On first impulse, I felt ticklish when I heard an eighty-year-old revolutionary man of a twenty-first century declare the annexation of some parts of Volta, Northern, North Eastern and Upper East Regions from a sovereign nation with fortified military zones land, air and sea, like Ghana. Some have called it a twenty-first century joke, and I suspect former president JJ Rawlings, known for his infamous June 4 revolution, also laughed upon hearing this.
But on an afterthought, nothing’s impossible in a country that nearly experienced a broad day coup at the seat of government. We all attest to how the entire country’s security apparatuses and legal institutions have been marshalled to get to the root of this attempted coup matter. In a world where evil could be plotted overnight, everything and anything is possible.
It was, therefore, relieving to have seen the state address the nation and the rest of the world on such “grey-men” secession. In the press release debunking the purported declaration, leadership didn’t only call the group’s bluff, it also announced actions to extinguish the flaming threat.
Isn’t it bizzare and troubling that, centuries after a cruel partitioning of a continent followed by an inhuman rule and many other divisive colonial legacies, a group of citizens still feel they live in a protectorate which ought to be annexed from a nation which has decided to move on in unison!
The unresolved tussle between these few and an entire nation has caught up with us after ten years after another attempt, this time around a step higher in mockery of our sovereignty and post-independent unity. The historic knowledge that this geographical division was formed by the Germans because of the Berlin conference of 1884 where Africa was shared like a piece of cake among Europe, makes it even more annoying. The remains of colonialism seem to be alive in the black man, and it’s being run with even in present-day post-independent Ghana.
But whilst it’s easy to think these separatists are a bunch of mad people who ought to be arrested, it’s equally important to have a ponder over this act by Mr Kudzodzi and the separatists. And that is the following:
If this is not the first time the Homeland Study Group Foundation (the official convener of this secession) have shown their revolt to create a new country out of our country; if this is the second time they are being stopped through several arrests and recently charged with treason charges, we should step up efforts to addressing this developing war. The last time I checked the group issued a counter-statement showing they never belonged to the Gold Coast, a British colony, they condemned the arrest of its members, and more surprising, it is reported they have decided to go to the United Nations to demand recognition as a ‘country’.
It may feel ticklish now but the development could persist, fracturing our wholeness as a sovereign state with territorial responsibility.