But the highlights of the occasion were definitely the seminar on the topic “Fifty-two years of  History in Africa: Democracy, Electoral Practices and Ethnicity. How have they worked?: A critical Evaluation of  the Ghanaian Experience” and the Ghanaian feature film, No Time to Die (King Ampaw, 2007), which was one of the films shown at the recently concluded Stockholm Africa Film Festival. Ms Vida Efua Atta, Democracy and Gender Analyst, and Mr Baba Ibrahim-Nabigah, Economist, presented the topic. Mr Anthony Turkson, moderator, took the panellists through a

series of questions. Ms Atta said there were positive reactions from outsiders to the recently concluded elections in Ghana but added that whether the elections were perfect or not could be discussed. She said we were all wary of discussing the issue of ethnicity openly but felt open discussion was necessary. She noted that there was sectional violence in the last elections and wondered if the perks of office were what was causing it.

On equality and women’s rights, Ms Atta stated that empowering women in politics was at the heart of democracy and bemoaned the fact that the parties in Ghana that wanted to choose a woman as vice president in the last elections wanted to do so only as a decorative measure. “Let the guys talk and we decorate them with women” was their inner thought. She said there were thousands of qualified women in Ghana and praised the efforts of Rwanda where women make up half the members of parliament. She said the change of attitude that is talked of about women should be seen rather than heard and drew a round of applause when she declared that “when women do it, they do it real good”.

Mr Ibrahim-Nabigah was of the view that our democracy could be said to be doing well only within an African context and that we still had some way to go. He said we inherited a nation state that was a creation of colonialism which used tribal differences to get what it wanted. He pointed out that our first leaders were very nationalistic and did not think along tribal lines. He said Ghana was lucky the first republic concentrated on education leaving us today with a lot of experienced educators. He said tribalism was a joke during the Nkrumah regime and the country had a long history of opposing oppressive regimes citing the opposition to the Acheampong regime especially by students. He said the basis of today’s ethnic problem was economic (the control of resources) and argued that if the economy improves, the other problems facing the nation would lessen.

Both panellists expressed optimism about the future of democracy in Ghana. Ms Atta said democracy in our country will survive only if we make the process genuinely inclusive of all genders and minorities. She said we should put institutions in place what will hold our leaders accountable. Mr Ibrahim-Nabigah did not think Ghana could sink to the level of bloody internal strife

and said the average Ghanaian was even afraid of a gun and did not know how to shoot. He was of the opinion that the experiences we have gone through as a nation would see us through.

There were many contributions from the audience many of whom didn’t have enough time to express all their views as the time was limited since we could not get off our habit of starting things late. Mr Joe Etbon, who represented the Friendship Association at the ceremony, said he was in Ghana during the elections and what he saw convinced him that the situation nearly degenerated into a catastrophe. He too was of the opinion that we should not dodge discussion of the problems of ethnicity and felt it was unfortunate that our political leaders were not doing much about it when they were the ones best poised to do something about it. He said if nothing was done, Kenya could happen in Ghana too. Dr Benson said voting was not the only yardstick of democracy and expressed the view that tribalism could be defused by strengthening civil society. Mr Dechor said it was the right of each country to adopt the system of democracy it wanted. Mr Joe Frans, former Swedish Member of Parliament said he saw that there was a lot of active political discussion in Ghana when he last visited the country and pointed out the importance of holding our politicians to order. He said it was necessary for us to analyse our history of slavery and the way globalisation is today continuing that history by forcing Africans to migrate and the impact of that migration on our countries. He said even though there is still room for improvement, strides have been made on the gender front with the Supreme Court, Judiciary and Police Force all being headed by women. Mr. Akolor also argued that mere elections don’t make democracy and was of the view that we can solve many of our problems by going back to the ideas of our first leader Nkrumah. He reminded the gathering of how the love of nation was instilled in the youth through the Ghana Young Pioneer movement. George Ezuma of the Nigerian embassy expressed appreciation of the idea of discussing such important issues as brothers and sisters. He said Nigeria was struggling but democracy has certainly come to stay in his country. He said democracy must be blended with the environment and pointed out the fact that Nigeria is made up of 245 ethnic groups with three major groups. He said the ruling party in his country boasts of a national outlook with a zoning system for political office among these three major groups. Even though Nigeria was a secular state, Mr Ezuma said religion should not be excluded from the discussion. He said what Nigeria lacks in administration is candour and pointed out that the problem starts when the leaders start lying to the people. He ended his contribution by reminding the gathering that there was, indeed, strength in diversity. He got a big applause for his spirited contribution.

More people were willing to make contributions but the moderator was forced to bring the interesting discussion to an end as the gathering broke up to relax and take some goodies made for the afternoon in preparation to watch the film. Kofi Sapathy introduced the film by telling the gathering that this was a “real” film from Ghana shot on 32 mm and not one of those so called Africa films that are distributed on dvds. It was not a quiet house that watched the Ghanaian comedy, No Time to Die, as many people giggled, laughed, and shouted out commentaries. At times it looked like watching a television film at home but the film was highly appreciated especially by the women who were heard talking about it afterwards.

The last activity was a very informative lecture by Mr. Ahmadou Jallow on the Aids problem in Africa which he tried to link with democracy. He said HIV was discovered 25 years ago and to date, 25 million people have died of Aids related diseases with over 2 million dying in 2007 alone. 7,000 people are infected every day and there are 33 million people living with HIV today. 67% of these are in Africa. He said the impact of AIDS on the economy of Sub Saharan Africa was staggering since the active working age group of 15 – 49 was the most heavily affected. He compared the African situation with Sweden which has a total of only 8014 HIV infections as at 2007. More than half the Swedish cases (4500) are on some retroviral drugs. According to him, the high infection rates will compromise sustainable democracy in Africa. He said the way the issue of AIDS is handled in Africa negates two of the core principles of democracy – access of all to the resources of a nation and the enjoyment of universal liberties. He said a correlation between the prevalence of Aids and bad governance has been observed. He illustrated this by comparing the situations in Sweden and Malawi. Sweden has had a law (Smitskyddslagen) in effect since many years which is aimed at protecting society from infectious diseases. Under the provisions of this law, access to drugs is provided for all infected people and there is sexual education in schools as well as the provision of information through various channels. Huddinge Hospital now has an infectious diseases clinic. Malawi, with a population of 13 million, has a 12.5% rate of infection. The country is now on the road to democracy but had for many years being ruled single-handedly by Banda. He said it was unfortunate that in Africa, more women are now being infected than men.

There were many interesting questions and discussions after Mr Jallow’s presentation but there was not enough time for all and the discussions continued in small groups after the close of the day’s events.

Report and fotos: Kofi Sapathy

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