A Change We Need: Obama Nie, Atta Mills Nie. Yeresesamu

Twelve University of Virginia students—five of them majoring in African-American and African Studies—had an opportunity to witness firsthand the “Obama effect” on a West African democracy during their  J-Term Study Abroad Program in Ghana this past January. Now in its second year, the program and its related African-American and African Studies course, AAS 403Z: Community as Classroom, was led by Scot French, an historian of Africa and the Diaspora, and Gina Haney, an architectural historian who has coordinated historic preservation and community design projects in Cape Coast, Ghana. Together with their students, they experienced the anxiety and exhilaration of Ghana’s national runoff election and the historic exchange of power between a defeated incumbent party and a victorious opposition.

Last December, just weeks after Americans embraced change by electing the son of an African immigrant as their 35^th president, Ghanaians went to the polls to elect a new president. The international media, recalling Ghana’s (and Africa’s) troubled history of strongmen and military coups, braced for violence in a tightly contested race that would determine—in addition to other perks of power—who controlled anticipated revenues from the nation’s recent off-shore oil discoveries. Neither of the top two vote-getters, representing the incumbent New Patriotic Party (49.13%) and opposition National Democratic Party (47.92%), secured a majority on the first ballot, thus necessitating a runoff. The U.S. State Department, which monitors conditions affecting the safety of American travelers, posted this ominous “Warden Message” (addressed to private U.S. citizens serving as wardens in Ghana) on its Embassy website:

In the event that no presidential candidate receives a majority of votes, a runoff election is required within three weeks. U.S. citizens should be aware of the possibility of demonstrations and other civil disturbances surrounding election activities during this campaign period, especially in urban areas. These disturbances will not likely target U.S. citizens, but it is possible for U.S. citizens to become accidentally involved. U.S. citizens are advised to monitor local media, to be aware of local events, and to avoid large crowds and political rallies or demonstrations.

The Embassy advisory obviously put the J-Term Ghana instructors on edge. Still, they had little reason to expect that their travel plans and scheduled programming would be affected by the runoff election. After all, their arrival was slated for December 28, exactly three weeks to the day after the general election. Surely any necessary runoff would be over well before then. 

Fortunately, their calculations proved to be wrong. The runoff election occurred on the very day that the group of students arrived. Although the students had been alerted to the electoral excitement that awaited them, they had no idea how fully they would be swept up in this historic event. On the three-hour van ride from the capital city of Accra to their program site in Cape Coast, they read articles about the runoff election in English-language daily newspapers purchased from street vendors. They saw enormous billboards bearing the smiling visages of the two major party candidates. They drove past an impromptu parade by supporters of opposition party (NDC) candidate John Atta Mills.  Even their van driver, who spoke little English, nevertheless expressed his political views quite clearly: he supported Nana Akufo-Addo, the candidate of the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Once in Cape Coast—an NDC stronghold—the students quickly learned the signs for each party. NDC supporters, co-opting Barack Obama’s mass-marketed image and global message of “Change,” rolled their hands in a fast circular motion to convey their party allegiance. NPP supporters held their hands out flat, palms down, and shifted them back-and-forth rapidly to communicate their party slogan of “Progress.” The students, who adopted the opposition NDC party as their own, employed this simple sign language to determine the political affiliations of those they met on the streets and to convey—in a playful and friendly manner—their own. 

In their interviews with local leaders, the students discovered just how thoroughly the American elections had permeated the consciousness and political culture of Ghanaians. Rabbi Kohain Halevi, an African American who moved to Ghana more than a dozen years ago and serves as Executive Secretary of the Pan-African Historical Theatre Festival (PANAFEST), told the students that he and his fellow Ghanaians followed the U.S. election with an intensity rivaling that of African Americans across the Atlantic. His moving account of election night, as reported by one student in her journal, made a deep and lasting impression on the group: “The only time I ever have wished to be back in America,” he said, “was the night that Obama was elected. No Ghanaian slept on that night; the results were released at about 4 a.m. African time and after that all people wanted to do was celebrate, not go back to bed.” Another local leader, Nana Kwamina Nyimfa IX of the Oguaa Traditional Council, shared his story of just how closely some Ghanaians associated the ruling NPP with the incumbent Republican Party and outgoing President George W. Bush.  Both the NPP and the GOP, he explained, employed the symbol of the elephant, prompting NDC supporters in rural northern precincts to shout “He-yah!”—a  political jibe meaning “elephant, go back to the Bush!” 

The U.S. State Department was not alone in issuing warnings of potential danger to American citizens who happened to be traveling in Ghana during the runoff election. Mrs. Ann Hooper, the owner of the Fairhill Guesthouse where the J-Term group was staying and a warden for the U.S. Embassy, suggested that, to avoid getting jostled, students stay off the streets of Cape Coast around noon on the day the election results were scheduled to be announced. Taking no chances, the instructors arranged their schedule so that the students could watch events unfold from atop the heavily fortified walls of Cape Coast Castle and judge for themselves whether it was safe to venture out.  

On the morning of Tuesday, December 30, the U.Va. group entered the Castle, paid the entrance fee, and joined a guided tour of the dungeons where tens of thousands of enslaved Africans had once endured indescribable horrors en route to the Americas and to centuries-long captivity. Afterward, in an elevated wing of the castle that houses a museum, they huddled around a transistor radio and watched for signs of political activity on the street below. When noon came and went without any official announcement and few signs of an impending political rally, they walked briskly to the neighboring Castle Restaurant and waited anxiously along with the staff and patrons. Some students pulled up chairs and watched the news on a portable television; others initiated conversation with a waiter, who demonstrated how Ghanaians voted by first having indelible ink (“electoral stain”) applied to their thumbs to prevent multiple voting, then marking  their choice of candidate on a presidential ballot.

The hours passed and anxieties mounted. No one could explain the delay, feeding fears that the incumbent party might nullify the results of the election and provoke a constitutional crisis. Yet the streets remained eerily calm, and the group decided to move on to its next scheduled stop: Fort William, a hilltop tower that once guarded Cape Coast Castle and its British slave trading operations from interior attack. The students climbed the stairs to the top, took pictures of the city and a coastline once navigated by slave ships, and conversed with the local residents who lived in the building and served as unofficial “caretakers” of the historic structure. As they left the Fort and walked back down the hill, people began streaming out of their houses and dancing in the streets. Their choreographed hand signals made clear that the neighborhood supported NDC and its presidential candidate, John Atta Mills. The Electoral Commission had just announced on television that an official tally of runoff votes put Atta Mills in the lead by the narrowest of margins, 50.13 to 49.87 percent. This announcement, though not an official declaration of victory, was enough to set off celebrations by NDC supporters throughout the city. The joyous crowd along the street to Fort William enveloped the students as pickup trucks full of towel-waving NDC supporters whizzed past. This spontaneous demonstration ran counter to all expectations of danger. For American students seeking to immerse themselves in the social and political life of their Ghanaian host community, one could hardly imagine a more uniquely rewarding experience. 

The results of the presidential election remained unsettled for another week as the Electoral Commission ordered a revote in the Tain constituency of the Brong Ahafo region. Yet, given the traditional split of votes between the parties in that area, it became clear to all that the NDC was on the verge of a stunning victory. On January 3, the Electoral Commission declared John Atta Mills the winner; as importantly, NPP candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, conceded defeat. Tee-shirts and posters bearing the likenesses of victorious “running mates” Mills and Obama, once complimentary souveniers for supporters, became collectibles to be sold for whatever the J-Term study abroad market would bear.

On the last night of the J-Term program, U.S. Ambassador to Ghana Donald Teitelbaum welcomed the students and their instructors to an informal dinner at his official residence in Accra. A career foreign service officer with extensive experience in sub-Saharan Africa, Teitelbaum stressed to the students the significance of the political events they had just witnessed. Ghana was now, in essence, a two-party country in which both major parties had won an election and assumed power, and both had lost an election and relinquished power voluntarily to the opposition. While democratic elections had brought opposition parties to power in other nations of sub-Saharan Africa, only Benin on the continent and the island nations of Mauritius and Cape Verde had experienced peaceful, voluntary transitions of power involving two parties. “It’s something you’ll be able to look back on and say, I was there at a really historic moment,” the ambassador told the students. 

Though Barack Obama did not endorse a candidate in the Ghanaian election, his internationally celebrated victory provided the opposition NDC with a powerful symbol of hope after eight years of NPP rule. If Obama could persuade the American people to reject racial fear and elect a leader who not only descended from African ancestors but bore an African name, perhaps his world-famous image could help rally Ghanaian voters who were also ready for change. The Fante words printed on NDC tee-shirts and posters, “Obama Nie, Atta Mills Nie,” translate as “This is Obama. This is Atta Mills,” followed by the NDC slogan for change: “Yeresesamu.”  And change, for better or for worse, is what a slim but decisive majority of Ghanaian voters endorsed. Inspired by Obama’s historic victory, they sent their ruling party “back to the Bush.” This time, it was politically astute, globally conscious Americans—including twelve uniquely privileged U.Va. students and their two instructors—cheering the powerful impact and ripple effects of democracy in action.