Ghana has been seized with one of its irrational exuberances— the desire to rename the Kotoka International Airport.
General Kotoka was killed during an abortive coup in 1967. The naming of the airport was part of a Trust Decree that addressed his legacy. This effort reminds me of the to-and-fro changes of the name of our seat of government between Flagstaff House and Jubilee House and the sporadic, renaming of Universities after individuals! Heck, the University of Ghana almost became J.B. Danquah University! Chaii!
Renaming of places and monuments are always tricky. A few years ago, some Americans started desecrating and demanding the removal of confederate monuments, mainly in the South. Of course, there was push-back. As someone pointedly asked, “How far back are we going to go?
Are we going to remove the Washington and Jefferson Memorials because these icons owned slaves? Are we going to remove the name of the Democratic Party because it supported slavery and fought to preserve it?”
In the end, the consensus was to explain monuments and names rather than seek to remove them. As has been pointed out by many in the case of Ghana, there are names that come from the hated colonial era etc but we cannot remove all of them.
Even the term, “Premoo ato” which means it is noon has a sad association with the British invasions of Kumasi. Shall change that term? Where will this renaming targeting coup-makers end?
Is it targeting of all coup-makers or just some? We cannot remove names and rewrite history, like it is done in the book, “1984” History is complicated.
The man after whom the Rodes Scholarship is named has some terrible associations in colonial South Africa and Zimbabwe but his name and Scholarship live on to the benefit of mankind.
So does the Nobel Prize named after the controversial Nobel. These, sporadic, name-changing and emotive initiatives are calculated distractions that do not really affect the lives of people.
And they cause needless divisions, along ethnic and partisan lines. And the renaming would cost money that would be better used to educate children or heal the sick.
We just started a reset that we hope will be inspiring to most of the developing world. Let’s continue to move the developing world forward, together. Let Parliament develop a law setting down a process for naming things and awarding National Honours that would apply, regardless of who is in power or which institution or Era is involved.
And let our Parliament debate things like Medical Kalabule, payment of fuel costs for use of Ambulances and entire regions that have no oxygen. Leave Kotoka International Airport alone.
Long live Ghana.
