The aforementioned headline sums up the dangerous trend of tribal politics being championed unfortunately by the President in the run-up to the December 7 polls. It is ironic and preposterous that the President who should know better about the minefield which the subject poses, is the man leading the charge.
His most preferred method of getting people from his home region to vote for him has now assumed the status of a mantra, drawing public ridicule as it makes the rounds. No President worth his salt in a multi-ethnic society should be seen to be festering the mantra “Vote For Me I’m One Of You.”
He applied the dangerous module in the 2012 campaign when he told the people of the Northern Regions to consider him as their kinsman and vote for him accordingly. Those whose voices should have been heard condemning the divisive campaign tactics preferred the silent mode leaving only politicians on the other side of the divide and a few others to state their opprobrium to the President’s offensive political ploy.
It was not as if the anomalous remarks highlighted by its ethnocentric undertones were not being heard loud and clear: those whose voices should be heard when such dangerous path is being treaded upon would be letting society down when they persist in their silent mode.
The President has not stopped the divisive campaign. He has made more headlines as he walks on the obnoxious path because such rhetorics are not commensurate with the status of a President more so in modern times.
Last week, the Most Rev Gabriel Charles Palmer Buckle, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra obviously following the opprobrious trend and its possible fallouts has spoken against voting on tribal lines during his recent visit to the country’s defence headquarters.
There is no doubt that the President’s call for the tribal vote which the clergyman has opposed has resonated among Ghanaians, especially, those who appreciate its negative implications and would not fall for it.
It was as timely as it was auspicious coming on the heels of the recent increased tribal rhetoric of the President, a trend which appears to be fueled by frustration and desperation.
We expect the clergy and other upright persons in the country to speak against such unbecoming rhetoric which can never help the cohesion of Ghana.
We pray that others would emulate the example of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra and speak up against uncouth remarks which threaten the unity of the country.
We have lived with each other before and after independence without such ethnocentric tendencies threatening our national cohesion. That President John Mahama has continued to apply tribal sentiments as a means of winning the hearts of people from the Northern Regions suggests his uncaring stance for the interest of the country.
We wonder how political campaigns would look like when other flag bearers turn to their home regions and demand that they vote for them because they hail from those areas.
No nation can be built on this trajectory and the President, a history scholar, understands this fact more than others who have not had the privilege of accessing education, especially at the higher level.
It was for the sake of national cohesion that Dr Kwame Nkrumah proscribed political parties with tribal and religious underpinnings.
Ghanaians should resist such desperation which can only generate national disharmony by undoing what we have achieved all these years in the area of national cohesion.
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