Coups & Tribalism and have halted progress in Africa

Dr Bosomtwe Sam, Former Ghana Ambassador to East Africa under the First Republic, at weekend said ethnicity and coup d'etat were two pertinent factors that have stunted progress in Africa. Ethnicity was nothing but an insane adherence to a tiny group of people in the society, who try to assert themselves over the others, he said.

Dr Sam, who is also a former Director of the Bureau of African Affairs, was speaking at the Afrikan Conscious Lectures organised every Saturday by Afrikan World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission at the Du Bois Memorial Centre in Accra.

The lectures were directed at creating the awareness in Africans on the need to be the masters of their own destiny for progress on the continent. Dr Sam noted that since the community was made up of different people of varied ethnic backgrounds, "there is the need for them to interact to appreciate the socio-cultural values of one another so that their claims for privileges and rights should not be abused by others".

He noted that the ready acceptance by Africans of Western ideology and proposals was not the best attitude for progress in Africa. He said proposals from Western Countries to Africans needed to be analysed and should not be swallowed hook, line and sinker.

Dr Sam said since public opinion was the main factor in determining whether a government would stay in power or not during elections, there was the need to formulate the right kind of public opinion among Africans for progress.

He said this could be done through education for Africans to gain the knowledge that would make them to appreciate the wisdom in the logic that leaders on the continent should formulate coherent and achievable policies that were not the appendages of Western decisions.

Mr Sedjro Theophile Houessinon, Former Benin Ambassador to Ghana, said there was the need for Africans to see beyond their immediate problems and envision a strong continent that could give them economic independence.

He said the struggle required a lot of awareness and added that Africans needed to make efforts to unite economically, since increased economic activities among the various African nations could foster unity. Mrs Ramel Moore, a former Director of the Du Bois Centre, noted that those caught up in ethnicity and racism were retarding progress and would have to start everything from a painful scratch. She said tendencies stemming from entrenched attitudes should be done away with so that the old convictions did not become instruments averse to progress.