Queenmothers and the Broadcast of Ghana
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong

That Ghana was created by the British colonialist is a fact. That because of the British colonial interest only natural resources and population density areas were developed is unarguable. That this made the broadcast of public goods either Gold Coast-wide or Ghana-wide limited is indefensible. And that in the face of all these the overall pre-colonial and post-colonial development paradigms were driven by the feelings of patriarchy is untenable. It is in this atmosphere that Ghanaian women find themselves, even prominent and fruitful Queenmothers and women leaders such as legendary Asante’s Yaa Asantewaah aren’t immune.

In terms of holistic development called for today, to awaken all traditional values in Ghana’s development process, the conviction is that such unbalanced development climate has stifled Ghanaian women’s progress. This is despite their famed hard work and as the main sustainer of society in the face of poverty-induced social stress and strain. With post-independent Ghanaian governments not enlightened enough and not having fuller grasp of their traditional environment adequately, the fuller broadcast of the central government have not been Ghana-wide. This isn’t in terms of the Ghanaian geography but spread of public goods and gender balance, making the greater appropriation of Ghanaian women into the formal development process wobbly at best – more or less like what existed at the pre-colonial era. But gradually as the greater discussion of Ghana’s development process becomes critical, refined, and much more holistic than before, Nana Ato Arthur, the Central Regional Minister has recognized that traditional Queenmothers, for long overlooked in the participatory development process, play decisively vital function in local governance and productions.

As part of the emerging knowing and understanding of Ghana, Nana Ato, reports the Ghana News Agency (27 November, 2007), is advocating “a development fund to enhance” traditional Queenmothers’ contributions to national development. Despite the historical troubles of patriarchy that has blinded many from seeing through the suffocation of Queenmothers in the development process, Nana Ato, with remarkable grasp of the Ghanaian development process, more informed by the perspectives of traditional Ghanaian values and the long-running limitations of the broadcast of public goods Ghana-wide, argues that traditional Queenmothers are not only confronted by needless antagonism with traditional Chiefs over the allocation of public goods but also, in a dance of power, “as to who should represent their traditional areas at function” and execution of development projects.

In Nana Ato, we see the long-running omission and invisibility of Ghanaian Queenmothers in not only official “gazetting,” the playground of the egocentric patriarchy, but also Ghanaian historiography, a throwback to the lopsided African and imperial historiography, as Helen Bradford, of South Africa’s University of Cape Town, argues, that neglected women, and that has impacted negatively on Ghana’s progress. Yet still, in Nana Ato, this historical error is being resolved in the form of building the “capacity” of the Queenmothers so as to “empower” them for progress.

The capacity building and empowerment is necessitated by the fact that despite the Ghanaian Constitution giving Chiefs and Queenmothers certain equal roles such as facilitators of the acquisition of traditional lands under their jurisdiction for development, Queenmothers are sometimes shoved aside by the power-intoxicated Chiefs and other “Big Men.” But this aside, the new Ghanaian realities where development projects and concerns are played out in the midst of chieftaincy disputes, Queenmothers, better at midwifing development projects than men, and by nature less corrupt than men, could be, as Nana Ato rightly observed, the key mobilizers of not only rural Ghanaians but also the undisciplined urban ones for development.

In Nana Ato and his traditional Queenmothers capacity building and empowerment, Ghanaian policy-makers, bureaucrats and consultants are not only expectedly becoming rigorously very detail about Ghana’s development process, unlike yesteryears, but comprehending the Ghana nation-state from its foundational traditional norms and values. This is seen in Nana Ato’s revelation that Queenmothers, despite being much more trustful careers of developmental nuances, don’t part-take sufficiently enough in Regional Houses of Chiefs’ development deliberations, including their non-payment of “allowances like the Paramount Chiefs.” Arrogance of patriarchy to the detriment of Ghana’s larger progress! Yes!

The challenge isn’t only the issue of equalization of Chiefs and Queenmothers in the progress game but how to address the thorny issue of power, as driven by patriarchy, in the development process. It is in doing this that the developmental role of Queenmothers, as complement to the Chiefs and the various levels of governments, will see Ghana broadcast nation-wide and correct many a deliberate development error caused by the British Colonialist.

Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, Canada, November 29, 2007