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Who Is the First-Class Ghanaian?
A Story of Tribalism, Religion, and Sectionalism in Ghana and the Way Forward
By Albin Akansake iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2013 Albin Akansake
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-8537-5
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
MIRIGU
At the age of six, my mother wanted me to start going to school. She enrolled me into a local school. However, back then I used to hate waking up early in the morning. Sometimes my parents would have to resort to singing songs to try to coax me from my bed. Little did I know that going to school was a privilege and that it was very essential to my future. My mum would sometimes tell me that if I showered and went to school then upon my return she would buy me food and new clothes. I soon realized that these promises were all simply tricks and ruses.
I recall one particular week day when I woke up and my mother tried to convince me to go to school. "Albin, do you see that jersey of Abedi Pele that Thomas wore when you guys were playing soccer yesterday?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"I will buy you a nicer one if you go to school today," she said.
"No I am not," I responded. "Unless I see it, I won't go."
From that day onward she stopped trying to get me to go to school by offering nice rewards and resolved instead to beat me until I got up and got ready for school.
My brother Vitus and I walked to school every morning. As I would already be filled with frustration on this walk I would take it on any children who would play around with me to beat them.
* * *
The norm in Ghana schools is for every school to have a parade for announcements before marching to classrooms with marching songs. In Nabango L/A Junior High School, the parade song went like this:
Good morning, good morning, good morning, Mr Awini
Good morning, how are you?
I come to make a complaint
About the Ashanti people
The people of Ashanti
They have no sense
When the gun is fired
They cry bue, bue
Bue, bue, bue, bue, ajieeeebue
Buebue, they cry buebue.
I never understood the meaning of this song until one day when I arrived home from school and asked my grandmother Azina about the lyrics. When I sang the song she laughed and asked why I was so interested in it. I kept insisting that she told me about its origins and meaning though, and eventually she started to talk me about the old days when the colonial masters arrived in Ghana.
My grandmother said that the colonial masters first settled along the Cape Coast, all the way to Kumasi (historically spelled as "Comassie") in the Ashanti region. She informed me that their main aim was to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the infidels (evangelism). Later, their attention shifted to trading; they adopted a system of trade called "the barter system of trade" where goods were exchanged for goods. Because at that point the black man had not yet discovered what is known today as "money", they would bring finished products, such as cooking utensils, items of clothing, and silver pans for fetching water from the bole holes to be exchanged in return for rich mineral resources, that is, gold, diamond, bauxite, and iron.
In those days, black men used to cover themselves with fresh leaves from trees and with locally manufactured cloths called "malleats". "Malleats" were made by taking out the body of a fresh tree and beating it as fresh as it was until it became softer and then mixing it with some chemicals. These later graduated to become what is called "kente", which is a local wear in Ghana until date.
The white man later discovered that black men were of sufficient strength and capability to be brought to the West for farming in the "Green revolution". White men therefore started to buy slaves, later using force to bring slaves that were resistive. That was the period when they started showing guns and other ammunitions that the Ashanti man had not seen before. When the "warning shot" was fired just to intimidate the black man, they could be known to scream, in loud voices and in the local dialect, "Bue, bue, bue" and "Ajeei, ajeei, ajeei," which means, "Ahh, Ahh, Lord, Lord, Lord". When the other tribes later came to discover this story, they used it to mock the Ashanti tribe, claiming that they responded as cowards.
This was an even later story, but the original gun mockery started with the Fantes. And even today, the Ashantis themselves use it as a mockery tool against the Fantes. When the white man originally arrived on the African soil, their first contact was at Cape Coast, at the southernmost tip of Ghana, an area occupied by the Fantes. The Fanti people used to cry at the sight of the guns because they had never seen them before. Colonial masters used to gather the Fanti people together in a room in which there was also a gun. As the people were afraid they would remain in the room the whole day. The colonist used to tell them that if they left the room the gun would turn on them and shoot them. When they wanted to use the urinal, they would bow to the gun and say, "Magyaotu, mpakyew me pe de me koagya nan ba anti oyaa mentum," which roughly translates to, "My Lord gun, I want to use the restroom; please don't shoot me."
Over time the colonists discovered gold and cocoa in Ghana. In the Ashanti land they extended their territory. When they shot their guns in the Ashanti land the people would run around shouting, "Agyae, agyae, agyae!" meaning "Oh my goodness!" The song about the Ashantis came into being because of their coward behaviour. The song is more of a tribal song to denigrate the Ashanti tribe.
* * *
As a child I didn't know that there were any tribes apart from the Fafra tribe, so the story that my grandmother told me did not concern me that much. I was more concerned about my rice after school. In the northern region, not all families were able to feed their children three times a day. Some families had to eat rice only yearly during holidays like Christmas and Easter. As the climate changes, the desert keeps invading the northern part of Ghana and, coupled with their single raining season, farmers harvest crops only once a year. Most of the farming is peasantry, so food scarcity and chronic poverty are major issues in the northern part of Ghana.
As I got older I began to gradually gain wisdom and to differentiate between many things. When I visited my friends and I saw their families, I would always see my friends' fathers living with them, that is, with the whole family, as a household. So one day I decided to ask my mother about my father. When we were sitting down one day I asked, "Mum, who is my father?"
She was surprised at the question, and she bowed her head down for a while. Finally, she replied, but with a question of her own. "Albin, what made you ask this question?"
"Well, I have been going to my friends' houses, and I always see them with their fathers and families, but when I come home I have no one to call 'father'. So where is he?"
"Your father has travelled to Yeji [a city in the Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana], where he was born," she informed.
"So when is he coming back?" I asked.
"I don't know, sweetie."
Every morning I would start to cry because I wanted to go and see my father. My mother's friend Azoya came to her one day and told her to tell me the truth. So on the next morning my mother called me outside to sit with her on a traditional stool. Then she began:
"Your father was born in Sirigu, a village in the Upper East Region of Ghana, to a 42-year-old woman. The woman had already gone through the menopause, and she had difficulty conceiving children. Her husband lived in Yeji [a settlement in Kenya's Coast Province] and was a security guard. The couple tried diligently to have children, but when it did not happen then they went for help. They went to a herbalist and a traditional healer in Mirigu [in the Upper East Region, too, and not far from Sirigu] who happens to be your granddad. The herbalist told her that he could only help her if she got married to him. She agreed and married him, and together they had a son called Azipala. Azipala was your father, and his name meant 'no one knows your destiny'.
"He grew up in Yendi [in the northeastern quadrant] and attended school there, but he returned to Mirigu to practice as a people teacher. He wanted to save some money for college. That was around the time that I met him.
"We started dating and got married. In 1982 we had our first baby boy, and that was your elder brother, Vitus. We had you later, in 1986. As for many new couples, it was difficult for us to depend on your father's salary. Your father used to go to Yedi at times to work as a 'by day' or 'paa'. In the year after you were born there was a day when he embarked on his usual routine journey, but he never returned back. I heard he died of heart disease and TB."
My father, whose life had been a complete mystery to me, now became real. This was especially so when my mother said that I was a complete photocopy of him. My physical features and my behaviour were apparently a replica of his, and that is why they had called me Albin, a name deriving from the word "Albinism".
My mother had another child, Olivia, with her boyfriend. As a mother of three children life became tougher for her, and she considered moving south to make a better life for herself and her family. However, since the north had a paternal system, the family did not want her to move with her children. In the middle of one night, she ran away with us.
She put me in a silver pan and carried it on her head. She carried my sister on her back. My older brother walked to Natugnia [in the Upper East Region].
ASONKWA
We finally settled in Nkoranza, a district of Brong-Ahafo, where my mother's father lived. The main source of income for her father's family was farming. Living in Brong-Ahafo was life-changing, as it was the beginning of my tribal experience.
In my village I went to school with people of a different background. I met people from the Frafra tribe and people from the Akan tribe. I found out that the Akan people had difficulty understanding me when I spoke. They would make fun of me and even call me "ante boi", meaning someone who did not understand their language.
Whenever they called me "ante boi", I responded by calling them "kambombi-zorigo". This phrase meant that Ashanti boys had no common sense. Because of the parade song at Nabango L/A Junior High School I believed at this point that Ashantis were cowards and that they had no common sense.
As I continued at the school, eventually I started to speak in a way that was understood, and I began to adopt parts of the new culture. I dropped some of the northern mentality and picked up some of the southern mentality. However, instead of things getting better as I grew and matured, it got worse. I started to know the meaning of terms like "ta ni", "pepeni", "sremni", and "aboa", and the rest, which were all Akan tribal bigotries used to make fun of the northern tribes.
These terms were annoying, and I found myself agitated whenever I heard them, because I had the mentality that Ashantis were not human beings. In the north I had heard stories about the Ashantis being dwarfs with tails. I had heard that by nature they were very short, but when they started having affairs with northerners they procreated normal human beings. So my mind was full of these lies and false stories. It is like in the north they paint a black picture of the Ashantis and, in the south, they paint a black picture of the northeners.
BIREM
Such tribal comments did not end at this point, as I then moved to Birem in the Ashanti region to attend my primary six there. In Birem I came to realize that ethnocentrism does not only exist for the Akans and for the northerners, but that also between the Akans themselves are in existence the beliefs of certain groups in their superiority. The Akan itself is a large tribe made up of the Ashanti people, the Fantes, the Akuapem, the Bono people, the Ahafo people, the Nzema people, the Akyem, and many more. Although these Akan tribes have similar cultures and almost a similar language, there are still numerous differences that exist between them. Tribal comments levelled against one another are not only between the Akans and the northern tribes but between the Akans themselves, with each tribe claiming superiority over the others. When it comes to electing a national leader, each tribe would also like to have a representation, which is practically impossible, and is something that always causes great political tensions, although Ghana is considered to be the beacon of Africa's democracy.
BADU
The four years I spent in the Brong-Ahafo region enabled me to understand the language commonly used there. So when I got to Badu, I met Ashantis who mocked me when I spoke their language. Throughout my one-year stay in Birem I was known as "maatwa" instead of "matwa". This originated when our teacher, Mr Addae, marked our class assignment and distributed it to the class, and I had one question marked wrong. My friend Nkrumah had provided the same answer, but his was marked correct. So after comparing it to his I tried telling Nkrumah that mine was marked wrong, saying, "Weimaatwansowaati me." Meaning, I had it right, and the teacher marked me wrong.
I also remember from this time a single song that almost generated a tribal war between the Ashantis and the Brongs. It was a song called "Yefri Tuobodom ye capital town ne Gyenegyene"; it gave an avenue for the Ashantis to make fun of the Brongs in Kumasi. When people came from Techiman and the nearby villages to transact businesses in Kumasi the Bono people felt insulted, and, out of anger, they would retaliate with insults.
Because things were not going in my mum's favour as she tried her hand at petty trading, she made the decision to go back to Nkoranza to her father. However, I was left behind with Mr Francis, a Roman catechist, because I was a good mass servant and a Bible reader. In fact, I was the only child among the group of children who could read the Twi version of the Bible. And, as is typical of rural communities in developing countries, adult illiteracy was high, so whenever the reverend father came around they had to look for me to read the Bible in both morning devotion service and in the daily mass service, at the age of 11. However, I later joined my mother because I couldn't be away from her for too long.
I started JSS, but as all of my friends and classmates were migrating to towns like Techiman in the hopes of getting a quality education, I also started to desire studying in the city. It was believed that those who studied in the cities achieved higher scores to gain entrance into better schools than those in the villages. I told my mum of my wishes, but she told me that she could not afford to pay for fees in the city. The only option my mum saw as being left was to send me to my granddad, who lived in Badu and who was the district circuit supervisor of education.
Badu is a community in the midst of Brong-Ahafo, but it has its own native language—Kolango, or badu language—that is different from the language that is spoken in the rest of the Brong-Ahafo region.
I started JSS and, as usual, tribal comments rose up. Tribalism in Ghana is practised in almost every household. Even as children, we were faced with tribalism, for example, in the election of a class prefect. I understood this when our class teacher, Mr Effah, dethroned our class prefect by the name of Christian and asked for applications from members of the class for a new prefect. No on applied but myself, and thus Mr Effah came to class one day and instated me automatically as the new class prefect. I was faced with challenges and insults from my co-students. They questioned why a "dagaree" or a "frafra" should lead the class. Instead of focusing on my abilities they judged me on the basis of my tribe. The question I always wanted to ask myself is which tribe is it that has been endorsed by our constitution to inherit leadership. I resigned my position as class prefect because of the lack of cooperation.
WENCHI
Two years later I had passed my Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), and I was preparing to go to high school. My mother could not pay for boarding fees, but she provided instead for me to rent a room at Wenchi, a private hostel with low charges in comparison to boarding fees. Living in Wenchi was a wonderful experience because it exposed me to so many things in life. I had a wonderful intercultural experience. I had thought that ethnocentrism and the use of racial comments only existed among the children, the illiterates, and the villagers. However, little did I know that even educated elites are also ethnocentric.
A man by the name of Mr Dadzi, an elective maths teacher, was teaching class one afternoon. As he was explaining mathematical problems, he stated that solving a maths problem is like looking for a "ta ni" and happens to come across "Aso". He said that you should not bother asking where the "ta ni" is upon meeting the "Aso" but should just continue on your journey, and you would surely meet the "ta ni" on your way. He basically meant that "Ntafo" are mostly farmers in the villages; they are always identified by their hoes and cutlasses. Therefore, if you are looking for a northerner, you will meet the hoe and then eventually you will meet the northerner.
It represented a denigration of the northern community of the class, and it caused confusion between northern and Ashanti students as they tried to look down on each other. The teacher of the class, someone who was supposed provide an example for his students, was rather entertaining such ideas. When will tribalism and racism not be a threat to our security, as for what our founders fought? Three brave men laid down their lives because of the injustice and maltreatment by the colonial government. They did not die for one tribe; they died for Ghana and its social justice. So why is our nation divided in our days?
* * *
My first academic year of high school ended successfully, and I went back to the village. When I arrived home I found that things had changed since the last time I had been there. My mother was sick and very weak. She did not have the means to go to the hospital, so she had resorted to taking local herbal medicine and praying for a return to good health. However, she got worse. One day she was rushed to the hospital. She died there of malaria and asthma.
The next morning my brother Vitus and I were talking about girls when my grandfather came to the house and called my older brother outside. "Vitus, Vitus, Vitus," he said.
"Ba baa," Vitus replied.
"Your mother just died in Techiman Hospital."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Who Is the First-Class Ghanaian? by Albin Akansake. Copyright © 2013 by Albin Akansake. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc..
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