Veteran politician and governance expert Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi has cautioned that decentralisation policies must be carefully designed to avoid inadvertently creating conditions for separatist movements.
Speaking at a sensitisation and policy orientation workshop for media practitioners in Accra, organised by the Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee on Decentralisation, Prof. Ahwoi stressed that Ghana’s framework was deliberately structured with relatively weak regional systems to safeguard national unity.
“In decentralising, you must be aware that there are separatist tendencies. It is very easy to move from decentralisation to separation, to federalism, to balkanisation, to secession and to the breakdown of the country,” he warned.
He explained that Ghana, like most African nations, emerged from colonial boundaries and therefore requires governance arrangements that prioritise cohesion. “Don’t ever think that Ghana can remain or will remain Ghana forever. Ghana, like almost all African countries, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, is an artificial colonial construct,” he said.
Prof. Ahwoi drew lessons from global history, citing the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, as well as Nigeria’s civil war, as examples of how strong regional divisions can escalate into secessionist conflicts. He noted that traditional structures such as the Ashanti and Dagomba kingdoms could theoretically sustain independent statehood if governance systems were poorly managed.
“Ashanti could easily be a country; Dagomba Kingdom could easily be a country. We do not want to fashion out a governance system that will give an excuse for Ghana to break up,” he cautioned.
Despite these concerns, he commended Ghana’s past leaders and traditional authorities for preserving unity and urged policymakers to ensure decentralisation strengthens development without undermining cohesion.
