Ghanaian Kingship & Lazy Men.

Ghanaian Kingship & Lazy Men.

NTOABOMA — A long time ago in Ntoaboma, royal men and women who found out that they had been shortlisted to be selected as the next King or Queenmother of Ntoaboma quickly disappeared from town. Until the next King was selected and enstooled, these people would never show their faces in Ntoaboma. Few men wanted to be King.

Many more men than the women disappeared from town. The Queenmother’s role was more prestigious and so fewer women shirked that responsibility when it fell upon them. And although Queenmothership entailed a great level of responsibility it did not require for instance that the Queenmother leads a battle.

Kings must lead their own battles. When they make war, they must lead it. When war arrives, they must lead Ntoaboma to it. Queens did not have that kind of headache. Plus, after all, the Queenmother could always impeach and destool the King if she could bring a legal case against him. A King could never destool a Queenmother.

Queenmothers were for life! The ladies aspired to by Queenmothers.

During the nineteenth century, especially, and throughout the twentieth century, everything in Ntoaboma changed. Candidates for King no longer fled the Stool. They rather flocked to it. They would even kill their own brothers, cousins, etc., for the Stool or Skin. What changed in Ntoaboma?

The Europeanization of Chieftaincy in Ntoaboma, is what changed everything, and in fact the Europeanization of pretty much every traditional leadership in Ghana. Europeans have taught some people that to be King should never be to serve the people, but to exploit the people. Europe has never had Kings who served their people. Europe had never achieved that level of civilization. Europe has always had exploitative Oligarchs as Kings and Queens. This is why European states had always fallen behind African nations in the achievement of civilization.

But you know, all good things are often corrupted, i.e. all good things attract corruption, and corruption is seldom open to civilization. Africa too fell to European decadence. Ghana’s Kings, and Kingmakers, have learned and copied a certain European attitude that is detrimental to sustainable development. Ghanaian Kingship, in general, has adopted European attitudes which are detrimental to civilization itself. In fact Kingship in Ghana has become so Europeanized that some people would rather have some lowly, ordinary, unintelligent European become their King.

Many great peoples suffer because they are unaware that they were great. Ntoaboma suffers now because it is still unaware that what it had before the arrival of the decadent European was great. An ancient African scholar once wrote about his musings with God: He claimed that God told him: “For the lack of awareness, even my own people can acquiesce to decadence, and then they can perish.”

You wonder why every man wants to be president in Ghana? This is the quickest way to become an European Oligarch in Africa and begin looting resources for the love of Europe. This is the surest way to kick the Queenmothers to the curb, seize all political power and lands, and loot unseemly wealth from Africa and hide it in the west. In Ghana everyone wants to be King. Even the Europeans want to be Kings in Ghana. Kingship has become the safe cocoon for lazy, unintelligent, decadent men prepared to loot African resources for European glory.

European barbarism has forever, perhaps, changed a very fine African Institution. Alas!