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Opinions of Sunday, 20 August 2017

Columnist: Kofi Thompson

Must we allow the balkanization of our homeland Ghana?

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Sometimes it is pretty hard to understand the motivation that drives some of the members of our nation's political class.

Take the New Patriotic Party's (NPP) obsession with dividing up some of Ghana's existing regions. What is the point in balkanising our homeland Ghana so? Haaba.

In one breath the government in power talks (sensibly) about the need to cut costs in the public-sector - and getting value for money in all government expenditures (a fantastic nation-building idea). Yet, that selfsame government is also bent on embarking on the creation of yet more regions - a needless and expensive enterprise that will only increase the burden on hapless taxpayers and revive unnecessary ancient tribal rivalries: a threat to the stability of our country if ever there was one. Ebeeii.

Why - and to what big-picture grand-idea-end one wonders? This is the 21st century: It is an initiative that simply doesn't make sense - unless of course it is driven entirely, as some allege, by the same secret tribal-supremacist agenda that motivated the leadership of the colonial-era pro-Akan political organisation, the murderous National Liberation Movement (NLM) of infamy.

The question is: Why are some NPP members' collective worldview still influenced by that vile and violent colonial-era political grouping whose leaders (and their political progeny since independence in 1957) always sought to dominate Ghanaian society by stealth - because in their view dominating our nation and lording it over the masses was (and is) their birthright? What perfidy.

Breaking up some of Ghana's regions makes no sense at all from a national cohesion standpoint in the digital age. It is like chasing fool's gold - and the political equivalent of seeing a mirage as the discovery of a new source of water in a parched landscape.

As an old wag I know said to me a few days ago: "Kofi, in an age when thousands of young Ghanaians take online degree courses from universities located in faraway places such as the U.S., whiles others too even trade online serving consumers living in nations across the vast expanses of some of the world's oceans, the curious argument that breaking up some of our ten regions will save ordinary people from having to cover great distances in order to access public services, makes little sense.

No deep thinker will agree with those making that argument. And, furthermore, nothing good will ever come out of it, for sure." That is a bit extreme perhaps - but he might have a point.

The question is: Are those who support the idea of breaking up some of Ghana's existing 10 regions - because in their view it will eliminate the need for ordinary citizens to cover great distances to access public services there - wrong to support the policy of breaking up those existing regions?

Perchance are they making an egregious error of judgement in so doing? Or, worst of all, is the motivating factor really the furtherance of a secret tribal-supremacist agenda set by some of those now ruling our country - as some of its more cynical critics allege?

Whatever be the case, surely, we must not allow the balkanisation of our homeland Ghana by any group of politicians in the united African nation of diverse-ethicity that President Nkrumah of blessed memory bequeathed to Ghanaians?