Editorial: Ministry Of What?

Over the past four years, many observers of the culture scene in Ghana must have noted the obvious error in the naming of the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture. To all intents and purposes, chieftaincy is a sub-set of culture if the well known definition of culture being �the total way of life of a people� is accepted. For a long time, Ghanaians, especially those who had anything to do with culture as an institution, were content to deal with the National Commission on Culture until the term of Hon. S.K Boafo as minister that his whole business of a Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture came into being. Somehow, those who were expected to know better kept quiet and ordinary people seem to have given it their stamp of approval. But indeed the whole mix-up has been unfortunate. Today, there is a new minister and if there is a better time to correct the superfluous and return the cart to the rear of the horse where it rightly belongs, that time is now. Continuing to keep silent over the error and hoping that with time, the mistake would be recognized and rectified does not itself suggest a desirable cultural practice. The ShOWBIZ paper would want to call attention to the small but nevertheless significant anomaly and hope the ministry itself will shuffle its name around simply to Ministry of Culture. After all, isn�t chieftaincy part of culture just as language, beliefs, philosophy, arts and all are?