I agree with President Mahama: Ghana can learn something from the people of Akuapem; he was referring to the peaceful settlement of a 20-year-old dispute which was sealed with one of the grandest Odwira durbars in living history.
More of that later; for now, I will like to expand that sentiment to read as follows: Ghana can learn a lot from Ghanaians. Sounds like a nonsense? I plead guilty with explanation.
There has to be two Ghanas, perhaps more, when it comes to the different degrees of organisational acumen and the patriotic dedication that goes with it.
In the one corner is the official Ghana – the one you and I are familiar with; which collects our taxes, has soldiers and police and ministers and DCEs and the whole boatload of “honourables” and their cohorts. In the other corner is another Ghana – let us call it the traditional Ghana, which has no power but rides on the crest of ancient authority.
Here is the contrast. I was at Akropong last Friday for the climax of the Akuapem Odwira Festival. Organising any festival is a huge undertaking involving thousands of people whose roles have been played by their ancestors since time immemorial.
There is no written script but every drummer, every dancer, every chief, sub-chief and village joker knows their role in a tightly choreographed drama for which life itself is the never-ending rehearsal.
Last Friday was a revelation. The pageant was so sublimely beautiful that I was covered in goose bumps but not from the cool mountain air. I wondered whether the people who put on this show came from the same stock as the genus that cannot organise a drink up in a brewery. Okay, let me not run ahead of myself.
A traditional festival procession is a statement of history and cannot be done haphazardly. Every chief has to be in a designated place at a precise time; every palanquin has to be away from the next one by lengths measured in fastidiousness.
Nothing can go wrong; nothing is allowed to go wrong. Interestingly, most of the people in this huge undertaking are volunteers; they are not paid for doing what they do but they do it with relish.
The pageant is not preceded by a costly workshop for which participants receive appearance fees; the cost of “conference beverages” is borne by individual drinkers at the many drinking spots that take over main street during festivals.
Contrast that with how the other Ghana does its things. If traditional festivals were organised by the state, quite a few results could be predicted without fail. First, the cost would be gargantuan. Imagine the number of meetings that would be called in posh hotels just to plan the next meeting.
Imagine the number of people whose “T and T” would have to be paid every time they moved one foot; add the stolen bit and the result could represent the budgets of many rural districts.
In the end, not even the massive expenditure would ensure success. Murphy’s Law works every time for official Ghana: everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
In the end, we would require a presidential commission to go into what went wrong. Ahead of that, one predictable result would be lateness. Nothing involving official Ghana ever starts on time. We need a presidential commission to go into this one because it costs us too much in money, time, human resource assets and more.
Last Friday, traditional Ghana got its act together. The chiefs and their retinues finished their procession and gathered at the durbar grounds and waited for the President.
I do not know His Excellency’s scheduled arrival time but the waiting time was rather long. It was not his fault. What happened was an example of official Ghana at its worse. The President of the Republic could not find an access road to the durbar!
This is what happened: Official Ghana had arrived and blocked the main road into the Presbyterian College of Education where the durbar was held. You know what I mean; hundreds of the latest 4 x 4 machines all lined up and going nowhere. We had Mercedes, Toyotas, Range Rovers, Volvos, you name it.
They came with exotic names conjured by Brandland for the edification of the immortal soul seeking momentary glory in off-road hardware: Discovery, Sportage, Panda, Kuga, and the all-conquering Land Cruiser.
I almost felt proud to be a citizen of a country that has so many different types of expensive vehicles which had been bought mostly by cocoa money.
Many of the Akuapem people who come from far and near for the Odwira are cocoa farmers. They sat in the sun waiting for the President whose access had been blocked by humungous machines bought by cocoa money. As M.C Hammer once sang: Can’t touch this!
So here were the people assembled and waiting for the President whose path had been blocked by the great and the good whose cars had been abandoned without a thought on the main road.
How did official Ghana respond? Chaotically, of course. Official Ghana, in the form of some police officers and plainclothes men argued among themselves, while others on motorbikes kept riding in circles.
In the end, the President entered the durbar grounds by another route while the police argued on the main road.
Meanwhile, the people exhibited the same patience that led to the peaceful dispute resolution which the President recommended to other areas of Ghana to emulate.
The resolution of the dispute is a significant achievement of the Akuapem people and could provide lessons for other areas embroiled in chieftaincy disputes as suggested by President Mahama.
However, the President should go beyond encouraging others to emulate the Akuapem example. As the President, he can cause it to be studied, adopted and applied in other parts of the country.
The President mentioned specifically four conflict areas, Dagbon, Bawku, Nkonya and Alavanyo; while the content and context of their particular disputes may differ from the Akuapem case, the principle underlying the Akuapem settlement, namely a willingness to find a peaceful solution without resorting to violence can be applied to all conflict situations. This will require more than encouragement to emulate, based on moral persuasion.
I think it is also important to question the value of official participation in traditional festivals if all the high government officials do is to make a speech and depart.
The President, Vice-President and all high state officials are busy people, but they are busy for our sake. Would it not be better if the people in charge of protocol planned their participation in such a manner that enabled them to actually enjoy the essence of the festivals?
Too often these days, the President arrives at a function, delivers a speech and departs in a burst of tires, wind and sand. Now you see him, now you don’t. Actually, it is a pity because he missed the best part of the show.
A day of great traditional pageantry ended badly and abruptly for me when a crafty thief stole my Galaxy tab right from my shoulder bag. I had just taken a picture with it and put it back when one young man distracted me from the right.
Appearing to fall on me as people pushed this way and that, I tried to pull away from the crowd and in an instant the tablet had disappeared from its bag. It was a professional job well executed.
There was no point reporting this theft to the police; they were too busy sorting out the President’s passage to the durbar grounds.
