By Aoko Otieno via fb
GHANA!
One day, I’d love to be an Afro – tourist. I’m not obsessed with the West. Or East. Africa does it for me.
I wish to taste their Jollof rice and let my taste buds decide the culinary rivalry they have with Nigeria over this so called Jollof. And maybe, just maybe, see where Cpt. John Jerry Rawlings was interred. John sounds like the most common male name there. I’d like to know why.
Ghana! The name the country was given by Dr. Joseph Danqua. The first leader of Gold Coast intelligentsia agitating for self rule. His oomph was “usurped” by a penniless student with fervent political ambitions- Osegyefo Kwame Nkrumah- the young man they made their organizer but who charted his own path after a fallout and was elected overwhelmingly as an MP while weaving mats in the cold cells.
The man who would become the quintessential Pan Africanist- cemented by his independence speech and the 1963 OAU speech.
Reminds me of the story of Dr. Oyugi who was poised to be the governor of Migori in 2013. But became nonchalant and lackadaisical and watched as a former secondary school teacher only inured to sugar politics thrash him with a party that residents could barely pronounce. That man can be said to be the defacto kingpin of South Nyanza politics today – Okoth Obado. Even ODM “can’t him.”
Today, Ghana goes to the ballot. Not even US elections gave me so much butterflies. An incumbent running against a former president are the front runners. And then the President said this 👇. Now you know why the Country was ranked 4th in the freedom index- in terms of political freedom and civil liberties.
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