Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Kotoka and names!

i have a name pal!

okay so there's a lot of name changing of monuments going on in Ghana!!!
1. Accra Sports Stadium changed to Ohene-Djan and back to Accra Sports Stadium
2. Flagstaff House changed to Jubilee House and back to Flagstaff House
3. Sankara Overpass changed to Ako Adjei Overpass and it remains so changed!
4. Accra International Airport changed to Kotoka International Airport and there's a ground swell of passionate calls for it to be changed back to it's original name or to something else! Kotoka is a traitor is the cry! traitor! traitor! traitor!

not that i care much! indeed, i can't be bothered one bit as i have taken a strong hold of my personal sovereignty!!! i belong to me and not to any country with all the limitations of sheer confusion! but i continue to look inside from outside!

DON'T MIND THE BODY!
Pal, if i decide to form a political party i would call it Nazi-cum-Al Quaeda!!! scared? well i don't care! and i'd make this political party stand for all the right reasons that are opposed to the negativity that surrounds these names!!! content pal! content!

MUST NAMING MONUMENTS BE AN HONOUR TO ANYONE?
now i take another position to still look from the outside 'into' the inside! so what if Kotoka is maintained as Kotoka International Airport just to remind us all that there was a 'time' like Kotoka in the history of Ghana!!! and it need not be an honour to the man Kotoka! it should just be a name that represents a time-line and all can go to hell with their biases for or against Kotoka. should that be too difficult? wouldn't that be a compromise point even for all the biases?

so let Kotoka remain pal! and let it not be a national honour to the man Kotoka! and people should understand that they ought to rise above the pettiness of forms!!!

refrain: content pal! content!

3 comments:

ImageNations said...

Accra Sports Stadium back to 'Ohene Djan Sports Stadium'...lol. Yes.

Obasanjo way... Tetteh Quarshie interchange... etc

Like you said 'content'. I wouldn't want my name to be attached to anything in Ghana, not that it would though. But, sometimes the thing named after even tarnishes the name itself. Tetteh Quarshie memorial hospital at Mampong (??) is in such a state of disrepair that the man would cry in his grave. Get it? Content, like you said, is key and I can't agree more with you.

The Author said...

In any case, many people as old as you and I, or older, still call Ako Adjei Sankara. There is really not much in a name, beyond it being a name - I agree with you.

Anonymous said...

Ghana does seem to attach a lot of significance to names. The meaning of your personal names seems important. I have no idea what my names means and it is not important in my culture. People seem to accumulate names based on family links and sometimes these appear to change, seemingly at will! You have naming ceremonies for the new born. You believe your names link you to the past and inform you of your history and what you have to live up to.
Is it really a surprise, then, that naming sites and buildings also has great meaning and significance?