The Risk of Running State Affairs in the Castle

Published on 3rd January 2006

The row over whether to build a new seat of government or move the seat to another building, once again, reveals the emerging Ghanaian Renaissance as reflected not only in the Members of Parliament (MPs) debates about this issue but also as the public ponders the metaphysical implications of managing Ghana\'s business in a building ridden with slavery and agony, bloodshed, massive juju-marabou destructive forces, unGhanaian behavior, military coups, stupidity, and generally evil deeds. No doubt, the ruling National Patriotic Party (NPP), through its MPs, who are scheming to move the seat of Ghanaian governments away from this grim building,  bicker that \"the president should not be based in Osu Castle - where slaves used to be kept.\"

 

Opposition MPs storming out of a \"parliamentary debate on whether to take out a US$30 million loan to build a new presidential palace,\" is not as serious as the spiritual implications of seating a national government in a building ridden with long-running evil deeds and deformed thoughts. The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is right in saying that, \"the money would be better spent elsewhere,\" - poverty alleviation, healthcare, sanitation, education, roads, food, water and so on. But while NPP Members of Parliament might have voted commonly in favor of taking the loan from India, the issue here is deeper than partisan politics, the issue here is much more metaphysical than physical, much more spiritual than US$30 million.

 

The Ghanaian legislature, reflecting the emerging new thinking informed by Ghana\'s history and culture, demonstrates that  the work of the parliament is not only to enact legislations to solve physical problems - food, water, domestic violence, gender inequality, human rights but also look at the sacred wellbeing of its citizens. Depending on the spiritual problems of the state, such as the agonizing slave trade with its shame, pains, deaths, bloodshed and betrayals, the vocation of a national parliament is also to oversee the spiritual health of its citizens. By mentioning slave trade, a massive evil activity, and by extension its spiritual implications, as one of the reasons for thinking of building a new presidential palace for current and future Ghanaian governments, the Ghanaian NPP MPs are revealing the dawn of not only enlightenment in Ghana\'s progress but also her renaissance.

 

Attempts to heal the moral and spiritual wrongs at the Castle and appease the spirits of those killed and hurt there is in line with Ghanaian/African cosmology. African thinkers and spiritualists such as Zambia\'s Roman Catholic Archbishop, Emmanuel Milingo, have consistently argued that some of Africa predicaments may be as a result of imbalances in her cosmology - that\'s imbalances between the physical and the metaphysical. African spirituality calls for a balance between the physical and the metaphysical in order to progress. NPP MPs attempt to put up a new state house to run Ghana\'s affairs, for largely spiritually reasons, is reflecting Milingo\'s suggestion to donor agencies and other international development organizations working in Africa to look at the balance between the physical and the metaphysical aspect of Africa\'s tradition when planning development strategies.

 

So six years into his presidency, President John Kufuor, through his MPs, is indirectly telling Ghanaians why he has resisted living at the depressive Castle. This is not only because of what slave trade and colonialism did inside the Castle but also what some post-independent Ghanaian Heads of State did there: human sacrifice, fearful juju-marabou rituals, brutalities, killings and gross inhumanity. Ghanaians say the basement of the Castle is reported to be splashed with human blood, apparently in a human sacrifice ritual. Almost six years in office, President Kufuor resides in his own private house in Accra and drives to his offices at the Castle for state business.

 

Having moved Ghanaian governments to a new presidential building, freed from the evil deeds of centuries past, the Castle, a grim \"black gash of shame,\" could be used as a national museum, a national memorial, as a civilizing place that would deepen the ideas of inhumanity and massive evil deeds. It would bring peace and human rights to the soul of Ghana. Ghanaians need a comprehensive moral and spiritual cleansing, the traditional idea of Ghana herself as balanced in her cosmology as the last best hope in her development process. The Castle is spiritually unbalanced place to run state affairs.


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