Public Agenda (Accra)
Peter Fuseini Haruna
4 August 2008
opinion
Accra — How can we make sense of the Bawku crisis? Is it even possible to begin to make sense of such a crisis? Most observers attribute it solely to an underlying chieftaincy dispute that has historically colored inter-ethnic and inter-cultural relations there.
While chieftaincy dimensions cannot be denied, I take a broader and more encompassing perspective and argue that the Bawku incident is a sad reflection of a quiet crisis in our governance experiment. Bawku is symptomatic of a much deeper and broader problem in our national psyche: ethnic suspicion and intolerance. We need to acknowledge sincerely what has happened in Bawku and learn from its hard lessons; otherwise, "Bawku" may repeat itself in other equally volatile and well-known flash-points of our nation.
Geographically, Bawku as both a township and a wider settlement area is isolated from most parts of Ghana. Until relatively recently it took nearly twenty hours to reach Bawku by road from Accra. Before the recent creation of new districts (Bawku West and Garu-Tempani), Nakpanduri scarp formed the southeastern border with Mamprugu area while the Red Volta was the western most boundary with the Nabdam area. The inhabitants probably find it easier and faster to do business with neighboring Togo and Burkina Faso than with the most urbanized centers of Ghana. Western-style education arrived later in Bawku than any of its northern neighbors. And yet Bawku developed into a highly priced location for small-scale business and agriculture.
What is the unique character of Bawku? What distinguishes Bawku from the other northern areas? I would argue that our people are humble, warm, caring, hard working, peaceful, and decent rural folks. While they may be poor, they are socialized to believe that there is always dignity in poverty. The so-called traditional way of life characterized by a sense of community is deep-rooted and abundantly cherished. In addition, Bawku is more ethnically diverse than any other area in the northern sector of Ghana.
Like other parts of Ghana, there are majority and minority ethnic groups. Yet it is true that almost all the major northern ethnic groups are represented there. Households tend to be multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic. Like several of my numerous friends, I was raised in such a multi-ethnic household and grew up multi-lingual.
For those of us who were born and raised there, Bawku has always been a source of pride and hope. Early on in our elementary school education we were obliged to use English as the umbrella language that brought us together as a community. In secondary school, we had a common name: We were referred to as "Bawku students" whether in NODASCO, TAMASCO, NAVASCO, BOSCO, or GHANASCO, etc. Our multi-ethnic families and communities raised and trained us to embrace and share our common heritage and socio-economic background.
Given this sociological background description, what is it that has caused Bawku to shake to its very foundation as a civil society? Several commentators attribute this frustratingly endless crisis to a chieftaincy dispute that has festered for far too long. This line of inquiry seems to be what many people have bought into. While that may be true, let us bear in mind that Bawku is not the only area with a chieftaincy problem.
In fact, our nation is plagued with chieftaincy issues and tensions. Every region has its fair share of such squabbles. Why this is so has not been accorded as much attention as it should have been. It is a question that we have to confront, address, and redress. And it is a governance-related issue that cannot and should not be ignored.
Aside from the general comment that I have proffered, I know nothing about chieftaincy affairs. I will therefore prefer to leave it to the experts in that area to deal with. As an administrationist and a public service practitioner, I have been trained to develop the big picture perspective and examine public problems in their complexity.
In that regard, conflicts such as the one Bawku now faces should be placed in the broader context of our nation building effort to make sense out of them. Since independence, we have tended to take our relative peace and security for granted; issues of potential conflict and actual conflicts often have been addressed myopically rather than comprehensively as integral parts of our development process.
Despite tensions among local, regional, and national loyalty, we have scarcely paid attention, which is costing us so dearly.
We are enthralled with ideas that government and public administration should emphasize macro structures, functions, and economic outcomes.
We assume that if we can liberalize our weak economy, sustain growth, and implement multiparty elections then development and progress will follow naturally. This is the mindset driving our so-called "Vision 2020" that supposedly will turn us into a middle-income nation.
In short, our entire development effort over the course of the twentieth century focused on catching up with the world's most industrialized nations. Sadly, Ghana has been cited as a success story of reform, but as the millennium progresses our human condition lags behind in terms of all the social, economic, and political indicators. Have we made progress? Probably, but this is at the great expense of our national unity and cohesion.
This is the context in which we should understand Bawku and other conflict-striven areas in our national life. We have invested so little of our national treasure in building the structures and processes necessary for unifying and integrating us. We have created local government units that lack administrative and political capacity to build relationships among ethnicities, genders, and classes. It is not surprising that much of our national discourse is more about personalities and less about our dear nation and how it can hold together. In the hustle and bustle of politics all of this gets lost.
Not too long ago, I pleaded in this paper for the creation of a ministry of national reconciliation, integration, and unity. In the context of the conflicts occurring around the nation, we need to ask ourselves one critical question: what can we do to create better understanding among ethnicities? Bawku is both a wake-up call and an opportunity to seek answers to that question. A peaceful and a more tolerant nation is all we can bequeath to our future generations
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