I became familiar with WTL’s history in 2016 through the late Mr. Kɔmi Kudzɔdzi (aka Papavi Hogbedetor). I studied available documents I could lay my hands on with intense curiosity. Before that, I would slap anyone away from me who was espousing “Volta Region” freedom from Ghana. But the weight of the evidence convinced me that our land and its people had suffered tragic injustice from Ghana’s Nkrumah and his colonial bosses Britain, who were once his serious enemies and sent him to jail for 3 years over Gold Coast’s independence issues.
I started participating actively in all meetings and did extensive education on Radio. It resulted in the closure of the radio, mostly from the abuse of political and pull-him-down powers, even though publicly WTL freedom promotion was camouflaged as the cause. In 2017, we decided to observe the infamous plebiscite crafted by Britain to deceive the UN as the people’s will to be integrated into her Gold Coast. We were distributing the T-shirts on the grounds where Ghana was celebrating its independence. Our comrades in Ho were arrested, together with most of the Executives of the Homeland Study Group Foundation(HSGF) at the time. Note that 2017 WAS NOT an election year.
The planning and t-shirt printing and fundraising for it DID NOT take place in the short span of January to March 6, 2017.
In 2019, more arrests were made. Later in November 2019 when Papavi Hogbedetor declared independence for WTL, more arrests were made again. Note again that 2019 WAS NOT an election year. In 2020 MASSIVE UNARMED FREEDOM demonstrations took place. It was an election year and purely COINCIDENTAL! Again that massive demonstrations and behind-the-scene plannings could not have happened in 2020 alone. Post 2020 despite the characteristic brute force and intimidations and imprisonments, tortures and murders of our comrades by our colonial master Ghana, actions were still going on behind the scene. WE CARE LESS WHAT GOLD COAST/GHANA does with its electioneering agenda. That is entirely its prerogative. WE MIND OUR OWN BUSINESS WITHIN OUR OWN TIME FRAME, and we care less when it peaks. If it peaks in the brute colonizer’s election year so be it.
BUT WHY SHOULD WTL CONCERN ITSELF WITH ITS COLONIZER’S ELECTIONS?
Absolutely not. Since 1957 when some of us were not even abreast with the history of our nation, Gold Coast/Ghana’s elections HAVE NEVER benefitted our populations. Who did it benefit? Our political leaders and their families and friends. It is still the same 67 years later! What is the population of those political leaders and their families and friends? My best guesstimate is less than 0.01% of the population. If we take the total population to be 8 million that is an insignificant 800. But are you even sure current NPP and NDC political leaders and their families and close political friends reach that number? And assuming they are or even as high as twice that number(1600), should over 7,998,400 remain in Gold Coast/Ghana’s forced colonial enslavement FOREVER, to enable that insignificant few(the satisfied slaves who forgot their origin) to continue to benefit from our miserable poverty and marginalization FOREVER? NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO!
WHAT IF YOU CAN REVERSE THE SITUATION TO YOUR OWN INTERESTS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND THEIR GENERATIONS TO FOLLOW (SHOULD THE LORD TARRY)?
You ask how? By:
1. Running your own country to serve its BEST INTERESTS rather than the interests of its few political leaders and their families and friends(the SATISFIED SLAVES) as well as the interests of their foreign collaborators(as has been the disgustingly sad case for all African countries to date).
2. Instilling discipline and nation-loving attitudes in the children right from kindergarten to tertiary institutions.
3. UNRELENTING POLICY of producing what you use and using what you produce.
4. ADDING VALUE to all your mineral resources (see some shortlist below) and most of your agricultural raw materials and being in FULL CONTROL of their exploitations rather than settling for a paltry royalty and the political leaders and their foreign collaborators taking the lion’s share! This will create so many manufacturing and processing factories that WTL will end up importing labour, rather than its teaming youth killing themselves on the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea in attempts to seek greener pastures. Youth joblessness and poverty will be a thing of the past
5. INSTITUTING ZERO TOLERANCE for corruption, like in Singapore.
CAN WE DO IT?
YES WE CAN!
WE CAN DO IT: TOGETHER
PROVE IT?
INDEED.
1. Even with the rudimentary skills of our ancestors, they built Gold Coast and Ghana before the Computer age. They were very skilled and disciplined. Nkrumah’s colonial masters recognized it and brought his attention to it. With computer technology plus the current level of expertise and talents of WTLanders at home and abroad, WE ARE MORE THAN CAPABLE OF BUILDING A MODEL AFRICAN NATION that will be the envy of the world. We can do it much better than Rwanda.
Fellow Western Togolanders, these are the reasons WE DON’T CARE ABOUT OUR COLONIAL MASTER GOLD COAST/GHANA’s elections. And these are the reasons you shouldn’t care about them either.
If you doubt all the reasons above, I invite you to CONSTRUCTIVELY show me why they are not true.
SHORTLIST OF WTL MINERALS.
1. Gold
2. Diamond
3. Crude oil
4. Iron ore
5. Lithium
6. Uranium
7. Manganese
8. Bauxite
9. Mercury
10. Several precious gem stones
11. Different types of industrial clay including for cement and ceramics production
11. Natural Gas
NOTE: If this small nation with its relatively small population is so endowed with so many natural resources not counting the rivers, sea, rich agricultural lands and forests, why are we so miserably poor?
ANSWER:
No colonial master ever made its colonies rich. It has always been the case of using the colonies and their resources to enrich their own countries. For instance, energy from our own River Volta Dam was used to power Gold Coast industries and their homes, even across our country to Togo which earned them foreign exchange in dollars, at least 30 years before part of our communities started benefitting from it. Similarly for the water from our river to their homes and industries! And there are still several WTL communities without electricity and running water. Did WTLanders have politicians then? Of course, they did. Were they able to do something about it? Of course not! Forget about the recent foreign-financed electrification projects. Which foreigners financed the Gold Coast/Ghana’s electrification of their industries and homes from the ’60s through the ’90s? Why not ours? How many industries are in our WTL to date? Why not? How many universities are in WTL to date? UHAS was established very recently, but only for health-related studies with campuses in Ho and Hohoe only!
AN OPEN SECRET.
Every Gold Coast/Ghana government is run by a cabinet, which makes decisions by MAJORITY votes. The prime minister or president does not have veto power over cabinet decisions. Akans, by demography, form the majority in each cabinet. So they lobby each other to bring projects to their areas. And that was why Rawlings was in power for some 18 years but did very little for WTL. He really pushed the Eastern Corridor road but Akans, particularly the Ashanti side of his cabinet blocked it in the early 90s. I vividly recall his Agric Minister then who was Eʋe man told South Tongu Assembly members at one of their meetings (I believe 1992/93) how an Ashanti Cabinet Minister stated if Eastern Corridor Road was done, it would kill his Kumasi Market since it would be the shortest Road to the North! And that indeed spelt the doom to the project. Forward, Kuffour and Atta Mills also came with the campaign promises to complete it, but it never saw the light of day.
Each would do something small as though they were fulfilling their campaign promises, but then the project would stall. Atta Mills even had an Eʋe Road Minister. But he didn’t control the cabinet. Even his roads committee had the majority of Akans. It was exactly the same at Mahama time, as well as Akufo-Addo’s first term. And guess what? That road had been on the drawing board since the colonialists’ time in the late 40s and used to canvas support for their integration agenda! Read their once-classified document: “THE MOST SECRET.”
Fellow Western Togolanders
LET’S SAY NO TO ALL POLITICIANS NOW! WE HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO ESTABLISH AND DEVELOP OUR OWN COUNTRY….BOTH HUMAN AND NATURAL RESOURCES. LET US DRIVE ALL POLITICIANS AND THEIR ACTIVITIES AWAY BUT WARMLY WELCOME ALL THOSE WHO WANT TO WORK WITH US TO ACCOMPLISH OUR GOAL.
LONG LIVE WESTERN TOGOLAND!
Bestway Zottor is a journalist and Western Togoland Freedom Fighter. To support the Western Togoland Freedom agenda, you can reach him at Western Togoland Freedom Fighters’ Common Contact: westtogo@gmail.com