No hour passes by without something happening anywhere in the world. They could be new things; new occurrences or repeated events. They could help improve the lives of mankind, they could also further deteriorate the lives of humanity. Events or issues can endanger peaceful co-existence, they could also generate conflicts.
Some of the issues or events are well planned to achieve stated objectives of the one generating them, while still many others are by accident or unintended to harm society. Society is bound to live with such events, no matter how bad or good the issues might be, the issues on their own do not generate consequences, it is the reaction of society that creates the consequences which either benefits the society or the society suffers from it.
Ethnicity and way of life is a natural phenomenon, people do not choose who they are or which ethnic groups they should belong to, what they should eat, wear, and how to eat them or wear them. Seen with unprejudiced minds, such natural differences make for the beauty of nature and human existence. What society requires is tolerance and respect for each and everyone no matter their differences.
Nigeria has a huge number of ethnic groupings, probably the biggest in Africa, however, they have come to accept the major differences in their society in terms of way of life, culture and beliefs and are living with them. Indeed, Nigerian comedians use the cultural differences to create a lot of public humuor and they all enjoy it. It is not uncommon to see an Ibo comedian making fun of Hausas in an open concert where the audience are from various ethnic backgrounds. They all laugh over it.
The Hausa/Fulani groupings make reference to the Ibos as nyem meri, which means ‘give me water’. It is said that during the Nigerian civil war, an Ibo soldier running away from enemy shelling, had travelled a long distance to arrive at a village, which unknown to him, was occupied by Hausas. Very thirsty and famishing, he approached the occupants and asked them to offer him water, speaking Ibo. Obviously, it was a case of an enemy offering himself to be slaughtered.
Since then, the Hausas and the Fulanis have been calling the Ibos by that. Of course the Ibos have equally derogatory phrase for the Hausa/Fulani ethnic groupings. They are living with it.
When we were in Secondary School of old, we made fun of each other about where we came from. We even called one another by where we hailed from or our ethnic groupings. We never fought. We ate together, slept together, did everything together and never fought because of where we came from. However, in our adult lives, more so in our public lives, we cannot openly and publicly make the kind of statements we used to make in our school days without antagonizing anyone, particularly when it engulfs a whole group of people. We must be conscious of the fact that it is not everybody who appreciates humour, even if that is what our utterances are intended to achieve.
We must, as public officers, be mindful also of the fact that it is not everybody who is tolerant of even harmless comments when it borders on their culture, beliefs and actions. I am not an Asante, but various ethnic groupings in this country have made sometimes very disparaging remarks about Asantes and still continue to make, yet they do not take those remarks serious, indeed they are not distracted by them in anyway. Some political newspapers had over the years deliberately worked to create a wedge between Asantes and the Akyems for political games, but the two ethnic groups were never bothered about that because there was nothing between them that can separate them.
In the latter part of 2016, Madam Dzifa Attivor, a former Minister for Transport had traveled throughout the country, meeting Ewes and denigrating Akans before her ethnic siblings. I remember having reported her utterances in this very column. Akans never complained. You remember, the ‘as for the people of Kumasi, even if you tar their roads with gold, they would never appreciate it’ by President Mahama, a northerner? He made this unguarded statement in Kumasi. His children with sharp teeth attempted to doctor the tape to exonerate the President then but to no avail. The President did not retract nor apologized. Asantes never asked the President to resign. Life went on even though they might not have been happy with the President’s utterances. Tolerance.
President Rawlings once upon a time compared the best hygienic practices of the cat to what he perceived as the unhygienic life styles of Fantis in Cape-Coast which has the accolade of a ‘City of Beautiful Nonsense’. He said it in the home grounds of the Fantis. They did not go berserk. If a similar statement had been made by someone else of Akan extraction against an Ewe or a northerner, it would have been a different ball game. Someone drew my attention to a certain phenomenon. In many Akan areas, it is not uncommon to see non-Akans, particularly Ewes and Northerners living in particular electoral areas being elected by the predominantly Akan people to represent them in the various District Assemblies.
One cannot find an Akan in any part of the northern regions or Volta Region being elected by the people to represent them in their District Assemblies. Well, one may also argue that the Akans in those areas do not offer themselves.
A few weeks back, I had a chat, among other great citizens of this country, with Prof. Kwame Karikari. In the course of the conversation, he made us aware that Tumu was doing extremely well in maize production currently and in his view, that part of the country, if properly resourced and guided could lead in maize production in this country. He was making this assertion in the midst of the attack on our farms by pests. Perhaps, it is this knowledge by the former Deputy Minister for Agriculture that made him make those comments, perhaps in an attempt to repudiate an otherwise over exaggerated situation affecting farmers in the three northern regions of this beloved country.
No matter what contrary information he had as regards the agricultural performance in those parts of the country, and the efforts the government generally and the Ministry in particular had taken to ensure that food production does not suffer seriously by the invasion of the pests, the former Deputy Minister was not measured in view of the fact that he was speaking to the whole nation on what he might have perceived as unreasonable complaints by some farmers or politicians in those parts of the country. His over assessment of the issue to include even non-farmers from the three northern regions was totally uncalled for.
He was honourable enough to follow up immediately with unconditional apology.   Sadly, in the modern politics of our generation, a certain group of political tradition has its political survival hinged on playing the minority against the majority in this country. Detestable as the comments of the former Deputy Minister were, were the reactions by my former boss at The Mirror, Alhaji A.B.A. Fuseini really meant to draw the attention of the former Deputy Minister to the unacceptable comments or incite the people of the three northern regions against the Deputy Minister or playing the political advantage?
Some of the comments of the Member of Parliament bordered on threats on the life of the former Deputy Minister. When a blatant falsehood was peddled against a then President Nana Akufo Addo’s nominee for the position of Minister for Energy,  Alhaji A.B.A Fuseini’s voice on attempts by one of his own to destroy the hard won reputation of that individual was never heard. Hon. Boakye Agyarko also comes from an ethnic group, indeed two ethnic groups and from two regions as well. If the people of those regions and ethnic groups had acted in the manner ‘Baba’ did, one can imagine what the situation would have been.
Our reactions to situations, no matter how bad those situations might be, produce the end result and not the situations themselves. Daavi, just three tots in this cold weather.
From Kwesi Biney