Reaction to Mr. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa’s Facebook comment on the recent events in Western Torgoland

Brother Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa,

With all he respect due to you as a fellow Western Torgoland citizen by birth or by descent, I find your disparaging comments distasteful, irresponsible and uncalled for.

You present yourself as a member of the Ghanaian parliament representing the people of one region of Western Torgoland. Your very own party, NDC has for a long time considered the Volta Region, one of Western Torgoland’s regions, your “World Bank” with reference to the wealth of votes that YOU and your party can count on at any electoral consultation. And YET, YOU and your party shamefully participated in the dismembering of that very World Bank, leaving behind a Volta Region that is now half of what it used to be. Is it the way an MP defends the interests of a region that he/she pretends to represent in any civilized parliament? With what kind of face are YOU and your party going to canvass for votes in Western Torgoland come in 2020?

You label the call for the restoration of Western Torgoland a “comic relief that is no longer funny”. You don’t need to be of adult age in the 1950’s  to know the history of Western Torgoland and the construct of what is called Ghana today. A short detour by Google would help you understand the issue we are dealing with, if you are genuinely ignorant of the history of the birth of Ghana. If you were not taught at school, because it is not convenient for the Ghana government to tell the truth to the Ghanaian people, at least you should, as an educated person try to personally investigate the veracity, or the lack thereof, of the claims by Western Torgolanders that their territory is legally not part of Ghana. If you consider yourself a qualified parliamentarian, you should demonstrate this by showing your knowledge of the Ghana Constitution since the time of independence, and more importantly the Ghana Independence Act proclaimed on February 7, 1957, exactly on month before the official declaration of Independence. You will find that it contains NO MENTION of Western Torgoland (British mandate territory Torgoland/Transvolta Torgoland/United Nations trust territory Torgoland). This is not an argument pulled off thin air. This is real stuff that Ghana government does not want Ghanaians to know. So, maybe you still don’t know this, that Western Torgoland has NEVER been a British colony, notwithstanding the country’s common border with the Gold Coast. Based on these facts, Western Torgoland cannot be a part of Ghana until a union agreement between the two countries is negotiated and dully signed by recognized leaders of both countries. Even the bogus 1956 plebiscite cannot be regarded as a union agreement. A plebiscite is organized to assess the opinion, the desire of the people of a country.

Brother Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, since between 1956 and March 1957, neither the Gold Coast nor Western Torgoland were independent, what did the United Kingdom do, both as the colonial master of the Gold Coast and the UN mandated administrator of Western Torgoland, to organize/facilitate negotiations between the mandated leaders of the two countries to hammer out the terms of the yet to formed union?

Dear Brother Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, if you genuinely want to get involved in politics (you apparently are) a minimum knowledge of history is a must. Maybe you have met this requirement, yet deliberately choose to forgo your Western Torgoland citizenship, and pledge allegiance to Ghana. You will certainly not be an exception among Western Torgolanders. After all, thousands of Torgolanders, Ghanaians, and millions of other Africans have chosen to become citizens of South Africa, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, for economic, political or social reasons. This is their absolute right, and Western Torgoland supports and defends such right.

What they cannot do, or should not try to do, is opposing, worse mocking, those who prefer to defend the integrity and the interests of their nation, while promoting fruitful collaboration with other nations, Ghana included.

We, Western Torgolanders, will never accept the disguised annexation and dismemberment of our country by Ghana in connivance with the United Kingdom.

You call our legitimate struggle for emancipation a comic relief! How dare you?

He who laughs last will laugh best, come 2020.

Mr W GERALDO