I heard an edict, on the radio, from the traditional establishment in the City of Accra. It is banning burials and funerals on this Saturday. They want to revere dead Ga (the people of old Accra) chieftains on that day. They have no legal power to do what they seek to. They can only enforce it by unleashing the riotous rabble on you and your grieving family.
I know that it means there will be no closed streets on that day, for the people block off the streets to use as funeral grounds. But that is cold, cold comfort.
You cannot have the benefits of the national (cosmopolitan) capital, and still cling to rudder-less, prehistoric practices – it’s our taxes!
i surely wish to have no such display as a funeral for me when i'm dead and gone! [just dig up earth and dump my body in like it belongs to there and go continue life!]
ReplyDeleteand the riot display in the city must make way for a better way!
this things are just wild spectacles that leave you wondering!
Thanks for the comments, Novisi. My focus is still very much on how some ordinary fellow(s) before the law, just like me, just because they have some archane chieftain titles, think they can stifle the rights of taxpaying me! No way!
ReplyDeleteah yes Nana,
ReplyDeleteyou're right!!!
and that's where my comment points too about the 'spectacles'. the riots to get people to obey them because of the chieftain titles 'by-force'.
[but of course, my personal will for my dead body comes out here anyway]
as for me i want all chiefs pushed to the background!
I agree with you, Novisi. I would also like to see chiefs pushed to the background. Chiefs and democracy? Inconsistent.
ReplyDeleteThe feudal dictatorship being practiced by the traditional authorities in Ghana, especially in the Ga-land, is blatantly unconstitutional and clearly a deliberate attempt to exercise and enforce 'their' power over everybody who is living in 'their' land. Despite the fact that these actions are against the democratic order, successive government have turned a blind eye for fear of losing favour with them.
ReplyDeletePrivate individuals have no choice but to take this matter to the courts of the land for redress of these thuggish abuses since the government will not lift a finger
How pathetic!
ReplyDeleteIn response to the post (I didn't read the other responses yet) I think that it is important to hold tightly to tradition. It's the only part of us that is still really African, we should be proud of it. Besides I think Ghanaians need to step AWAY from the corpses, there is way too much emphasis on the dead and not nearly enough on the living around here, it isn't healthy.
ReplyDelete