Decentralisation could break Ghana, Ahwoi warns: weak regional design was intentional, or Ashanti and Dagomba could become states.
Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi, the longest-serving Minister of Local Government in the Fourth Republic, has warned that decentralisation, if not carefully managed, could fuel separatist tendencies and threaten Ghana’s unity, explaining that the country’s decentralisation system was deliberately designed with a weak regional structure to prevent secession and possible state disintegration. Speaking at a sensitisation and policy orientation workshop on decentralisation and local governance for media practitioners in Accra organised by the Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee on Decentralisation (IMCCoD), he described Ghana as an “artificial colonial construct” that required careful governance arrangements to maintain cohesion and cited the former Yugoslavia, the USSR and Nigeria’s civil war as examples of states affected by separatist movements and strong regional structures. Prof. Ahwoi also noted that traditional kingdoms such as Ashanti and Dagomba possessed characteristics that could support statehood if governance systems were not properly structured, while commending past leaders and traditional authorities for preserving Ghana’s unity and stressing the need for vigilance in implementing decentralisation policies to strengthen governance and development without undermining national cohesion.
