A lecturer at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Dr. Edward Nangbine says Ghana is living dangerously if ethnocentrism is not eliminated from the country's political structure.

The Coordinator for Language, Literature and Drama at the nation's premier university referred to the development as "a cancer" that should be weeded out of Ghanaian politics.

"...[it] is just the cancer in the nation right now and we need to excise that cancer. It might be painful ...but we need to do it; we need to start looking at political parties as not belonging to ethnic groups".

He made the comments on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM, Monday, in response to an earlier comment expressed by policy analyst, Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby who was a co-panelist on the programme. The panel was discussing ethnocentrism, culture and patriotism in the second week of promoting patriotism in the month of March dubbed: 'Patriotism Month'.

Dr. Wereko-Brobby, Chief Policy Analyst at the Ghana Institute of Public Policy Option (GIPPO) had expressed worry over the "grey interference and sabotage of the political process by the introduction of the ethnic factor".

"I think that is our biggest worry. That is the biggest thing that we must focus on. Where we are tagging political parties by so-called ethnic composition of those parties; those are the things I think we should worry about," Dr. Wereko-Brobby stressed.

In his submission, Dr. Nangbine said any effort to develop the country could be hampered if people continue to see their ethnicity as more important to them than being Ghanaian.

"People think of ethnicity a lot; it comes up so much...if people in position would think first of putting somebody from their ethnic group in a position rather than look at whether the person has capacity to perform in the particular position, then we are not going to go forward.

"Ethnicity has worked itself into our political structures. So we should begin to look at political parties as political parties and not as ethnic parties...because, from the political structure, it will seep into the civil structure and then we can't go forward," he stressed.