Renaming KIA: You can’t hate coup d’état and love Kotoka

In many Ghanaian traditions, children are named after ancestors, events, virtues, or aspirations.

A name is a blessing, a memory, a legacy. We don’t give a child a name that honours someone dishonourable — that could bring confusion or bad omen into the family.

Public monuments should follow the same logic. If we wouldn’t name a child after someone whose actions we regret, then why name a national asset after them?

We are teaching the next generation and, signalling to the world, something contradictory: that we hate coups, yet we are comfortable celebrating a coup maker in one of the most prominent ways conceivable.

That confusion isn’t just intellectual, it’s moral and symbolic.

This isn’t about erasing history. It’s about choosing which parts of history we elevate and why.

History can be taught without enshrining every actor in our physical landscape.

We can remember Kotoka in history books, in academic discourse, in balanced curricula, without making his name the banner under which visitors and returning citizens enter our nation.

If we truly value democracy and the legacy of leaders like Nkrumah, as we say we do, then it’s time to align our symbols with those values.

Renaming Kotoka International Airport isn’t an erasure of history; it’s an affirmation of the Ghana we want to be: democratic, consistent, purposeful, and clear about who we honour and why.

If we can’t commit to that, then perhaps the confusion is real. And perhaps that’s the problem we need to confront.

Source: www.myjoyonline.com

Read full article