Story by, Paul Mensah Nsor
Emeritus Professor Kwesi Yankah has urged a sweeping rethink of Ghana’s language policies, warning that the dominance of English in governance excludes millions of citizens and undermines stakeholder participation in the country’s democracy.
Delivering the keynote address at the Interdisciplinary Symposium on _Access to Justice and Political Participation: The Role of Language_, Prof. Yankah described current policies as a form of “structural or systemic censorship” that silences citizens who are not proficient in the colonial language.
The symposium, jointly organized under the Indiana University (IU) Ghana Gateway Project, brought together academics, students, and representatives of institutions in Accra. Prof. Yankah spoke on behalf of the Project’s Director, Dr. Kwejo Beni.
Prof. Yankah argued that while Ghana’s Fourth Republic has logged over 30 years of democratic practice, success is often measured by economic milestones “without critical assessment of inclusiveness in democratic participation.”
“A key ingredient in democracy is stakeholder participation,” he said. “The efficacy of one’s participation in governance undoubtedly depends on one’s control over the linguistic capital or the resources for communication.”
He noted that within Africa’s prevailing language policies, the linguistic resources needed for official forums “will be largely in the colonial language,” even though “in reality only a tiny minority has working knowledge of colonial languages.”
This, he said, “has the potential of entrenching minority rule, only because the voice of the majority can thereby start and allow the minority to take the face of policy, seeing the language they speak as higher political and economic value.”
Prof. Yankah said Ghana’s Constitution acknowledges multilingual realities through clauses that compel language assistance where rights violations are imminent, including Articles 14.2 and 19.2D on arrest and trial procedures.
Yet, he argued, Parliament’s Standing Orders undercut those guarantees. While the Orders permit members to address the House in Akan, Ewe, Ga, Dagbani or other local languages, it is “provided facilities exist in the House for its interpretation.”
“The condition associated with the use of local language is perpetual, ethereal, needlessly vague, and exclusionary,” Prof. Yankah said. “It is tacitly or tactically silent on any agency’s earmark of translation.”
He criticized rules requiring MPs who use local phrases to provide their own translation. “It amounts to saying, well, if you want to use the Ghanaian language here, we wish you good luck. For us, you will do your own translation so that tomorrow too, as they say.”
Prof. Yankah also flagged Standing Orders that prohibit MPs from reading prepared speeches, calling it “another cruelty” that disadvantages members with limited English proficiency. He recounted his own 2019 experience before Parliament when a member interrupted him on a point of order for allegedly reading a speech.
The Emeritus Professor distinguished between formal education and wisdom, cautioning against equating English proficiency with intelligence. “Formal education should not be confused with wisdom,” he said, citing the Akan proverb _sukuu nnyɛ nyansa_.
He highlighted former MP Mavis Hawa Koomson as an example of how language barriers affect representation. Despite having only a basic school certificate in the 7th Parliament — where 89% of members held at least a bachelor’s degree — she delivered a major speech after preparation.
“This is highlighted as a significant sign of Ms. Amase’s hard work,” he said, noting that parliamentary rules have not been kind to newcomers learning the rules of discourse.
Prof. Yankah pointed to recent shifts, noting that on February 3 last year, MP Santiago Hernández opted to contribute in a Ghanaian language under Standing Orders and was “rather grudgingly permitted to do so.”
“Something significant is happening in the current 9th Parliament,” he said. “People are becoming more and more intolerant of the exhibition of luxuries in spoken English.”
He criticized 2016 media reports that published names of MPs who did not speak in four years, saying it was done “without equal reference to the wider regulatory environment.”
Call to action
Prof. Yankah urged policymakers to confront a theme “that has often been accepted and tabled and comforted, only to be ignored by policy makers.”
“If all transactions, particularly in politics and governance, take place in a language that a majority of the people do not understand, one need not impose censorship laws,” he said. “A more subtle and pervasive type of censorship is structural or systemic, consisting in any public policy in language use that is implicitly exclusive and condemns a majority of the people to silence.”
He called for policies that facilitate both “vertical and horizontal modes of communication” and ensure that multilingualism and high illiteracy “do not hinder access to fundamental human rights.”
The symposium continues with presentations on language access in justice delivery and political participation.
_The IU Ghana Gateway Project fosters collaboration between Indiana University and Ghanaian institutions to advance research and academic exchange._
