The Interior Minister-designate, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, has expressed concerns over what constitutes a person’s hometown in Ghana, saying that tracing one’s hometown to the background of the grandparents is problematic.
He says Ghana could possibly not have any citizens on its own, if everyone’s hometown was to be traced to where the grandparents come from due to migration.
The Asawase lawmaker, appearing before the Appointments Committee of Parliament Friday, January 24, 2025, detailed the background of his parents and explained why he has Kumasi on his CV as his hometown.
With a northern name and background, the Ranking Member of the Appointments Committee, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, asked what makes a place one’s hometown in Ghana, with the Minister-designate explaining that it should be ideally, where one is born and bred and not where the grandparents hail from.
Despite admitting to having his grandparents hailing from the north, Muntaka said he has always been a “proud Kumerican
Below is his response to the Ranking Member when he was asked why he has Kumasi on his CV as his hometown.
“My understanding of hometown is where you are born or where parents are born or hail from or where your grandparents hail from. So it’s just too unfortunate that in our country, we make reference to where your grandfather is coming from and I think that is absolutely wrong because if we are going to do that, then all of us will leave this country, we’ll all not be Ghanaians because everybody came from somewhere that moved from somewhere to somewhere so me, my hometown is Kumasi, that’s where I was born and bred, that’s where I have lived, I have siblings who do not even know Techiman, let alone to talk of Tamale. Yet, I’m a Southerner with northern background and I’m proud of it.
“I was born and bred in Kumasi, my father has 41 of us, I’m number 14 and all of us, with the exception of 2, that my father said were born in Salaga, 39 of us born and bred in Kumasi and it is Kumasi that all of us have ever known, yes we have the extended family, we visit and we are proud of them, some are in Salaga, some are in Tamale, Ras Mubarak is my direct nephew, his mother is my direct sister, his mother is my father’s fifth born, some of my siblings are in Germany, some are in London who are now British, some are in America, who are now Americans, so I am born and bred in Kumasi and I’m proud of that and I see Kumasi as my hometown and I’ll remain proud of being a ‘Kumerican’.”
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