The poetry that couched Ghana's political independence and the lyrics with which it was celebrated was none Ghanaians have seen again since Dr Kwame Nkrumah mounted the dais at the Old Polo grounds and declared Ghana patently independent. The euphoria was unimaginable. Ghanaians could not help but burst into song and dance. The dance-styles at the time were quite 'colonial' yet well-executed. No kangaroos had as yet arrived on the shores of Ghana. In other' words the famous kangaroo dance of today's political Ghana was unknown. Those were the days where hair-cuts like 'Tokyo Joe' were in vogue. The male hair was deliberately grown, barbered in style and anointed with fragrant oil. The common scissors was employed to great affect and after three hours, a man's bushy hair came out properly 'manicured' and 'pedicured'. The next day he had a new girlfriend. Tokyo Joe became so popular that it turned out getting a political label. Certain political groups adopted the name 'The Tokyo Joes' and sometimes went beyond partisan politicking to introduce violence as a way of courting political patronage. The political hair-cut was part of political campaigns in those days. In response to violence by one group, another group often countered by exerting its own influence using strong-arm capped with political jargons. The polarisation of political Ghana was a sad indictment of the country's politics. The whiteman was no longer the enemy. Fellow Ghanaians who fought tirelessly in a relentless nationalist struggle had now turned on themselves, devouring one another like animals. Members of two main political parties were at each other's throats, so shamelessly that newly-independent Ghanaians wondered whether it was wise for Ghana to fight for freedom, because freedom only brought about violence and many were getting maimed. The absence of the whiteman had turned the blackman's territory into a political jungle characterised by licence and anarchy. In those days, the Action Troopers and their counterparts at the other end of the divide, Action Groupers were notoriously attacking each other. Politics became war and running battles were fought. It was obvious that the blackman did not understand what democracy was all about. Sadly enough, to this very day, Ghanaians are still fighting and killing one another because they do not understand democracy. They have no idea what it is all about. The Tamale incidents tell it all. A running-mate is harmlessly going to preach his message to his political kinsmen and people start firing. What is all that? People are using machetes and black-hammers, saws and screw-drivers, cutlasses and hoes, mortars and pestles as political weapons. No one is safe in some parts of Ghana. Politics has turned brothers into enemies, friends into arch-enemies. Fathers are slapping their sons, and sons are learning Kung Fu to defend themselves. Sisters are no longer on talking terms because one belongs to NDC the other to NPP. What is happening to Ghanaians? We have all become political bulldogs. Can anyone imagine that wives are leaving husbands because the couples are politically irreconcilable? Husbands won't sleep with their wives any longer because the wives are not politically correct. What has politics got to do with marriage? Even the whiteman democracy which we are copying has not behaved this childishly. - About 90 days to the polls, panic is already setting in some communities. People are finding it difficult to openly express their political views. Is that the kind of independence we have fought for? Yeah, the spectre of violence is looming. And it is not for any whimsical reason that pastors are organising peace walks, peace gospel concerts and peace retreats. They really must be seeing something! Even if they are not, the trends show that all is not well. I think Ghanaians need prayers foremost. Indeed some Ghanaians need to be delivered from the spirit of violence if there is anything like that. What Ghanaians also need it civic education. When the Deputy Director of the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) visited Spectator recently, I told her something. "If civic education is not taken to the grass roots like the lorry parks, the churches and mosques, the markets, beer bars and the community centres, the messages will not be driven home," I told her. She agreed but was not quite convinced because she complained about inadequate staffing and logistics. I told her to go get the money and head for the streets because if violence should erupt it is not going to start in high places but in the streets. No parliamentarian is going to dare his fellow MP to a fist-fight no matter how rabid he is. And no former minister will attack a current minister. But a drunken dock worker will engage in an argument in a beer bar and sides will be taken. Before the night is over, the bar has been turned not only into a boxing ring, but a wrestling arena. Before the police get there, people have lost their knee-caps and foreheads. And the likelihood that the brawl will spillover cannot be discounted. Political violence starts with a flicker. Ever imagined how fire from a matchstick can cause relentless bushfire; so can a seemingly harmless argument infect political foes and degenerate into widespread violence. Credit: Merari Alomele, Spectator, Email: merarix2001 @yahoo.co.uk