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Opinions of Tuesday, 13 October 2020

Columnist: Atta Poku

The case for Nana Kwaku Bonsam candidacy

Fetish priest, Nana Kwaku Bonsam Fetish priest, Nana Kwaku Bonsam

Our generation demands a leader but not a ruler.

A leader is a candidate with a vision to lead his people to a destination while a ruler sits to rule over his people.

Offinso North needs a visionary representative in parliament to be part of the decision-making process using his experience and vision for the people in the community.

The background and vision of Nana Kwaku Bonsam make him an ideal candidate in a time such as this.

Many are quick to write him off for his candidacy. The fact of the matter is that, in such a time as this, his candidacy is divinely inspired left to the spiritually inclined to discern.

Like in the Biblical time when God in his divine wisdom sent prophet Hosea to go and marry a harlot for a divine purpose, so in our time is the Almighty going to use one of his children in the person of Nana Kwaku Bonsam for a purpose. This is prophetic, Hosea 1 verses 2.

A vote for Nana Kwaku Bonsam, is a vote for Freedom and Justice, vote for development, vote for African personality and Black emancipation.

Ghana as a nation has practised the alien system called Western democracy for over 60 years. Kwame Nkrumah’s government which built the most SOLIDEST foundation that any government had built, was made up of people who looked like think like and behaved like Nana Kwaku Bonsam.

Many of Kwame Nkrumah’s ministers were mere standard seven graduates, yet they were able to deliver on the government. Our today’s government are filled with university graduates: doctors, lawyers, teachers, but our results have been the same old. One may ask, how cometh that we do have these university graduates with all these big titles in governments but government performance don’t correlate the high academic degrees.

Government and nation-building require something more than university qualifications. In fact, if our history has taught us anything, it is that the western university education has taken away our ability to think and act patriotically. We would like to look like them think like them, instead of being who we are.

Before the advent of western education, our forefathers successfully ran big empires like the Ashanti empire, Oyo empire. The people who successfully run these empires were without any western education. The proponents of our western education only sought to make Africans proficient in reading but not to think.

No wonder we have had all these big titles but with no big achievements in our governments. The Kwame Nkrumah and General Kutu Acheampong governments have taught us that, with people with what we call “efie nyansa” more can be done in government.

How can we build an African community with a European mindset?

It is about time we fall on the wisdom of our elders and traditionalists, and this makes Nana Kwaku Bonsam an ideal candidate for our present-day government.

An adverse legacy of western education in our system is the cultivation of corruption which is the major cause of our underdevelopment.

Most of our governments are full of corrupt officials, and these have succeeded in wrecking many economies without an appropriate check. They all swear with the Bible and Quoran to be faithful and truthful, yet they are the very people who siphon millions of government monies into secret foreign banks.

50 billion dollars are siphoned out of Africa annually by African politicians. These are the very people who swear with the Bible and Quorans. Our people today don’t fear God/Allah. They fear Abosom more than God. In my holy village of Kronum Afrancho, a footpath passed behind my uncles' house, and people using the footpath used to urinate behind the house.

My uncle put up a sign “Do not urinate here” and the warning went unheeded. He then put a black pot covered halfway with a white calico with some three eggs in it and placed it behind the house.

People did not stop urinating there, they stopped using the path completely. Our African gods are powerful. They don’t have the grace and compassion to forgive 77 times 7. They are like the old Testament God, one strike and you are out. If our African politicians are made to swear with our traditional gods like Antoa shrine, Brakune together with the Bible and Quoran, in parliament undoubtedly, there will be tangible results.

Our people who swear with the gods of our land never ever abuse their oath of office and go scot-free. This makes nana Kwaku Bonsam an ideal candidate for our government at a time as this.

From time memorials our forefathers have organized our African communities with tenacious wisdom and competence, and it's about time we return to our roots. We need a man with a vision and had delivered.

In his private life he saw the need of the farming community of Offinso North as traditional tomato growers for generations, but getting little income for their farming proceeds. Nana Kwaku Bonsam with his own resources had built a market for the community before.

He started free education for the community before the government free SHS program. Now is the time to build on his vision, and the visionary is the one whose records are tangible. Nana comes with many qualities which a yearning community desires and needs.