The star is not John Dramani Mahama, who has just been sworn in as the President of Ghana even if he too is a winner. The star is Ibrahim Mahama, no relation to John, a spectacular young artist we discovered in Tamale, northern Ghana. If Mungo Park discovered the river Niger, then we can claim we travelled from Nigeria to Tamale and discovered Mahama. Charmaine Pereira, Siddique Abubakar Mohammed, Massoud Omar and I have just spent three weeks travelling thousands of kilometres in Ghana, using commercial transport in motor parks and going through Tema, Accra, Kumasi, Tamale, Bolgatanga and ending at the Pikworo Slave Camp in Paga on the border with Burkina Faso. Some of us had made a similar trip around West Africa in the early 1980s going through Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia where threats by the army frightened us into dashing to Nigeria Airways and getting a flight back to Nigeria, but that is another story which we told to the Triumph newspaper at that time.
The overwhelming attitude of Ghanaians is pride in their African culture and membership of the Black race coupled with an understanding of the evils of colonialism, thanks to the Nkrumah legacy. Back to the star, Ibrahim Mahama, he stands out as an artist who has a story to tell, but above all as someone who wants to make the young generation think deeply. He is a disruptor who challenges conventional narratives through his impactful installations. Born in Tamale in 1987, Mahama got degrees in fine art in 2010, and in 2013 from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. Mahama’s distinctive artistic approach blends purposeful interpretation with spontaneous actions. His creative journey typically begins with a deep connection to a specific object or material, emphasising the absence of predetermined concepts. Instead, he initiates his artistic process by keenly observing and expanding upon elements that capture his interest. Engaging in urban explorations, he collects diverse objects, preserves and consistently revisits them over extended periods.
Mahama tells the epic journey of the humble jute bag for example. Born in India or Bangladesh, the bag has a specific purpose of transporting cocoa from the farm to the Tema port where the cocoa is transferred to containers and since by law the bag cannot be used to transport cocoa twice, it enters the market to carry cereals to markets. The final tragic act of the jute bag during its old age is to transport charcoal, the produce of environmental degradation as Ghana burns down its forests to produce charcoal. The story is told through his large-scale installations crafted from jute sacks, symbolising global exchange and the disparity between goods and people. He transforms these sacks into massive patchwork quilts, draping them over renowned structures worldwide.
He has other mega installations – one with 4,000 shoe shine boxes, many originals from all over the world and some he produced with all sorts of messages and decorations. There is another where the object is the smock, the Ghanaian weaved cotton national dress which is today starved of Ghanaian-produced cotton. The northern region produced the labour that built the railways to transport cocoa but the railways were never extended to the north so he has an installation with real old railway engines and coaches for young northerners to see and reflect upon. There is a crazy installation with hundreds of old sewing machines linked to a pedal that produces eerie noises reminding you of spirits and please don’t ask me how that is art. Mahama is a very commercially successful artist at the international level but he is investing millions of dollars at Red Clay in Tamale in 2020 for the youth to come and see, wonder and reflect for free.
As we travelled around Ghana, what was striking was the political consensus of why the NPP regime failed in the recently concluded elections. It was punished for two things – massive corruption and one of the most severe cost-of-living crises in the country’s history. The key message is that the NPP lost because its core voters refused to vote for it. The Mahama NDC did not significantly increase its votes. The NPP votes collapsed as its voters abandoned it. This is a great lesson in civic engagement. The deepening of democracy should lead to voters sanctioning their party when it performs poorly. For the ruling APC in Nigeria, can it seriously continue to think that it can win the next elections with the massive cost of living crisis it is imposing on Nigerians and its total lack of empathy for the suffering masses.
The star attraction in Ghana is a visit to the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum, the final resting place of Ghana’s first President and Africanist hero. The park has a museum that hosts rare artefacts relating to Ghana’s independence and tours at the park give visitors in-depth history of the country’s struggle for independence. The mausoleum designed by Don Arthur houses the mortal remains of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and his wife Fathia Nkrumah. It is meant to represent an upside-down sword which in the Akan culture is a symbol of peace. The mausoleum is clad from top to bottom with Italian marble, with a black star at its apex to symbolize unity. It also houses the mortal remains of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s wife Fathia Nkrumah. The museum, on the other hand, accommodates the personal belongings of Nkrumah. These include books he wrote, photograph archives and official photographs. A photo collection features pictures of Nkrumah with several renowned leaders of his time. Some of them are; Pope Pius XII, Queen Elizabeth II and President John Kennedy of the United States, just to mention a few. The visit is a poignant reminder of the malicious role played by imperialism to ensure that the freedom Africans struggled for would be frustrated.
The other must-see Centre in Accra is a complex of four major buildings which include the home where Dr. DuBois spent his last years, an Administrative building, the Marcus Garvey Guest House and the tomb of Dr. DuBois and his dear wife Shirley Graham DuBois. There is an Open-Air Theatre directly behind the DuBois home in a pastoral setting. Visitors can readily understand why the “Father of Pan Africanism” enjoyed the peace of his last home working to produce more knowledge in his nineties. The Library, which contains Dr. DuBois’s personal library and a collection of works related to Dr. DuBois and Pan Africanism is a rare collection worth cherishing.
It is in the palace of the Asantehene in Kumasi, recently converted into a museum that one sees most clearly to purpose of colonialism. The British knew that natural gold resources in the dense forests of southern Ghana brought wealth and influence to the Asante people and wanted to loot it. The independence of the Asante ended in 1874 when a British expeditionary force marched into Kumasi in retaliation for an Asante attack on El Mina two years earlier. The British ransacked the palace of the Asantehene, Kofi Karikari, and imposed an indemnity of 50,000 ounces of gold, part of which the Asante managed to pay by handing over gold beads and other worked jewellery. The Palace historian told us that the British even insisted that the Asante hand over the golden stool which was handed down to their ancestors directly from heaven and they had to manufacture a fake to satisfy British greed.
The Pikworo Slave camp in Paga, Upper East region is another poignant site worth visiting. It was founded in 1704 and was active until 1845 as part of the route for taking slaves from the Sahel to Cape Coast as part of the transatlantic slave trade. Newly captured slaves were auctioned there before engaging in the trek to the Salaga slave market from where they were taken to the coast for export. The camp is thought-provoking because much of the slave culture is carved into the rocks – the grinding mill for preparing meals, the eating plates and the water source. There are also torture rocks around which slaves were tied and punished/killed for trying to escape. In addition, the stone-covered graves of so many of the slaves are very visible. Ghana has invested considerably in recording, documenting, archiving and developing museums, sites and intellectual spaces reminding the world about the travails of Africans and Blacks. Visit Ghana and revive your commitment to Pan-Africanism.
