The part of British terrorism of the Gold Coast that lingers even after some 65 years is the English language. Most Ghanaians who study this language in colonial and missionary schools, including the president Akufo-Addo, are not aware that the English language is a pagan language: That, in fact, the first man to have translated the Holy Scriptures (in this case, the Bible) into English was actually beheaded by the Monarch of England.
Most Ghanaians, including the president Akufo-Addo, who daily speak and study English, are not aware that they strive to speak like English men. Some are not even aware that the English are a Caucasian ethnicity separate from the Swedish. As ignorance goes, Ghana’s educational system is built to support the immaculate enforcement of such utter ignorance. It is not without the full support of the neocolonial triad—the IMF, the World Bank and the Common Wealth—that a pagan language be used as the language of administration in Ghana.
Worse, the president of Ghana does not only speak English (some say he speaks it well), he is also seen on national television attempting the accent of English men. In fact, some triumphant Ghanaian students of English actually admire the president’s attempts at the Englishman’s accent. It is no surprise to learn that it is exactly because the president of Ghana attempts the un-Ghanaian accent so well that some voted him into office: “Ne brorfu ye dru!” Meaning the president’s English has gravitas (admirable).
There’s no doubt whatsoever that the more-educated-than-his-ancestors (the Metha) in Ghana admire their terrorists, the British. They believe, in contradistinction from the point of view of Nana Yeboah (Asantehene Osei Bonsu’s uncle), that the English have shared with Ghana the “benefits of English civilization.” Key is language. For that matter all kinds of Twi are vernacular (local dialects are not intellectual), Ewe is pagan (Vodun people are Satanic), Hausa is Islamic (God detests Muslims), Dagbani is savage (Northerners are backwards) and Ga-Dangme, infantile (the Ga-Dangme only have a kpanlogo-party language).
The metha see in president Akufo-Addo what they aspire to become. And the president sees in Englishmen what he aspires to become. Put together, the president and those who admire him for his English aspire to be white men, English men in particular, even as they become aware (on their visits to the United States and the United Kingdom) that the transfiguration or more specifically, their surgical transmogrification is rather impossible.
To insinuate that Akufo-Addo is the first to engage in acting white on national television would be disingenuous. Former president Jerry John Rawlings (J.J. for short), as his name suggests, spoke with an elevated attempt at the Scottish accent. Granted the former president’s absentee-father was actually Scottish, his lovely mother was patently Ewe. Yet, the former president proceeded to struggle on national television at speaking his Anlo dialect of the Gbe language. He butchered his mother tongue with missed tenses and incongruent vocabulary every chance he got. His attempts at speaking Ga or Twi were more a mockery of Asante Twi or Ga, although the inhabitants of Kumasi and Teshie, including the Asantehene and Ga Mantse, often mistook it as an honest attempt at pleasing them.
J.J. never missed a beat when he switched to English, however. Who was he pleasing? The Ewes, the Akans, the Gas or the Scotts? The parody of British colonial history in Ghana and the watering-down of the collective consciousness of Ghanaians by presidents who aspire to act white on national television remains rife in Akufo-Addo’s government.
What is more saddening is that this act remains attractive to a significant mis-educated class, the metha, who campaign for presidential candidates and vote for them. How is it that centuries ago, a man like Nana Yeboah, with zero westernized education, had the clear mind to question exactly what the pirate, Englishman Thomas Bowdich, meant by the “benefits of English civilization,” yet an educated president of the republic of Ghana remains incapable of wrestling his mind from the iron claws of his colonial and missionary education?
The effect of this succumbing to a president who acts white on national television is a double consciousness deep-seated in the minds of some Ghanaians. The impact remains pervasive and utterly insidious. Take for instance the president’s recent visit to the United States, where he claimed to have worshipped in a “fine” Cathedral, built by a branch of the Roman Catholic Church. So awed was the president of Ghana that once he got back to his office in Accra, he commissioned a project to build a similar Cathedral (here in Ghana, with real tax payer’s money), where people like himself, the metha, can also go and act white.
Genius. Narmer, I love you WAI.
You’re cleansing us, the metha. Thank you Narmer
You’ve written in the Queen’s English yourself. Congrats!
I wrote this in Kpele originally. This is a translation for your digestion! (You see?)
Even George Bush Jr might envy your mastering his mother tongue better than him.
Beating Bush jr. at anything is probably straightforward!
The language of the essay is irrelevant. People can be multilingual and write in any language. What the author seems to disagree with is that the president and his followers want to speak and behave as though they were white men. Writing English is one thing. Worshiping it is another. The difference is not insignificant.
Please, I want to read this in Ewe or any Akan dialect…
You can send me your email and I will be happy to supply you a copy in Kpele. I am afraid I cannot make enough time to translate that into Ewe or some Akan dialect for you! Oh how I wish we went back to Vebantu? Life could be easier!
the irony clear but when you take it from a perspective of a Ghanaian thinker ..this is straight fact …
its only people with knowledge of self will find this very attractive ..
i give this post a 5 star .. Respect.
Pointing fingers is his problem. That’s noisy
Great. Self-awareness is essential. 5* from me as well.
Always raising the discourse, always keeping it real and always thought provoking. Self-haters would do what they do best, and so pay no heed.
perfectly on point. Stay blessed.
Our Pan-Afrikan Conscience, expressed crystal-clearly again in Cognitive Justice terms in this English language fetish myth-busting article with the characteristic Truthblazing brilliance of Nyatefenufialaga Narmer Amenuti, strikes a most powerful blow for real Afrikan Freedom and Justice in and beyond Ghana!