Ghanaian leadership cum project management expert, Dr Donald Agumenu has sent fraternal greetings to the government and people of Togo as they celebrate 62years of independence from colonial France, urging them to free border restrictions with Ghana.
While Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo in a 25th March nationwide broadcast on easing Covid restrictions announced the reopening of land borders, the Togolese government have yet to open their frontiers.
Dr Agumenu appealed to the leadership of President Faure to use this special 62nd anniversary celebration to “reexamine the security situation and public health protocols at the entry points of Ghana and Togo to ease free movement of people and goods, especially traders along that axis.”
“Free movement of people, goods and services should be entrenched on the continent notwithstanding existing barriers,” he stated, stressing that Ghana and Togo leadership should be at the forefront of deeper bilateral ties as the two nations have shared values and cultures.
“It is no doubt Covid-19 has created deeper political, trade, public health and technological barriers within member states, regional blocks and at the global front.
He also urged the Togolese people to use this special occasion to “take stock of the journey thus far and demystify what separates us a continent and what joins us together as a people.”
According to Dr. Agumenu, this special day should reawaken the spirit of grand family reunion of distinct families whose blood ties straddle between Ghana and Togo.
“There are families dotted along the border lines, one part in Togo and another part in Ghana. In the same vein, the people of the Ga State in Ghana have special ethnographic trace and nexus with the people of Aneho in Togo. We cannot also dispute the etymological evolution of some Akan names from Togo. All these traces of blood-line ties must culminate in grand family reunion. This used to keep us together as a people before the advent of artificial borders,” he observed.
Dr. Agumenu said Togo’s 62nd independence celebration is in the right historical framework of a people’s collective desire for freedom and justice.
“May the peace of God rest upon President Faure Gnassingbe and his people,” he stated.
Sounding nostalgic, Dr. Agumenu said: “I could recall those beautiful old days in Togo as a little boy. Beers were all over the city on a day like this. Celebrations would not end without Akume [local maize flour delicacy] with vegetable soup and fish, Akpama [cow skin], Agaza [fried dough] and the reverberating sounds of authentic African rhythms of Akpese as well as chart-topping tracks of soul singer Bella Bellow and collaboration with Manu Dibango in their hit-song “Sango Jesus Christo.”
Dr Agumenu paid glowing tribute to all sons and daughters of Togo who have contributed in diverse ways in sustaining 62 years of statehood.
On the musical front, he mentioned the likes of Bella Bellow, Mabah, Afia Mala, Fifi Rafiatou, Ita Jourias, Agboti Yao and others as icons who should be celebrated for their dexterity and ingenuity in putting Togolese music and culture on the global map of recognition.
Togo got independence from France on 27th April 1960. The election that followed the next year produced Sylvanus Olympio as the country’s first president.
Source: 3news.com
