Ghana’s former High Commissioner to Canada, Nii Ayikoi Otoo has wondered: “Am I not qualified sufficiently to hold any office if I want to? So, why am I sitting here?”
Speaking in an interview with Korku Lumor on the Class Morning Show on Thursday, 29 June 2023 at his Spintex residence, the former Attorney General wondered why there are only a few Gas serving in the Akufo-Addo government when qualified people like him are available to serve.
In his view, the indigenous people of the Greater Accra Region have not been treated fairly by successive governments.
“We have a Constitution that says that appointments should be based on regional balance, isn’t it? And, then you find one Ga woman, Ayorkor Botchwey, as Minister of Foreign Affairs; and then you find one Ga woman, Tina Ayeley Mensah, a deputy minister of health. You think this is treating us fairly? You think this is regional balance?” Mr Ayikoi Otoo said.
“And then you have the same thing with the Voltarians: One Peter Amewu, is a minister [of Railways] and then you have the deputy minister of trade, [Herbert] Krapa. You think this is the way to go? So when we are talking, we know what we are talking about”, he noted.
Again, he noted, “while other vested lands are being de-vested for other areas and other stools, we are not getting that one”.
“Of course, when you clamour and then [when it is] getting to elections, they try to do those things for you. I know that the Nungua people, during Kufuor’s time, fought – I think – over Borteyman lands and some of them were given out, but one should realise that we rather need special treatment because you created this place as a capital, it was not a no-man’s land before you created it a capital; that one of the writers call us urban tribesmen”, Mr Ayikoi added.
In his view, the failure of successive governments to develop other parts of the country apart from the capital, Accra, has put a lot of pressure on the lands of the Ga people.
“We were living here doing our fishing and farming and we had our land before the British decided to move the capital from Cape Coast to Accra. And, now you decided to put all development projects only in Accra, leaving all the other places; that people feel that without coming to Accra, they cannot live”, he observed.
“They have come and they need to build houses. Today, if you go to our cemeteries, it’s becoming a problem to get space for Ga people to be buried”, he complained.
He explained that “these were cemeteries that we created for ourselves. When we were growing up, non-indigenes who died, we’ll hear, ‘Oh, he’ll be taken to his hometown’. Today, do you hear anything like that? Nobody is going anywhere anymore. So, they’ve taken over, completely, all the lands. And, so, we should rather be looked at”.
“Now, the other issue is this: compulsory acquisition of land for the benefit of the government. Whose lands are being taken? You see the size of the [University of Ghana], Legon, do you realise it is somebody’s land that they’ve taken? What scholarships do they give them? Do you see the size of Airport? Do you see the size of all the ministries in Accra? The whole of Tema was acquired and they [the indigenes] were pushed to a new place called Tema Manhean, if you know the history. There’s a book by G.W. Amarteifio, who helped to do the resettlement; go and look at it, they even had like, I would even call it their country; they had their country, they were living with their president, their chief and then the government decides to acquire it and then turn it into a Tema Industrial Area; and pushed all the people to one side and called it Tema Manhia and New Tema, ‘go and stay there’, and that’s it”, he noted.
He said: “When they built the estate, how many Gas benefitted from it? And this is how Atorh Quashie started, ‘Ga mei ashikpon, Ga mei ano ni’ [campaign]” because after the 1939 earthquake in Accra which destroyed a lot of buildings, the government decided to put up estates at Mamprobi and Chorkor but the ministers at the time decided to give them out to non-indigenes.
Source: classfmonline.com
