Letter from Ashanti kingdom, Ghana

Remember the splendour of the West African kingdoms from Songhai to Mali and Ghana? 

Do you remember the Ashanti kingdom and the Golden Stool? The harmattan winds? Growing cocoa and mining gold in Ghana?

Visiting the Ashanti heartland was a dream long deferred. But an academic conference finally took me there last week. Conferences in addition to sharing ideas with other scholars are windows to new experiences and insights for the curious.

Kumasi is about 30 30-minute flight from Accra, the capital of Ghana, or a five-hour, 250km drive. An Embraer ERJ 145 takes you.

You land at Prempeh I International Airport in Kumasi. The airport is named after the 13th Ashanti king Otumfuo Nana Prempeh I (1870 -1931) who fought against the British in 1896. The British were led in this war by Robert Baden Powell. Sounds familiar? The current king is Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II.

Through a long traffic jam in dry heat, unlike humid Accra, we found our way to Ejisu, traditionally a major bastion of the Ashanti kingdom. The next day, a Sunday, was resting. I noted Ghana is as religious as Kenya with similar churches, some with very fancy names. The new churches have outdone Kenya with billboards. 

Ghana has a sizable Muslim community going by mosques and names of some of the Ghanaians that I met.

A drive from the hotel to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology was a showcase of the city of Kumasi. The city name means “under a Kum tree”.

Very noticeable are huge trucks with more than three axles, old cars (I found that in Nigeria too) with Hyundai, Toyota and Nissan doing well. There is a significant presence of American models such as Ford and Chevrolet. Big billboards for the deceased never cease to fascinate me.

Women carrying babies on their backs is a common feature on the streets. One of the ladies serving food in the conference had a baby strapped on her back. Why not in Kenya?

The conference brought Kenyans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Americans, Ethiopians and other nationalities to address sustainability. It is an issue we can’t ignore anymore. Think of freezing Europe and fires in California. Remember floods in Kenya? In Kumasi, they told us the weather has become unpredictable. Economists and entrepreneurs have to confront this unpredictability.

The harmattan wind which blows from the Sahara was not yet there, but the haze was evident with poor visibility, and annoying to photographers. To visualize Harmattan, think of Mombasa without humidity.

The traditional Ghanaian food like jollof rice, fufu, kenkey and banku was a break from Kenyan gastronomic monotony.

Beyond the conference hall, I had to link history with a visit to the Manhyia Palace Museum. It used to be the Asantehene palace, built by the British in 1925. It’s a modest house with two floors. To show their pride and independence, the Ashanti paid back the British the full cost of the building.

The drums and their functions are on display in the museum and the seats that carried the king and queen. The men who carried the king put the long poles on the shoulder; for the queen on the head. And for a reason, the queen heads the kingdom, and the king rules through her. 

Interestingly, the queen is not the king’s wife, it’s usually the sister. She will decide which of her sons will become the king. The Ashanti are very matriarchal. Without DNA, it’s only the mother who confirms the ownership of the child, hence the choice of the next king.

The symbol of power in Ashanti is the golden stool, not a stool to sit on. It’s only in public purview every five years and is usually placed on a seat! The next appearance is in 2029. 

It’s no wonder the British wanted it—to end the Ashanti kingdom. I was told they were given a fake stool.

Beyond drums, you find the first radio, TV and fridge in the kingdom. The fridge bought in the 1950s is still working!

Great kings and queens are on display and other heroes of the kingdom. One hero is Yaa Ashantiwaa. She led the Ashanti against the British, challenging the men that if they did not fight she would lead the women. Remember Mary Nyanjiru in the Mau Mau? Did she get inspiration from Yaa? 

In Ashanti, Yaa means born on Thursday. I should be Kweku, born on a Wednesday. Everyone in Ghana seems to have a name that depends on the day one is born.

The British exiled the Ashanti king and his entourage in Seychelles in the Indian Ocean after the war of 1896. That would ensure the Ashanti could not come for their king. Islands were popular with Britons; they took Mau Mau detainees to Mageta Island. Prempeh I was in exile for 27 years like Nelson Mandela’s years in prison.

The visit to the museum ends with Ashanti pre-colonial artefacts looted by Britons. They are on loan. Pure gold bracelets and other beautiful gold pieces. It costs 100 cedis to visit the museum, about Sh900.

The Ashanti were a civilisation, except they had no writing system. Most communities in Ghana kept their kings and chiefs after their independence. Britons successfully did away with our chiefs and kings.

Could that explain why the president is so powerful in Kenya despite the new constitution? He has no competition for allegiance. Does that explain why our capitalism is not moderated? In Ghana, chiefs are custodians of land.

It was time to be a Kenyan and visit the Kejetia market and buy a few artefacts like kinte (kitenge) and original cocoa. Kejetia is said to be one of the biggest in West Africa.

The visit was over; I had longed to leave the boiling Kumasi. On the way home I reflected on a few things.

One, Ghanaians are humble and welcoming. Could history, from colonialism to political upheavals, have humbled them? Will the upheavals in Kenya do the same to us?

Two, did we copy the CBC system from Ghana? What did we change?

Three, Ghanaians are at home talking in their local languages, mostly Twi or Akan. We are allergic to that. We talk in our lingua franca, Swahili, either when annoyed or joking.

Four, most African countries suffer from the tragedy of familiarity, except maybe Egypt and Morocco. We never package what is familiar to us for tourists. Ghana has tried with the year of return to attract lots of African Americans.

Finally, I was told the toughest witch doctors are from Benin and even Ghanaians fear them. You are free to contest that with counter-evidence. Know any Kenyan who has visited Benin?