The North Tongu has condemned moves by members of the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) to secede a portion of Ghana and become the ‘Western Togoland’. 

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa described the secession move as an insult to the history of Ghana and urged people in the demarcated area not to support the balkanisation move led by octogenarian Kwame Kudzordjie. 

The former Deputy Education Minister also debunked claims that the results of the May 1956 plebiscite, which saw the British Togoland join other territories to form Ghana, and has been the premise for the independence demand by the HSGF.

“There’s some myth out there, some fabrication, some concoction of the wildest kinds that the plebiscite result was to last just for 50 years and that after 50 years there’s supposed to be another plebiscite.”

The Ho District Court ordered the arrest of the leader of the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF), Charles Kudzodzi and two others over their unlawful declaration of parts of the Volta Region as a sovereign state.

Five members of the group have been remanded in police custody and charged with treason until December 4, after the prosecution told the court that they would be needed to assist with investigations. The action of the group has irked many people including the ranking member of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa. 

He stated that his study of the UN Resolution 101, [which documented the plebiscite] did not state anything of that sort, and he emphasized that, “there was absolutely nothing like that.”

While addressing the Volta region Chapter of the Tertiary Education Institutions Network in Ho, the MP rubbished claims by the Foundation that the Volta region has been denied a fair share of national development. 

He said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) being a “nationalist and a unifier” party ensured development projected were evenly distributed across the regions during their tenure. 

“That cannot be a solution to asking for a fair share of the national cake,” Mr Ablakwa stressed. 

He also chronicled how the African continent was distributed among European countries at the 1884 Berlin Conference, which resulted in a fragmented African continent. 

Mr Ablakwa, therefore, called for stronger collaboration among African countries towards creating a robust economy on the continent, rather investing energy into balkanization.  

”I am not ashamed to say that I am a pan Africanist and I believe in Nkrumah’s vision for African Unity. Can you imagine what this continent would have achieved if all of us had fulfilled Nkrumah’s vision of coming together to form a political union?

“We are today 1.8 billion, the longest continent in the world. Can you imagine what we can achieve?” he quizzed.