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Has Dzifa Attivor
awoken a sleeping giant? (Part I)
By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
Thursday, April 28,
2016
Folks, we must by now have
known that the fracas generated by utterances attributed
to Ms. Dzifa Attivor (former Minister of Transportation
who resigned because of the murky circumstances
surrounding the rebranding of the Mass Metro Transport
buses) has taken the centre-stage in public discourse
about Ghanaian politics. To me, the fracas is
insignificant because it is not a warranted or supported
by practice or principle. Ghanaian politics has all
these years been known for being heavily invested with
tribal sentiments. What is new, then, to warrant all the
energy being expended flogging a dead horse? The only
snag is that hypocrisy is feeding all that vigorous
reaction to her utterance. No more no less.
I want to say upfront here
that in pinpointing the Kufuor administration for
persecuting Ewes, Ms. Dzifa Attivor (the former
Transport Minister) said nothing new to warrant all the
barrage of condemnations and what-not. The ongoing
muscle-flexing, spitting of fire and brimstone,
name-calling, and threats or whatever else strike me as
needless if we truly know the bent of Ghanaian politics,
especially since the immediate pre-independence era and
far beyond it to date. Which informed Ghanaian doesn’t
know that apart from the Great Osagyefo’s approach to
national and local politics all others have been clouded
with tribal considerations?
Would it be the gang of
cowardly security officers who masterminded Nkrumah’s
overthrow or the role of Gen. Akwasi Amankwah Afrifa in
the abortive April 1967 coup by Yeboah and Co. that led
to the murder of Gen. Kotoka and Ewe military officers
(Capt. Avevor and Capt. Borkloe, among others)? Ask
Rawlings why he supported the extermination of Afrifa,
after all. Those of us who read the letter from Afrifa
to Acheampong that prophesied his own doom and that of
Acheampong at the hands of Rawlings will not easily be
cajoled by latter-day saints of the sort condemning Ms.
Attivor.
Or the manipulation of the situation to
remove Gen. Ankrah from office for Gen. Afrifa to pave
the way for the Busia-led Progress Party to perpetrate
its Apollo 568 agenda, which was primarily against Ewes
in the Civil Service (the Sallah case in view)?
Or the machinations by Gen.
Acheampong against Captain Selormey, Major Agbo, Major
Habadah and other Ewe military officers with whom he had
executed the January 13, 1972 military coup against
Busia but whom he later feared to co-exist with?
Of course, elements
belonging to other ethnic groups can be identified as
victims of ethnic-influenced persecution. As to why the
focus is on the Ewes alone, I cannot explain now, but I
will be guided by what I know to make my point clear.
Take it or leave it as such. I care less. But the record
of happenings exists.
History being recalled here
for a good reason, folks. Many happenings over the years
have reinforced negative opinions that Ghanaian politics
is heavily invested with or poisoned by tribal
sentiments. Believe it or not, ethnicity counts a lot in
our kind of politics, which explains why the NDC with
Rawlings at the helm would be quickly labelled as an Ewe
party and the NPP as an Akan party (with emphasis on the
Ashanti and Eastern Regions that have traditionally
stood for it all these years while the NDC has a wider
national spread).
I will stick my neck out to
say that Ms. Attivor didn't say anything that we haven't
known before. Thus, I consider the wailing and
sharpening of claws to tear her into pieces—and to
indirectly get at the NDC itself— as needless and
misplaced. Take it from me that whatever she said is
already in the public sphere and doesn't strike me as
worrisome or frightening as it does those pouncing on it
to further their own skewed political agenda.
Context: Ms. Attivor is
reported to have said that the New Patriotic Party (NPP)
is a tribal party bent on prosecuting only Ewes if it
wins the general elections in November. Referring to the
record of the NPP government between 2001 and 2008, she
argued that the NPP targeted only members of her ethnic
group for prosecution. (See
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/If-you-don-t-vote-for-NDC-I-will-go-to-jail-Dzifa-Attivor-433966).
Anything strange in her claims here? None!! In truth,
most of those who were either prosecuted and jailed or
dragged to court were Ewes. You know them already and I
don't have to mention names here. Others such as Ibrahim
Adam, Kwame Peprah, and Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings
also faced the NPP government's music in court.
The dicey aspect, though,
is that we can't simply conclude that those Ewes were
targeted because of their ethnic extraction. That's
where the line is difficult to be drawn. They were
public officials caught in acts for which they had to
account. Thus, to jump to the conclusion that the Kufuor
government persecuted them as Ewes is difficult to
accept. However, that has been the perception among Ewes
all these years. Ms. Attivor might just be reiterating
that perception, even if wrapped around her own narrow
interests.
What about her utterance
may come across as offensive is her urge that the NDC be
voted for by Ewes (at least judging from the angle from
which she allegedly made the pronouncements). Here too,
there is nothing strange, especially if we acknowledge
the fact that the Volta Region is regarded as the
bastion ("Word Bank") of the NDC just as the Ashanti
Region is known as the incubator and stronghold of the
NPP. So, why the apprehensions?
Another aspect is her claim
that if the NDC loses power, she would be jailed by the
NPP. In this sense, only she knows why she will be
jailed or why the NDC administration hasn't sought to
jail her for whatever she might have done for which she
is afraid. This is the nub. By this claim, she has
opened a can of worms for us to question what the
Mahama-led administration isn't doing about her.
Folks, the speed and zeal
with which the Ghana peace Council, the NPP, and others
(including Jerry Rawlings and the NDC's Volta Regional
Chairman) have jumped on Ms. Attivor over this utterance
is understandable, especially if her claims reflect
"tribal politics", which the critics regard as
dangerous. But is it not true that our politics is
heavily invested with tribal or ethnic politics, not to
talk about the religious vein too?
I am tempted to wonder
whether we haven't heard worse utterances from other
politicians (e.g., the NPP's Akufo-Addo, Kennedy
Agyepong, Maxwell Jumah, Anthony Karbo, Fraudie Blay,
Yaw Osafo-Marfo, and many others) or whether those now
jumping on Ms. Attivor could do same to such characters
as they are doing to her now.
This stance is not to
suggest that I support Ms. Attivor's outbursts. It is to
lay everything bare for us to know that conditions that
precipitate such outbursts exist everywhere in the
country and people are openly talking about ethnicity in
Ghanaian politics. But for her mounting a political
platform to say so, there wouldn't have been anything to
attract that much criticism.
How many times haven't
opponents of the NPP labelled it as an Akan
(Asante-Akyim) party or the NDC as an Ewe party?
Ghanaians have known all this while that our politics is
not clean; that it is not devoid of tribal/ethnic
sentiments. So, what does it mean if a politician of Ms.
Attivor's type touches on it?
How many times haven't
we heard politicians mightier than Ms. Attivor tell
their kith and kin to vote for them because they belong
together? Have such people been heavily criticized as is
being done to Ms. Attivor?
There is too much hypocrisy
in our national and local politics. Those asking her to
retract her utterance and apologize are wasting their
breath. She must, however, learn not to stoke the fire,
even if she wants to appeal to the "tribal sentiments"
of voters. That's the best we can tell her.
The truth about the
hounding of NDC politicians of Ewe stock by the Kufuor
administration still stands tall for those who have eyes
to see. No amount of denial can wash it away.
Perhaps, what we have to deal with now is to urge the
government to look into why Ms. Attivor is scared of the
future. The government has to investigate her to
determine what she is hiding behind. After all, the
re-branding issue exposed her lack of a good sense of
judgement and she must be grilled and drilled for us to
know what we need to know. Then and only then will we
know why she is afraid of being jailed by an NPP
government.
For now, the critics may be
burning energy to condemn her and do their own kind of
politics with her utterances. It is part of the
political discourse to be tolerated. In the end, I
wonder what problem it will solve.
Our politicians need some
self-restraint to deal with issues tactfully so they
don't provoke needless tension. That's what matters; but
who will listen at a time when some have already geared
up and are flexing muscles to do things as they deem fit
to either retain them in office or win political power
for them?
Ms. Dzifa Attivor's problem
is our collective responsibility as well. Let's not
pretend that we haven't heard anything of the sort
before. She has indeed, awoken a sleeping giant that is
bearing down heavily on us to acknowledge the truth of
our skewed national politics so we can do better
henceforth, especially as Election 2016 approaches.
Those seeking to manipulate her utterance for political
capital had better think twice because it won’t easily
yield the dividends that they have set their eyes on.
I shall return…
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E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com
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