UNITED WE STAND STAND AS A NATION-STATE

When you sow seeds of division, you reap fruits of division; and when you sow seeds of unity, you reap fruits of unity. A strong nation-state strives on the strengths of its diversities, not democratization of divisions called in Political Science parlance Divide and Rule.

From the records since pre-independence days, the Gold Coast and the protectorates had been faced with challenges of how to unite the diverse ethnic groups into one nation state. Through the concerted efforts of Dr Kwame Nkrumah the divisions were mended to form the nation state call Ghana. However, after the first coup the forces of division raised their ugly heads.                                                                                                  

Since 1992 as a young adult in Secondary School, I follow the democratization process of my country Ghana. With my privilege of studying Political Science in the University, I listened to arguments of some of my Lectures trying to justify why a particular political party will win the elections; especially prior to the 2004 elections, with divisive tribalistic arguments. Some even took cosmopolitan areas like Accra, segment them into density of tribes to make conclusions on why they thought a particular political party would win a constituency and the presidential ballots.

Unfortunately this methodology which I call “Little Minds Divisive Analogy” permeates media analysis today and political parties are feeding on it, if not perpetuating it. In fact, my little advice to those who think they can divide Ghana and through division they can maintain themselves in power or wrestle power should change the strategy. Because what divided us at independence which politicians of those days took advantage of are weaker now than before.

Two of them worth mentioning. First, some political groupings at independence took advantage of tribal divisions, but now Ghanaians are more integrated through inter marriages which make us related to each other than before. Secondly, illiteracy of electorates was taken advantage of, but now many Ghanaians are much educated intellectually and politically. Today even people from one family belong to two or more political parties, and there are voters we now call “swing voters”, which attests to political education and knowledge of the country. And this is the thing; no political party can win power in Ghana with divisive tendencies.

From evaluations no political party can cross 48.5% with its so call “divisive support base”. It will take the personality of a leader who promotes or is seeing promoting a united front of Ghana to win 50+1% at the polls. This fact can be seen since 2000 elections. My candid advice is: political parties should duel on policy and program strategies, and critics of each other's policies, rather than dividing the population on tribal lines to win elections. Because, it is worrying the kind of ethnocentric internal memos parties are distributing, which are very divisive and insult to decent minds.

Parties should note that they will find it difficult to govern a divided nation state, and what is currently happening in USA should be a lesson to us. United we stand, divided we fall. We must all note that, what units us as a nation state is stronger than what divided us at independence. We are strong together than divided.  #IStandForGhana I stand for a united strong Ghana. #IStandForNationalInterest

Moses A. Katamani 
Copyright@November, , 2016