Opinion: Revisiting Western Togoland History; Politically Motivated Intellectual Dishonesty

I was stunned to see former President John Mahama in a WOEZOR TV interview shortly after the September 25, 2020,   UNARMED Western TOGOLAND (WTL) FREEDOM demonstrations with roadblocks, stating emphatically that there is no such thing as WESTERN TOGOLAND!

I know politicians are the most dishonest species of humans on earth, but this one amounts to convincing people to believe during a sunny hot day that there is no such thing as the sun! It is true that the Black-on-Black colonizer of WTL…GHANA… had destroyed ALL existing records of WTL, but for his age, if nothing else, Mahama had used exercise books during his primary school years with TRANS-VOLTA TOGOLAND (TVT) adjacent to Gold Coast on a map at the back.

Is Mahama saying he didn’t know what TVT was? Really? And he sincerely believed during his interview that ALL his audience had forgotten about TVT? Is this not a self-serving display of the highest level of INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY?  Which results in calculated propaganda of DISINFORMATION and MISINFORMATION?

To former president Mahama and all those like him, I ask the following questions, with the hope that they will assist in an honest effort of recollection to produce honest answers:

1. Was there a territory once known as TORGOLAND which was misspelt by the Germans to become TOGOLAND?

2. Was TOGOLAND once under the administration of the Germans?

3. Did the combined forces of the British and French drive away the Germans during the First World War in August of 1914 and divide TOGOLAND into East and West and share between them?

4. Was Eastern TOGOLAND the same as French Togoland?

5. Was Western TOGOLAND the same as British Togoland, which later became TRAN-SVOLTA TOGOLAND (TVT) in 1952?

6. If his answer to each of the above is YES,  then is TVT different from WTL?

7. Can he produce any legal document(s) showing TVT as part of the Gold Coast Territories that became independent Ghana on March 6, 1957?

8. Can he produce any legal document(s) showing TVT in a legal POLITICAL UNION with Ghana?

If his answer is NO to each question, then is he prepared to go back to the same media house and apologize to his audience for misleading them, as well as to WTL Freedom fighters for negatively characterising them?

So what is Mahama’s motive as well as all those who behave like him towards the JUST LIBERATION MOVEMENT OF FREEING  WTL from Ghana’s despicable FORCED COLONIZATION?  It is to save their National Democratic Congress (NDC) and hence their jobs! Like Akufo-Addo, jobs for themselves and their families and political friends, damn the masses of WTL. That is why for 68 years of forced colonialization, Western Togolanders have been used to enrich its politicians and the colonial master Ghana, with little trickle-down benefits to the stolen lands and its peoples! For how long should this continue? NOT ANY LONGER. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

To our Kings, Quees/Chiefs(Torgbegawo, Mamagawo), your children who know the TRUE HISTORY of their ancestral lands are saying: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.  Our ancestors had sacrificed their lives to preserve this WTL nation for us. They expect NO LESS from you.

To our  RELIGIOUS AND OTHER OPINION LEADERS, the ancestors who sacrificed their lives to preserve this land for your benefit today, and they expect no less from you.

To the TEAMING YOUTH OF THIS LAND RENDERED JOBLESS AND HOPELESS by its leaders year-in-year-out your great, great, great grandfathers expect nothing less from you. DO NOT PROSTITUTE YOURSELVES FOR POLITICIANS AND THEIR PARTIES. THEY WILL ONLY USE YOU AND DUMP YOU, as they have done for the past 68 years! What makes you think they will change? Look around you. Look around your villages, towns and cities. Look around your markets, schools and roads. Look around your clinics and hospitals. Look around your flood-devastated communities. Look around your ocean-devasted coastline.

When your people were pleading for budget items to remedy your coastal problems, do you remember the warning an MP of the Colonial Master Ghana gave? Were all your MPs from South to North able to stop him? What about the elimination of your communities from their 2020/21 national budget? WILL YOUR OWN COUNTRY DO THAT TO YOU? THINK AGAIN!

And to all politicians and their party leaderships on WTL lands, we remind  you of this:

AMETƆE WO YƆNA. AME AƉEKE MEYƆNA AME BUBU ƑE NU BE YƐ TƆ O. EYATA LEBE NA NUSI LE ASIWO.

Meaning: You should take pride in what is your own. There is no pride in considering somebody else’s property as your own. So take proper care of what belongs to you.

The lands of Western Togoland belong to you and its citizens. Gold Coast/Ghana still remains a foreign territory. No part of it belongs to WTL. In the same vein, no part of WTL belongs to the Gold Coast/Ghana. So stop behaving like SATISFIED SLAVES in a slave master’s farmland that forget about their origin.

You have more to gain serving your own country with pride, respect, recognition, and appreciation, as well as leaving priceless legacies for the generations after you. So, instead of fighting and killing each other for the continued colonial advantage and endless exploitation of Ghana, come, let’s join our hands together for the lasting benefit of OUR OWN beloved mother/fatherland…WESTERN TOGOLAND. Like journalist @RandySobo had said, to build an enviable #corruption-free country in the order of #SINGAPORE.

WHAT ELSE CAN BE BETTER AND MORE REWARDING THAN THAT? BUT IF YOU CHOOSE TO IGNORE THIS BROTHERLY INVITATION AS FELLOW  WESTERN TOGOLANDERS, THEN DON’T STAND IN THE WAY. STANDING IN THE WAY THIS TIME AROUND MAY PROVE VERY DISADVANTAGEOUS TO YOU.

Bobby Quaqoo
Freelance Journalist and Western Togoland Freedom Fighter

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