regard are those he appoints" and asked his supporters in the northern Ghanaian regional capital of Tamale to “pray for him and not look down on any of the Presidential aspirants” of the ruling National Patriotic Party (NPP), God is a serious business in Ghanaian politics, more so as the 2008 general elections close in. And the politicians business with God can come in all manner of schemes, most times against rational devices. Apart from praying and fasting, the some Ghanaian politicians can go the extra mile by employing the services of Malams, spiritualists, juju priests, marabou mediums, Shamans and “Men of God” to “read” God to know their political standing in a democratic dispensation that is becoming increasingly fierce and competitive. On the flip side, Ghanaians are yet to know whether the same politicians will go the extra mile to utilize services of the spiritual mediums and the “Men of God” to “read” God to know God’s standing on their material well-being – poverty, energy, diseases, ignorance, water, food, education, money troubles, etc.
Circling in the head of Ghanaians are the good God and the bad Satan, and it has been the nature of some politicians exploiting Satan for misfortunes, especially if they could not deliver their developmental eggs. This happens when God is tossed around recklessly. In a culture that sees God as giver in its progress and Satan as not, Primate S.K. Adofo, Spiritual Head of Ghana’s Brotherhood Church, sees God not only as giver but also argues that the blame of Satan, or evil forces, as responsible for the stifling of progress is not only wrong, "but also unacceptable…the tendency for people to always blame all evil deeds and misfortunes that come their way on Satan or the devil" and that "most of such evils and misfortunes, are created by people themselves and not necessarily by the devil as always alleged." All these arguments emanate from Ghanaian cosmology enhanced by the Judeo-Christian tradition.
From the 56 ethnic groups that form the Ghana nation-state, the name God is a big cosmological issue and forms their foundational ethos, and some politicians play into this in the face of developmental challenges – imagine President Kufour feverishly seeking God’s help and inspiring Akosombo Dam technicians, and by extension Ghanaians, who are worried about their worsening energy situation, that God will bring rain to fill the dam. Sometimes, this God-and-politics game is played with traditional politicians – the Paramount Chiefs, the Queen mothers, etc – for all sorts of reasons. To learn how politics and God blur in both traditional and modern Ghana is to get engaged in a complicated struggle toward God in a Ghana that is at the same time unusually religious and extraordinarily devoted to politics of all kinds.
In a world that is increasingly becoming rational - with its technological feats and advancing sciences and booming intelligences and transnationalities and increasing hybridization of all kinds of human endeavours – excessive use of the word “God” not only blurs reasoning, paradoxically, God’s ultimate gift to humankind, but also complicate the situation of majority of Ghanaians who are praying daily, as the highly filled churches and mosques show, to escape painful poverty, some caused by the very politicians who appear not to understand their situations. In this sense, the excessive use of the word “God,” in the face of poverty (most Ghanaians live on $2.00 a day) and diseases and ignorance and backwardness, is seen as a “primitive, frightening and atavistic.”
That’s difficult to comprehend in a culture where everything is interpreted from God’s angle. The Sierra Leone would say “na God makam” – it is God’s design - even in the face of dreadful poverty and massive corruption and crumbling infrastructure and brutal civil war with its rapes and amputations and arsons and looting. That pretty much makes God “primitive, frightening and atavistic” Being that should probably be expelled from enlightened Ghanaian discourse. But that cannot be done in Ghana, where God’s name has been tossed around irresponsibly, as the state of Ghana’s progress shows, in contrast to not only Ghanaian cosmology and other traditional values but also their belief in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Commentary/Ghana:Leadership: A President from Ghana
Commentary/Ghana
Leadership: A President from Ghana
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
As Ghana’s 2008 general elections closes in, what type of leadership Ghana needs has become a recurring subject, sometimes even unsettling, despite figures like Prof. John Atta, Nana Akuffo Addo, Mr. Aliu Mahama and Edward Mahama hovering on the scene. The broader views are that Ghana needs a visionary leader to replace the incumbent John Kufour in 2008. The Ghanaian media are, as ever, obsessed with the leadership issue, too, as if the democrartic dispensation, with its political parties and insitutions, does not have a process of selecting leaders to contest for offices and run the development process. Some talks even border on autocracy and a blind search for visionary leaders as you just go and pick visionary leaders from anywhere despite the running democratic institutions. Good or bad, the democratic process selects its own leadership in an on-going process.
Aptly, some of this worrying talks of leadership has occured because of some utterances and behaviour by some politicians (not that other African states’ are any different, witness the acrimony in Nigeria in the periods leading to its just ended general elections with which the departed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo had sustained rancour with his deputy, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, over petty issues, and some Sierra Leoneans saying their learned politicians have destroyed their country due to greed and selfishness). Former United Nations chief scribe, Mr. Kofi Annan, and good number of Ghanaian traditional rulers have advised Ghanaian politicians to be civil, as Ghanaian traditions demand, in their utterances as if they are some immatured group. Prof. S. K. B. Asante, a long time figure in the Ghanaian diplomatic and policy-making scene, has been so unhappy with some of the emerging leadership concerns that he described “some presidential aspirants” as “living in fantasy world.”
The leadership conundrum is so unnerving to some Ghanaians, at least some of its elites and some party big-wigs or apparatchiks, that the thought emananting from the political scene sometimes make it seem that there are no leaders capable of tackling Ghana’s progress. The impression is that some of the aspiring leaders appear simultaneously not to know and understand Ghana. This is when Kwame Nkrumah and J.B Danquah floated away. Never satisfied and salivating for perfect leadership, as if the world is perfect, critics argue Nkrumah and Danquah were impatient; Kofi Busia and Hilla Limman too slow and dull; and Jerry Rawlings too hot-tempered and missed the great opportunity to make Ghana a great nation.
Balanced leadership – that’s what some Ghanaians are longing for. In this sense, some argue a John Kufour leadership – simultaneously balanced and calm in the face of not only opposition heckling but also a Rawlingsian provocation. But Kufour emerged from the democratic process, no matter how fragile it is, after long years in the rough-and-tumble of the Ghanaian political scene. Some Ghanaians think the long-running military leaders are no better – no visionary among them, troubled more or less by moral and disciplinary problems. The argument in Ghanaian/African development circles, drawing cases from other developing world, is that the various military regimes should have used their military might as a foundation for Ghana’s speedy progress as South Korea, Chile and Brazile, among others, did. The long-running military juntas also stifled the growth of holistic leadership needed to midwife democracy as a bulwak for progress.
It is from such despicable background that Prof. Asante is worried about Ghana’s leadership and its impact on democratic growth. “Democracy had come to stay in Ghana but remained fragile enough to require a mature, strong, steady, visionary and knowledgeable political leader to protect it” (Aug 5, GNA). That’s democracy needs leaders to grow it, and not just any type of leaders, but leaders who have thorough grasp of Ghanaian history, norms, traditions, values, and how to play this in the global development game. With shadows of military coup hanging at the background and some politicians’ utterances inimical to democratic growth, Prof. Asante, like most Ghanaian democrats, is convinced that “this is a crucial matter for high-level consideration by all the political parties that are in the process of selecting party flag bearers.”
In the final analysis, pretty much of the questions of Ghanaian leadership today, as the progress of Southeast Asia leaders and their countries demonstrate, involve how confident are Ghanaian leaders - in themselves, in their people, in their country’s progress, and, more critically, in the foundational norms, values and traditions that form and run the Ghana nation-state. In a mixture of extremely long-running colonial rule, that heavily suppressed African values and traditions for growth, or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values and traditions in its progress, Ghanaian/African leaders have had problems with confidence in their leadership process within the development process of their countries. And this may be why Prof. Asante held that, "Indeed we need a leader who has a deep and intimate appreciation of where this country is coming from and where it needs to get in the shortest possible time." That’s a leadership, no matter the level, that have solidly thorough grasp of the core Ghanaian environment.
Leadership: A President from Ghana
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
As Ghana’s 2008 general elections closes in, what type of leadership Ghana needs has become a recurring subject, sometimes even unsettling, despite figures like Prof. John Atta, Nana Akuffo Addo, Mr. Aliu Mahama and Edward Mahama hovering on the scene. The broader views are that Ghana needs a visionary leader to replace the incumbent John Kufour in 2008. The Ghanaian media are, as ever, obsessed with the leadership issue, too, as if the democrartic dispensation, with its political parties and insitutions, does not have a process of selecting leaders to contest for offices and run the development process. Some talks even border on autocracy and a blind search for visionary leaders as you just go and pick visionary leaders from anywhere despite the running democratic institutions. Good or bad, the democratic process selects its own leadership in an on-going process.
Aptly, some of this worrying talks of leadership has occured because of some utterances and behaviour by some politicians (not that other African states’ are any different, witness the acrimony in Nigeria in the periods leading to its just ended general elections with which the departed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo had sustained rancour with his deputy, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, over petty issues, and some Sierra Leoneans saying their learned politicians have destroyed their country due to greed and selfishness). Former United Nations chief scribe, Mr. Kofi Annan, and good number of Ghanaian traditional rulers have advised Ghanaian politicians to be civil, as Ghanaian traditions demand, in their utterances as if they are some immatured group. Prof. S. K. B. Asante, a long time figure in the Ghanaian diplomatic and policy-making scene, has been so unhappy with some of the emerging leadership concerns that he described “some presidential aspirants” as “living in fantasy world.”
The leadership conundrum is so unnerving to some Ghanaians, at least some of its elites and some party big-wigs or apparatchiks, that the thought emananting from the political scene sometimes make it seem that there are no leaders capable of tackling Ghana’s progress. The impression is that some of the aspiring leaders appear simultaneously not to know and understand Ghana. This is when Kwame Nkrumah and J.B Danquah floated away. Never satisfied and salivating for perfect leadership, as if the world is perfect, critics argue Nkrumah and Danquah were impatient; Kofi Busia and Hilla Limman too slow and dull; and Jerry Rawlings too hot-tempered and missed the great opportunity to make Ghana a great nation.
Balanced leadership – that’s what some Ghanaians are longing for. In this sense, some argue a John Kufour leadership – simultaneously balanced and calm in the face of not only opposition heckling but also a Rawlingsian provocation. But Kufour emerged from the democratic process, no matter how fragile it is, after long years in the rough-and-tumble of the Ghanaian political scene. Some Ghanaians think the long-running military leaders are no better – no visionary among them, troubled more or less by moral and disciplinary problems. The argument in Ghanaian/African development circles, drawing cases from other developing world, is that the various military regimes should have used their military might as a foundation for Ghana’s speedy progress as South Korea, Chile and Brazile, among others, did. The long-running military juntas also stifled the growth of holistic leadership needed to midwife democracy as a bulwak for progress.
It is from such despicable background that Prof. Asante is worried about Ghana’s leadership and its impact on democratic growth. “Democracy had come to stay in Ghana but remained fragile enough to require a mature, strong, steady, visionary and knowledgeable political leader to protect it” (Aug 5, GNA). That’s democracy needs leaders to grow it, and not just any type of leaders, but leaders who have thorough grasp of Ghanaian history, norms, traditions, values, and how to play this in the global development game. With shadows of military coup hanging at the background and some politicians’ utterances inimical to democratic growth, Prof. Asante, like most Ghanaian democrats, is convinced that “this is a crucial matter for high-level consideration by all the political parties that are in the process of selecting party flag bearers.”
In the final analysis, pretty much of the questions of Ghanaian leadership today, as the progress of Southeast Asia leaders and their countries demonstrate, involve how confident are Ghanaian leaders - in themselves, in their people, in their country’s progress, and, more critically, in the foundational norms, values and traditions that form and run the Ghana nation-state. In a mixture of extremely long-running colonial rule, that heavily suppressed African values and traditions for growth, or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values and traditions in its progress, Ghanaian/African leaders have had problems with confidence in their leadership process within the development process of their countries. And this may be why Prof. Asante held that, "Indeed we need a leader who has a deep and intimate appreciation of where this country is coming from and where it needs to get in the shortest possible time." That’s a leadership, no matter the level, that have solidly thorough grasp of the core Ghanaian environment.
Commentary/Ghana:Leadership: A President from Ghana
Commentary/Ghana
Leadership: A President from Ghana
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
As Ghana’s 2008 general elections closes in, what type of leadership Ghana needs has become a recurring subject, sometimes even unsettling, despite figures like Prof. John Atta, Nana Akuffo Addo, Mr. Aliu Mahama and Edward Mahama hovering on the scene. The broader views are that Ghana needs a visionary leader to replace the incumbent John Kufour in 2008. The Ghanaian media are, as ever, obsessed with the leadership issue, too, as if the democrartic dispensation, with its political parties and insitutions, does not have a process of selecting leaders to contest for offices and run the development process. Some talks even border on autocracy and a blind search for visionary leaders as you just go and pick visionary leaders from anywhere despite the running democratic institutions. Good or bad, the democratic process selects its own leadership in an on-going process.
Aptly, some of this worrying talks of leadership has occured because of some utterances and behaviour by some politicians (not that other African states’ are any different, witness the acrimony in Nigeria in the periods leading to its just ended general elections with which the departed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo had sustained rancour with his deputy, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, over petty issues, and some Sierra Leoneans saying their learned politicians have destroyed their country due to greed and selfishness). Former United Nations chief scribe, Mr. Kofi Annan, and good number of Ghanaian traditional rulers have advised Ghanaian politicians to be civil, as Ghanaian traditions demand, in their utterances as if they are some immatured group. Prof. S. K. B. Asante, a long time figure in the Ghanaian diplomatic and policy-making scene, has been so unhappy with some of the emerging leadership concerns that he described “some presidential aspirants” as “living in fantasy world.”
The leadership conundrum is so unnerving to some Ghanaians, at least some of its elites and some party big-wigs or apparatchiks, that the thought emananting from the political scene sometimes make it seem that there are no leaders capable of tackling Ghana’s progress. The impression is that some of the aspiring leaders appear simultaneously not to know and understand Ghana. This is when Kwame Nkrumah and J.B Danquah floated away. Never satisfied and salivating for perfect leadership, as if the world is perfect, critics argue Nkrumah and Danquah were impatient; Kofi Busia and Hilla Limman too slow and dull; and Jerry Rawlings too hot-tempered and missed the great opportunity to make Ghana a great nation.
Balanced leadership – that’s what some Ghanaians are longing for. In this sense, some argue a John Kufour leadership – simultaneously balanced and calm in the face of not only opposition heckling but also a Rawlingsian provocation. But Kufour emerged from the democratic process, no matter how fragile it is, after long years in the rough-and-tumble of the Ghanaian political scene. Some Ghanaians think the long-running military leaders are no better – no visionary among them, troubled more or less by moral and disciplinary problems. The argument in Ghanaian/African development circles, drawing cases from other developing world, is that the various military regimes should have used their military might as a foundation for Ghana’s speedy progress as South Korea, Chile and Brazile, among others, did. The long-running military juntas also stifled the growth of holistic leadership needed to midwife democracy as a bulwak for progress.
It is from such despicable background that Prof. Asante is worried about Ghana’s leadership and its impact on democratic growth. “Democracy had come to stay in Ghana but remained fragile enough to require a mature, strong, steady, visionary and knowledgeable political leader to protect it” (Aug 5, GNA). That’s democracy needs leaders to grow it, and not just any type of leaders, but leaders who have thorough grasp of Ghanaian history, norms, traditions, values, and how to play this in the global development game. With shadows of military coup hanging at the background and some politicians’ utterances inimical to democratic growth, Prof. Asante, like most Ghanaian democrats, is convinced that “this is a crucial matter for high-level consideration by all the political parties that are in the process of selecting party flag bearers.”
In the final analysis, pretty much of the questions of Ghanaian leadership today, as the progress of Southeast Asia leaders and their countries demonstrate, involve how confident are Ghanaian leaders - in themselves, in their people, in their country’s progress, and, more critically, in the foundational norms, values and traditions that form and run the Ghana nation-state. In a mixture of extremely long-running colonial rule, that heavily suppressed African values and traditions for growth, or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values and traditions in its progress, Ghanaian/African leaders have had problems with confidence in their leadership process within the development process of their countries. And this may be why Prof. Asante held that, "Indeed we need a leader who has a deep and intimate appreciation of where this country is coming from and where it needs to get in the shortest possible time." That’s a leadership, no matter the level, that have solidly thorough grasp of the core Ghanaian environment.
Leadership: A President from Ghana
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
As Ghana’s 2008 general elections closes in, what type of leadership Ghana needs has become a recurring subject, sometimes even unsettling, despite figures like Prof. John Atta, Nana Akuffo Addo, Mr. Aliu Mahama and Edward Mahama hovering on the scene. The broader views are that Ghana needs a visionary leader to replace the incumbent John Kufour in 2008. The Ghanaian media are, as ever, obsessed with the leadership issue, too, as if the democrartic dispensation, with its political parties and insitutions, does not have a process of selecting leaders to contest for offices and run the development process. Some talks even border on autocracy and a blind search for visionary leaders as you just go and pick visionary leaders from anywhere despite the running democratic institutions. Good or bad, the democratic process selects its own leadership in an on-going process.
Aptly, some of this worrying talks of leadership has occured because of some utterances and behaviour by some politicians (not that other African states’ are any different, witness the acrimony in Nigeria in the periods leading to its just ended general elections with which the departed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo had sustained rancour with his deputy, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, over petty issues, and some Sierra Leoneans saying their learned politicians have destroyed their country due to greed and selfishness). Former United Nations chief scribe, Mr. Kofi Annan, and good number of Ghanaian traditional rulers have advised Ghanaian politicians to be civil, as Ghanaian traditions demand, in their utterances as if they are some immatured group. Prof. S. K. B. Asante, a long time figure in the Ghanaian diplomatic and policy-making scene, has been so unhappy with some of the emerging leadership concerns that he described “some presidential aspirants” as “living in fantasy world.”
The leadership conundrum is so unnerving to some Ghanaians, at least some of its elites and some party big-wigs or apparatchiks, that the thought emananting from the political scene sometimes make it seem that there are no leaders capable of tackling Ghana’s progress. The impression is that some of the aspiring leaders appear simultaneously not to know and understand Ghana. This is when Kwame Nkrumah and J.B Danquah floated away. Never satisfied and salivating for perfect leadership, as if the world is perfect, critics argue Nkrumah and Danquah were impatient; Kofi Busia and Hilla Limman too slow and dull; and Jerry Rawlings too hot-tempered and missed the great opportunity to make Ghana a great nation.
Balanced leadership – that’s what some Ghanaians are longing for. In this sense, some argue a John Kufour leadership – simultaneously balanced and calm in the face of not only opposition heckling but also a Rawlingsian provocation. But Kufour emerged from the democratic process, no matter how fragile it is, after long years in the rough-and-tumble of the Ghanaian political scene. Some Ghanaians think the long-running military leaders are no better – no visionary among them, troubled more or less by moral and disciplinary problems. The argument in Ghanaian/African development circles, drawing cases from other developing world, is that the various military regimes should have used their military might as a foundation for Ghana’s speedy progress as South Korea, Chile and Brazile, among others, did. The long-running military juntas also stifled the growth of holistic leadership needed to midwife democracy as a bulwak for progress.
It is from such despicable background that Prof. Asante is worried about Ghana’s leadership and its impact on democratic growth. “Democracy had come to stay in Ghana but remained fragile enough to require a mature, strong, steady, visionary and knowledgeable political leader to protect it” (Aug 5, GNA). That’s democracy needs leaders to grow it, and not just any type of leaders, but leaders who have thorough grasp of Ghanaian history, norms, traditions, values, and how to play this in the global development game. With shadows of military coup hanging at the background and some politicians’ utterances inimical to democratic growth, Prof. Asante, like most Ghanaian democrats, is convinced that “this is a crucial matter for high-level consideration by all the political parties that are in the process of selecting party flag bearers.”
In the final analysis, pretty much of the questions of Ghanaian leadership today, as the progress of Southeast Asia leaders and their countries demonstrate, involve how confident are Ghanaian leaders - in themselves, in their people, in their country’s progress, and, more critically, in the foundational norms, values and traditions that form and run the Ghana nation-state. In a mixture of extremely long-running colonial rule, that heavily suppressed African values and traditions for growth, or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values and traditions in its progress, Ghanaian/African leaders have had problems with confidence in their leadership process within the development process of their countries. And this may be why Prof. Asante held that, "Indeed we need a leader who has a deep and intimate appreciation of where this country is coming from and where it needs to get in the shortest possible time." That’s a leadership, no matter the level, that have solidly thorough grasp of the core Ghanaian environment.
Commentary/Ghana:Leadership: A President from Ghana
Commentary/Ghana
Leadership: A President from Ghana
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
As Ghana’s 2008 general elections closes in, what type of leadership Ghana needs has become a recurring subject, sometimes even unsettling, despite figures like Prof. John Atta, Nana Akuffo Addo, Mr. Aliu Mahama and Edward Mahama hovering on the scene. The broader views are that Ghana needs a visionary leader to replace the incumbent John Kufour in 2008. The Ghanaian media are, as ever, obsessed with the leadership issue, too, as if the democrartic dispensation, with its political parties and insitutions, does not have a process of selecting leaders to contest for offices and run the development process. Some talks even border on autocracy and a blind search for visionary leaders as you just go and pick visionary leaders from anywhere despite the running democratic institutions. Good or bad, the democratic process selects its own leadership in an on-going process.
Aptly, some of this worrying talks of leadership has occured because of some utterances and behaviour by some politicians (not that other African states’ are any different, witness the acrimony in Nigeria in the periods leading to its just ended general elections with which the departed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo had sustained rancour with his deputy, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, over petty issues, and some Sierra Leoneans saying their learned politicians have destroyed their country due to greed and selfishness). Former United Nations chief scribe, Mr. Kofi Annan, and good number of Ghanaian traditional rulers have advised Ghanaian politicians to be civil, as Ghanaian traditions demand, in their utterances as if they are some immatured group. Prof. S. K. B. Asante, a long time figure in the Ghanaian diplomatic and policy-making scene, has been so unhappy with some of the emerging leadership concerns that he described “some presidential aspirants” as “living in fantasy world.”
The leadership conundrum is so unnerving to some Ghanaians, at least some of its elites and some party big-wigs or apparatchiks, that the thought emananting from the political scene sometimes make it seem that there are no leaders capable of tackling Ghana’s progress. The impression is that some of the aspiring leaders appear simultaneously not to know and understand Ghana. This is when Kwame Nkrumah and J.B Danquah floated away. Never satisfied and salivating for perfect leadership, as if the world is perfect, critics argue Nkrumah and Danquah were impatient; Kofi Busia and Hilla Limman too slow and dull; and Jerry Rawlings too hot-tempered and missed the great opportunity to make Ghana a great nation.
Balanced leadership – that’s what some Ghanaians are longing for. In this sense, some argue a John Kufour leadership – simultaneously balanced and calm in the face of not only opposition heckling but also a Rawlingsian provocation. But Kufour emerged from the democratic process, no matter how fragile it is, after long years in the rough-and-tumble of the Ghanaian political scene. Some Ghanaians think the long-running military leaders are no better – no visionary among them, troubled more or less by moral and disciplinary problems. The argument in Ghanaian/African development circles, drawing cases from other developing world, is that the various military regimes should have used their military might as a foundation for Ghana’s speedy progress as South Korea, Chile and Brazile, among others, did. The long-running military juntas also stifled the growth of holistic leadership needed to midwife democracy as a bulwak for progress.
It is from such despicable background that Prof. Asante is worried about Ghana’s leadership and its impact on democratic growth. “Democracy had come to stay in Ghana but remained fragile enough to require a mature, strong, steady, visionary and knowledgeable political leader to protect it” (Aug 5, GNA). That’s democracy needs leaders to grow it, and not just any type of leaders, but leaders who have thorough grasp of Ghanaian history, norms, traditions, values, and how to play this in the global development game. With shadows of military coup hanging at the background and some politicians’ utterances inimical to democratic growth, Prof. Asante, like most Ghanaian democrats, is convinced that “this is a crucial matter for high-level consideration by all the political parties that are in the process of selecting party flag bearers.”
In the final analysis, pretty much of the questions of Ghanaian leadership today, as the progress of Southeast Asia leaders and their countries demonstrate, involve how confident are Ghanaian leaders - in themselves, in their people, in their country’s progress, and, more critically, in the foundational norms, values and traditions that form and run the Ghana nation-state. In a mixture of extremely long-running colonial rule, that heavily suppressed African values and traditions for growth, or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values and traditions in its progress, Ghanaian/African leaders have had problems with confidence in their leadership process within the development process of their countries. And this may be why Prof. Asante held that, "Indeed we need a leader who has a deep and intimate appreciation of where this country is coming from and where it needs to get in the shortest possible time." That’s a leadership, no matter the level, that have solidly thorough grasp of the core Ghanaian environment.
Leadership: A President from Ghana
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
As Ghana’s 2008 general elections closes in, what type of leadership Ghana needs has become a recurring subject, sometimes even unsettling, despite figures like Prof. John Atta, Nana Akuffo Addo, Mr. Aliu Mahama and Edward Mahama hovering on the scene. The broader views are that Ghana needs a visionary leader to replace the incumbent John Kufour in 2008. The Ghanaian media are, as ever, obsessed with the leadership issue, too, as if the democrartic dispensation, with its political parties and insitutions, does not have a process of selecting leaders to contest for offices and run the development process. Some talks even border on autocracy and a blind search for visionary leaders as you just go and pick visionary leaders from anywhere despite the running democratic institutions. Good or bad, the democratic process selects its own leadership in an on-going process.
Aptly, some of this worrying talks of leadership has occured because of some utterances and behaviour by some politicians (not that other African states’ are any different, witness the acrimony in Nigeria in the periods leading to its just ended general elections with which the departed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo had sustained rancour with his deputy, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, over petty issues, and some Sierra Leoneans saying their learned politicians have destroyed their country due to greed and selfishness). Former United Nations chief scribe, Mr. Kofi Annan, and good number of Ghanaian traditional rulers have advised Ghanaian politicians to be civil, as Ghanaian traditions demand, in their utterances as if they are some immatured group. Prof. S. K. B. Asante, a long time figure in the Ghanaian diplomatic and policy-making scene, has been so unhappy with some of the emerging leadership concerns that he described “some presidential aspirants” as “living in fantasy world.”
The leadership conundrum is so unnerving to some Ghanaians, at least some of its elites and some party big-wigs or apparatchiks, that the thought emananting from the political scene sometimes make it seem that there are no leaders capable of tackling Ghana’s progress. The impression is that some of the aspiring leaders appear simultaneously not to know and understand Ghana. This is when Kwame Nkrumah and J.B Danquah floated away. Never satisfied and salivating for perfect leadership, as if the world is perfect, critics argue Nkrumah and Danquah were impatient; Kofi Busia and Hilla Limman too slow and dull; and Jerry Rawlings too hot-tempered and missed the great opportunity to make Ghana a great nation.
Balanced leadership – that’s what some Ghanaians are longing for. In this sense, some argue a John Kufour leadership – simultaneously balanced and calm in the face of not only opposition heckling but also a Rawlingsian provocation. But Kufour emerged from the democratic process, no matter how fragile it is, after long years in the rough-and-tumble of the Ghanaian political scene. Some Ghanaians think the long-running military leaders are no better – no visionary among them, troubled more or less by moral and disciplinary problems. The argument in Ghanaian/African development circles, drawing cases from other developing world, is that the various military regimes should have used their military might as a foundation for Ghana’s speedy progress as South Korea, Chile and Brazile, among others, did. The long-running military juntas also stifled the growth of holistic leadership needed to midwife democracy as a bulwak for progress.
It is from such despicable background that Prof. Asante is worried about Ghana’s leadership and its impact on democratic growth. “Democracy had come to stay in Ghana but remained fragile enough to require a mature, strong, steady, visionary and knowledgeable political leader to protect it” (Aug 5, GNA). That’s democracy needs leaders to grow it, and not just any type of leaders, but leaders who have thorough grasp of Ghanaian history, norms, traditions, values, and how to play this in the global development game. With shadows of military coup hanging at the background and some politicians’ utterances inimical to democratic growth, Prof. Asante, like most Ghanaian democrats, is convinced that “this is a crucial matter for high-level consideration by all the political parties that are in the process of selecting party flag bearers.”
In the final analysis, pretty much of the questions of Ghanaian leadership today, as the progress of Southeast Asia leaders and their countries demonstrate, involve how confident are Ghanaian leaders - in themselves, in their people, in their country’s progress, and, more critically, in the foundational norms, values and traditions that form and run the Ghana nation-state. In a mixture of extremely long-running colonial rule, that heavily suppressed African values and traditions for growth, or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values and traditions in its progress, Ghanaian/African leaders have had problems with confidence in their leadership process within the development process of their countries. And this may be why Prof. Asante held that, "Indeed we need a leader who has a deep and intimate appreciation of where this country is coming from and where it needs to get in the shortest possible time." That’s a leadership, no matter the level, that have solidly thorough grasp of the core Ghanaian environment.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Feature:Liberia, Troubled by Human Sacrifice
Feature/Development/Liberia
Liberia, Troubled by Human Sacrifice
Kofi Akosah-Sarpong discusses Liberia’s dilemma with human sacrifice and cannibalistic practices in its development process, drawing cases from Ghana and other Africa states
As Africa’s debate about tackling its inhibiting cultural practices in its development process gather steam nowhere is this seen more than in Liberia, Africa oldest Republic and expected to be a key source of light for progress. The headlines over the past months look scary, more of Hollywood-type movies, as if Liberia is plunged into mass culture of human sacrifices, otherwise called “ritual killings.” But though not really plunged in mass human sacrifices, Liberia has a big challenge with human sacrifices that spring from its culture, like most African states, in its development process. Samples of headlines over the past months from prominent Liberian newspapers such as the “Analyst” and the “Liberian Observer” include “Ritual Killings in Maryland Defy President Sirleaf,” “Woman Detained for Ritual Killings,” “Quiwonkpa, Killed, dismembered body Consumed,” “Ritual Killings Increase in Nimba County,” and “Bryant Warns Presidential Candidates Against Ritual Killings.”
Locally called as “Gboyo” - the practice of killing people so that their body parts can be extracted and offered as sacrifices to bring power, wealth and success – it is an ancient practice in Liberia that Liberian elites have not worked to deal with as part of its development process, making it grow to such an extent that in 29 June 2005 prior to Liberia’s current democratic dispensation, its interim leader, Gyude Bryant, “warned any aspiring presidential candidates tempted to boost their chances by carrying out human sacrifices that they will be executed if caught.…If you think you can take somebody's life in order to be president, or the speaker (of parliament) or a senator, without anything being done to you, then you are fooling yourself." The highlight of Liberia’s human sacrifice was supremely seen during the 14-year vicious civil war (1989-2003), where a mixture of the negative aspects of Liberia’s traditional cultural values and the criminal behaviour of its mindless “Big Men,” who have the cultural belief, like most Africa societies, that it is culturally right to sacrifice their victims for their various ambitions. More graphically, in this atmosphere, child soldiers were eating their victims’ hearts and other body parts for spiritual powers.
The question is how does a country that is the oldest “Republic in Africa,” got independence in 1847, and supposed to be a shining light of Africa, be so challenged by such negative cultural practices that it threatens to undo any gains overtime in its development process, more so after emerging from 14 years of brutal civil war? The growth in human sacrifice appears not go away 150 years after independence shows that Liberia is yet to have holistic grasp of its cultural values (positive or negative) that drive the foundations of its development process. The growth of human sacrifice reveals that such features are not factored in when developing policies, bureaucratizing, and consulting on national development issues.
One senses this by prominent Liberian scholars, thinkers, writers and journalists that contributed to a “Special Issue on Liberia” on its 150th independence published by the UK-based Pambazuka News (pambazuka.org, 2007-07-26). There is nothing from these prominent Liberians indicating that the cultural values and traditions of the country are factored in when midwifing the country. That menas in making policies, bureaucratizing, and consulting about the progress of Liberia, its very cultural values that sustain it are not considered. What this indicates is that there is no conscious attemps to tackle any inhibitions with the Liberian culture for refinement for progress. Even Anthony Morgan, Jr’s catching title, “Principle of Duality: Psychoanalysing Liberia,” didn’t reveal how Liberian elites are attempting to tackle not only their cultural inhibitions but also appropriating the good aspects for policy-making, consulting, and bureaucratizing.
Over the years Liberia elites have overlooked certain aspects of their traditional values hindering their progress despite the fact that various Presidents, from William Tolbert to Gyude Bryant, “have signed the death warrant of several government officials, accused of procuring human body parts for Gboyo rituals.” It is not only Liberian “Big Men” who engage in human sacrifices, ordinary Liberians do it, and unlike most African states, Liberian women too are prominent in these ritualistic practices. And it’s Liberian-wide. Samples: The “Liberian Observer” (04 October, 2006) with headline “Woman Detained for Ritual Killing” reported that the Magisterial Court in Buchanan “charged and detained a woman identified as Ruth Redd with the crime of “negligence homicide” in connection with the mysterious death of a two-year old Victoria Wee in Gbegbah Town, in Harlandsville Township, Grand Bassa County.” In another instance, the “Analyst” (March 10, 2006) reported that barely three hours after incumbent President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf delivered a speech of gratitude to the people of Maryland County and told those involved in ritualistic killings to stop and not to tempt her because she is a woman, a three years old boy was ritualistically murdered. The “Analyst” (March 9, 2006) reported that “The relief arm of the Assemblies of God Church, the Faith Charities Consortium (CFC) has reported that there is increase in the practice of ritualistic activities in Nimba County…Children are disappearing on a daily basis with their bodies mostly discovered by community dwellers in the bushes along highways and bearing marks of certain body parts removed.”
The growth of human sacrifice in Liberia confirms America’s Florence Bernault, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, thesis “that Public rumors depict human sacrifice and other related sorceries “as the most common way to achieve personal success, wealth, and prestige in times of economic shortage and declining social opportunities. Political leaders are widely believed to perform ritual murder to ensure electoral success and power, and many skillfully use these perceptions to build visibility and deference.” This is, as Liberia indicates, despite elites oftentimes ignoring classical political and historical studies, as the “Special Issue on Liberia” published by Pambazuka News indicates. As the flux of Liberia’s culture and progress show, the impact of the inhibiting aspects of Liberia’s culture on its progress, as Bernault analyses, “is not a marginal, but a central dimension of the nature of public authority, leadership, and popular identities.” Dirk Kohnert, of Germany’s Institute of African Affairs, argues that the belief in African native occultism are still "deeply rooted in many African societies, regardless of education, religion, and social class of the people concerned" and this has “implications for democratization and poverty-alleviating aid in Africa.”
Either because of the extremely long-running colonial rule, which pretty much suppressed African values for developmental transformation or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values in its progress, as Liberian elites exemplify, certain parts of Africa’s values such as the growing human sacrifice in Liberia have not seen conscious attempts to refine them from within African values for progress by its elites.
Liberia, Troubled by Human Sacrifice
Kofi Akosah-Sarpong discusses Liberia’s dilemma with human sacrifice and cannibalistic practices in its development process, drawing cases from Ghana and other Africa states
As Africa’s debate about tackling its inhibiting cultural practices in its development process gather steam nowhere is this seen more than in Liberia, Africa oldest Republic and expected to be a key source of light for progress. The headlines over the past months look scary, more of Hollywood-type movies, as if Liberia is plunged into mass culture of human sacrifices, otherwise called “ritual killings.” But though not really plunged in mass human sacrifices, Liberia has a big challenge with human sacrifices that spring from its culture, like most African states, in its development process. Samples of headlines over the past months from prominent Liberian newspapers such as the “Analyst” and the “Liberian Observer” include “Ritual Killings in Maryland Defy President Sirleaf,” “Woman Detained for Ritual Killings,” “Quiwonkpa, Killed, dismembered body Consumed,” “Ritual Killings Increase in Nimba County,” and “Bryant Warns Presidential Candidates Against Ritual Killings.”
Locally called as “Gboyo” - the practice of killing people so that their body parts can be extracted and offered as sacrifices to bring power, wealth and success – it is an ancient practice in Liberia that Liberian elites have not worked to deal with as part of its development process, making it grow to such an extent that in 29 June 2005 prior to Liberia’s current democratic dispensation, its interim leader, Gyude Bryant, “warned any aspiring presidential candidates tempted to boost their chances by carrying out human sacrifices that they will be executed if caught.…If you think you can take somebody's life in order to be president, or the speaker (of parliament) or a senator, without anything being done to you, then you are fooling yourself." The highlight of Liberia’s human sacrifice was supremely seen during the 14-year vicious civil war (1989-2003), where a mixture of the negative aspects of Liberia’s traditional cultural values and the criminal behaviour of its mindless “Big Men,” who have the cultural belief, like most Africa societies, that it is culturally right to sacrifice their victims for their various ambitions. More graphically, in this atmosphere, child soldiers were eating their victims’ hearts and other body parts for spiritual powers.
The question is how does a country that is the oldest “Republic in Africa,” got independence in 1847, and supposed to be a shining light of Africa, be so challenged by such negative cultural practices that it threatens to undo any gains overtime in its development process, more so after emerging from 14 years of brutal civil war? The growth in human sacrifice appears not go away 150 years after independence shows that Liberia is yet to have holistic grasp of its cultural values (positive or negative) that drive the foundations of its development process. The growth of human sacrifice reveals that such features are not factored in when developing policies, bureaucratizing, and consulting on national development issues.
One senses this by prominent Liberian scholars, thinkers, writers and journalists that contributed to a “Special Issue on Liberia” on its 150th independence published by the UK-based Pambazuka News (pambazuka.org, 2007-07-26). There is nothing from these prominent Liberians indicating that the cultural values and traditions of the country are factored in when midwifing the country. That menas in making policies, bureaucratizing, and consulting about the progress of Liberia, its very cultural values that sustain it are not considered. What this indicates is that there is no conscious attemps to tackle any inhibitions with the Liberian culture for refinement for progress. Even Anthony Morgan, Jr’s catching title, “Principle of Duality: Psychoanalysing Liberia,” didn’t reveal how Liberian elites are attempting to tackle not only their cultural inhibitions but also appropriating the good aspects for policy-making, consulting, and bureaucratizing.
Over the years Liberia elites have overlooked certain aspects of their traditional values hindering their progress despite the fact that various Presidents, from William Tolbert to Gyude Bryant, “have signed the death warrant of several government officials, accused of procuring human body parts for Gboyo rituals.” It is not only Liberian “Big Men” who engage in human sacrifices, ordinary Liberians do it, and unlike most African states, Liberian women too are prominent in these ritualistic practices. And it’s Liberian-wide. Samples: The “Liberian Observer” (04 October, 2006) with headline “Woman Detained for Ritual Killing” reported that the Magisterial Court in Buchanan “charged and detained a woman identified as Ruth Redd with the crime of “negligence homicide” in connection with the mysterious death of a two-year old Victoria Wee in Gbegbah Town, in Harlandsville Township, Grand Bassa County.” In another instance, the “Analyst” (March 10, 2006) reported that barely three hours after incumbent President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf delivered a speech of gratitude to the people of Maryland County and told those involved in ritualistic killings to stop and not to tempt her because she is a woman, a three years old boy was ritualistically murdered. The “Analyst” (March 9, 2006) reported that “The relief arm of the Assemblies of God Church, the Faith Charities Consortium (CFC) has reported that there is increase in the practice of ritualistic activities in Nimba County…Children are disappearing on a daily basis with their bodies mostly discovered by community dwellers in the bushes along highways and bearing marks of certain body parts removed.”
The growth of human sacrifice in Liberia confirms America’s Florence Bernault, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, thesis “that Public rumors depict human sacrifice and other related sorceries “as the most common way to achieve personal success, wealth, and prestige in times of economic shortage and declining social opportunities. Political leaders are widely believed to perform ritual murder to ensure electoral success and power, and many skillfully use these perceptions to build visibility and deference.” This is, as Liberia indicates, despite elites oftentimes ignoring classical political and historical studies, as the “Special Issue on Liberia” published by Pambazuka News indicates. As the flux of Liberia’s culture and progress show, the impact of the inhibiting aspects of Liberia’s culture on its progress, as Bernault analyses, “is not a marginal, but a central dimension of the nature of public authority, leadership, and popular identities.” Dirk Kohnert, of Germany’s Institute of African Affairs, argues that the belief in African native occultism are still "deeply rooted in many African societies, regardless of education, religion, and social class of the people concerned" and this has “implications for democratization and poverty-alleviating aid in Africa.”
Either because of the extremely long-running colonial rule, which pretty much suppressed African values for developmental transformation or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values in its progress, as Liberian elites exemplify, certain parts of Africa’s values such as the growing human sacrifice in Liberia have not seen conscious attempts to refine them from within African values for progress by its elites.
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