Former Member of Parliament for Kumbungu, Ras Mubarak, has revealed that it was when he started to experience balding that he cut off his dreadlocks.
In an interview with Kofi Adoma on Kofi TV, the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Youth Authority said it was a personal decision to have dreadlocks but cutting them was largely because he was growing bald and also due to his political ambition.
“All my hair is gone now, at some point I was really balding and I felt like just cropping my dreadlocks, in my family, there are a lot of bald people, my grandfather is bald and my father too so I got my baldness at a very early stage so I felt that once the baldness is exposing me then let me just crop everything. So the Lord became officially my barber," he said.
“So in 2011 when I was contesting for primaries in the Ablekuma North constituency, the issue of my rasta became a big debate for my team and me, to stick to my real name or to keep to Ras as part of my names. So we felt the argument to keep to Ras was compelling, so it got stuck and now it's part of my formal names, it's officially my name,” he added.
He also explained how he transitioned from rasta to skinhead.
"I used to have dreadlocks and everyone used to call me rasta in my community and I felt okay with it. So I decided that since everyone referred to me like that, then I will take advantage of that for marketing purposes. Because let's assume you are a politician and you don’t know me and for the first time you heard a rastaman is contesting to win a seat to parliament as a politician, you might definitely want to check that person out,” he added.