Ewe Group condemns desocialization of Ewes in 2021 Census Instruments

A Concerned Ewe Group has accused the Ghana Statistical Service of a grand scheme to desocialize Ewes and erasing sub-ethnic groupings of Ewes from the 2021 Population and Housing Census (2021 PHC) national data.

The 2021 PHC instruments identified and coded sub-ethnic groups of major ethnic groups except for the Ewe ethnic group which has no sub-ethnic codings in the enumeration instruments.

The instruments failed to account for Ewe sub-ethnic groups such as Aŋlɔ, Tɔŋu, Ʋedome, Aɖaklu, Avenɔ, Ɖakpa, but accounts for sub-ethnic groups of all other major ethnic groups in Ghana. This renders the instruments unfit and unacceptable for the 2021 census as they failed to accurately account for ethnic diversity as a national data collection instrument.

This grand de-socialization of the Ewes as the group describes it could be seen on pages 295-296 of the Field Officers’ Manual available on the GSS website.

The group in a statement noted that “the erasing of ethnic diversity for the Ewe ethnic group, if not addressed, will affect the quality of the data for use in policy decisions, multidisciplinary research and validation of historical works, targeting of government programmes and social interventions.”

Some chiefs and key stakeholders of Ewe sub-ethnic groups have threatened to use boycott as a way of protest against the GSS if the issue is not resolved before census night.

To them, the purpose of civil registration and vital statistics is to plan properly, so the GSS must heed this timely call to correct this serious flaw.

The GSS has set 27th June, 2021 as the Census Night after which nationwide enumeration of households and institutions begins.