Feature: Colonial Relics: Suit And Tie, Foreign Names And A Borrowed Way Of Life

Our leaders have begun to dress like Ghanaians again. The harder work of reclaiming our language, our food, our faith and our family values has barely started.

Two of Ghana’s most senior office holders have set an example worth noting. The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has put away the colonial cloak and wig of his office for kente, fugu and other Ghanaian dress. President John Dramani Mahama, who spent most of his parliamentary years in suit and tie, now appears at official functions at home and abroad in fugu and locally tailored Ghanaian clothing, and his government has made every Wednesday National Fugu Day.

The Judiciary, by contrast, still wears the horsehair wig and gown of eighteenth-century England, though England itself has dropped the wig in its civil and family courts.

These are welcome signs. Yet the wider society is moving the other way. English is pushing our mother tongues out of the home. Our leaders carry English names, and their indigenous names, where they have them, are pushed to the middle. Imported fast food is replacing akyɛkɛ, kokonte, Tuo Zaafi and kenkey even in rural towns. A religion in steep decline in the country that brought it here is pursued in Ghana with more zeal than ever. Our young women bleach their skin and our young men experiment with tramadol and hard drugs.

This article sets out what is happening, why it matters for our health, our economy and our identity, and what government, traditional authorities, regulators and families can do to turn the tide.

1. ** The Speaker Who Changed the Dress Code**

Alban Bagbin served many terms as Member of Parliament for Nadowli before he became Speaker in January 2021, after a closely fought vote in a hung House. A year later, at the opening of the Second Session of the Eighth Parliament in January 2022, he walked into the Chamber in kente over a white shirt, with beads and a crown. It was the first time a Speaker of the Fourth Republic had presided in traditional attire in place of the cloak.

He explained himself plainly. The long gown, the headgear and the bib were inherited from the British, he said, and even the British had long stopped wearing such dress every day. Since then he has moved between fugu, agbada, adinkra and kente. The clerks at the table have followed his lead and set aside their robes.

Whenever he leaves the chair, this will be part of his legacy. It shows that a single leader with conviction can change an institution. One relic remains. The mace, the symbol of the authority of the House, still follows the Westminster tradition, whatever Ghanaian motifs have been worked into it. Our chiefs have their own symbols of authority in the linguist’s staff and the stool. A future Parliament could look to them. In time, I believe it will.

1. ** The Wigs and Gowns of the Bench**

Parliament has moved. The Judiciary has not. Our judges still sit in the pale horsehair wigs and long gowns of eighteenth-century England, and our lawyers appear before them dressed the same way. In January 2022 the then Chief Justice, Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, went further. He directed that judges and professional magistrates must be fully robed in wig and gown at every sitting, and warned that failure to comply would be sanctioned.

Britain itself has moved on. Since October 2008, judges in the civil and family courts of England and Wales no longer wear wigs, and their robes were redesigned. The wig survives there mainly in the criminal courts. We are holding on to a costume more tightly than the people who handed it to us.

Defenders of the wig say it gives the court dignity and sets the judge apart from the person. Former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo has spoken against hasty calls to discard it. Dignity matters in a court of law. Yet dignity can be dressed in our own cloth. A dark robe of Ghanaian fabric, carrying an Adinkra symbol of law such as Mmara Krado, would command as much respect as any wig from London.

There is a practical side too. Wool gowns and horsehair wigs were designed for a cold climate. In our heat they add to the discomfort and fatigue of judges who sit for long hours. Speaker Bagbin has shown that a Ghanaian institution can keep its authority in Ghanaian dress. The Chief Justice, the Judicial Council and the Ghana Bar Association should open the same conversation for the courts.

1. ** The President’s Wardrobe and the Ministers Behind Him**

For years President Mahama, like most of our politicians, wore suit and tie. In Ghana the suit has long signalled office, education and seriousness. In his second term he has changed course. He now wears his northern fugu and Ghanaian styled clothing at state functions.

In Moscow in late October 2026 he received two honorary doctorates, from the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia and the Russian University of Transport, ahead of the Russia–Africa Summit. Even in the Russian cold he wore Ghanaian clothing. From the pictures I saw, many of the officials travelling with him were in suits and ties.

He has also turned example into policy. In February 2026, after some commentators in Zambia mocked the fugu he wore on a state visit as a “blouse”, Ghana answered with pride. The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts declared every Wednesday National Fugu Day, calling on Ghanaians at home and abroad to wear the fugu, or batakari, and its accessories. Ghanaians took up the call in their thousands. I salute the President for this. It honours the weavers of the North, puts money in the hands of our own artisans and traders, and tells the world that Ghanaian dress is fit for any office.

That is the question. Is the President leading alone? A leader’s example works only when the people around him take it up. With Fugu Wednesday and National Friday Wear, Ghanaian dress already has two days of the working week. It is time to go further. Cabinet, the Council of State, our embassies and state enterprises should adopt Ghanaian dress as the standard for official functions, with suits as the exception.

1. ** Foreign Names on Ghanaian Shoulders**

Look at the names in our public life. In politics we have Hon. Sam George, Hon. Titus Glover, Hon. Cassiel Ato Forson, Hon. Mohammed Amin Adam, Hon. Habib Iddrisu, Hon. Mohammed Adamu Ramadan and many more. These are able Ghanaians who serve their country. The pattern runs far beyond politics. In any office, church or classroom you will meet a Cecilia Johnson or a Gifty Wilson, born in Kumasi or Cape Coast to two Ghanaian parents, who carries no Ghanaian name at all. Yet a stranger reading the list could think he was reading a register in Bristol or Liverpool.

Many of these names were not chosen by the people who carry them. Baptism in the mission churches came with a “Christian name”, and often with an English surname. Many coastal families inherited their surnames from the trading and colonial era and have carried them for generations. In some cases the indigenous name survives, pushed into the middle. Ato, in Cassiel Ato Forson, is the Fante name of a boy born on Saturday. It is there, but it is not the name the nation calls him by.

A name is a statement of who we are. Our day names record the day of birth. Our family names tie a child to an ancestor, a clan and a stool. A child named after an ancestor carries that ancestor’s story.

The Ga people show how rich such a system can be. A Ga child is named on the eighth day after birth, at the outdooring known as kpodziemo. The name follows the paternal grandfather, the clan and the child’s position in the family. A first son is commonly Tettey and a second son Tetteh. The first daughters are Dede, then Korkor. Twins are held sacred. Twin boys may be Oko and Akuete, twin girls Akweley and Akuorkor, and the child who follows twins may be Tawiah. Names differ between Osu, La, Teshie, Nungua and Tema, so a Ga name tells you the family, the clan and often the town. It is a map of where a person comes from.

The Ga system has survived colonial rule, the mission churches and the modern city intact. It is a model for the whole nation. Every ethnic group in Ghana has its own naming customs, and each should follow the Ga example with its own names: a fixed naming day, a name drawn from the ancestors, and a name that tells the child’s family, clan and place in the birth order. If every people in Ghana did this, colonial names would fade from our registers within a generation.

I can speak from my own home. My children were born in England and carry Ghanaian names. They speak with the polished accent of an English education. Yet anyone who reads or hears their names knows at once that they are Ghanaian and African. Their accent may be English. Their names keep them rooted wherever they go.

What a person calls himself is a personal matter, and no law should force a change. But leaders set the fashion. When our ministers and Members of Parliament proudly put their indigenous names first in public life, others will follow. Parents should give their children Ghanaian names and use them every day. Churches should no longer treat a foreign name as a condition of baptism, where that practice survives.

1. ** English in the Kitchen, Silence in the Mother Tongue**

In my youth it was the educated elite who spoke English to their children at home. They did it to show that they had arrived, that they were close to the white man. Today the practice has spread to every level of society. The maid, the watchman, the mason and the artisan now speak English, often broken English, to their children at home. Many of those children cannot greet their grandmothers in Nzema, Fante, Ewe or Dagbani.

A language that is not spoken at home will die. With it go our proverbs, our songs, our names for plants and medicines, and the oral history of our families and stools. A child who cannot speak his mother tongue cannot fully receive what his elders have to give.

Government has taken a step. In October 2025 the Minister for Education, Haruna Iddrisu, directed that Ghanaian languages be the medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Primary Three. Nzema is among the languages recognised for this purpose. A similar policy in the early 2000s faded through poor support, weak implementation and resistance from parents who feared for their children’s English. This new policy will fail the same way unless it is funded with books and trained teachers, and unless parents back it at home.

1. ** From Akyɛkɛ to “Spag”**

Even in my rural town of Aiyinasi, the youth are turning their backs on akyɛkɛ, gari and fufu. Spaghetti, which they call “Spag”, has become a staple. Instant noodles and fried chicken from foreign brands are replacing Tuo Zaafi, Omo Tuo, kokonte and kenkey across the country.

This is more than a matter of taste. Our traditional foods are made from what our own farmers grow: cassava, maize, millet, yam and plantain. Every packet of imported wheat noodles is money that leaves the country and income lost to a Ghanaian farmer. Heavily processed foods high in salt, sugar and fat are also feeding the rise of hypertension, diabetes and other non-communicable diseases that our health system can ill afford.

Local food must be made attractive, affordable and available. The School Feeding Programme should serve local dishes and buy from local farmers. Our chop bars and food processors need support to package traditional food in forms that suit the modern young person in a hurry.

1. ** The Faith We Imported and the Faith We Abandoned**

Christianity came to us with the colonial order. In the land that sent it, it is in steep decline. Average weekly attendance in the Church of England fell from over 1.1 million in 2003 to 854,000 in 2019. The latest figures, for 2025, show about 707,000 people in church in a typical week, and about 590,000 on an average Sunday.

There has been a small recovery since the pandemic, but that is barely one person in eighty in England. More than a third of the Church’s regular worshippers are over seventy. Many old churches have closed and been converted into homes, shops and even climbing centres. I lived in England for thirty years and saw it with my own eyes.

In Ghana, by contrast, worship is pursued day and night. Churches with capacity for five thousand people are going up in our cities. Large mosques are rising too. Our elders have a saying for this: the sympathiser is weeping louder than the bereaved.

Every Ghanaian has the constitutional right to worship as he chooses. My concern is twofold. Our indigenous religion, the Ancestral Way of Worship, was branded as fetish and pushed aside. It deserves the same respect and protection as any other faith. My second concern is planning and the environment.

Very large worship centres of any faith, placed on busy corridors such as the area around Shiashie and the University of Ghana, bring traffic, parking and noise problems. The Environmental Protection Authority, the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority and our assemblies must apply environmental assessment, traffic impact and noise rules to these buildings as strictly as they would to a factory or a shopping mall. At present, they appear to have gone to sleep.

1. ** Borrowed Beauty: Wigs, Nails and Bleached Skin**

Many of our young “educated” women now wear long false eyelashes, long artificial nails and wigs that reach to the waist. The fashion is not limited to the young. Professional women, including lawyers and judges of high standing, now appear in public with synthetic eyelashes. Some bleach their skin to look lighter. Fashion is a personal choice, and every generation has its styles. But when the ideal of beauty becomes someone else’s face, we have a problem of identity.

As a safety and health professional, I must also speak to the harm. Skin bleaching products can contain hydroquinone, mercury and steroids. These have been linked to skin damage, a darkening and disfiguring condition called ochronosis, skin cancer and kidney damage. The Food and Drugs Authority has banned hydroquinone in cosmetics in line with the Ghana Standards Authority’s zero standard.

Yet these products are still sold openly in our markets. Synthetic eyelashes carry their own risks. The glues that hold them can cause allergic reactions and swelling of the eyelids, poorly cleaned lashes can carry eye infections, and repeated use can pull out the natural lashes that protect the eye. Long artificial nails can harbour germs and are a hazard in food handling and health care. Imported hair drains money that a young woman could save or invest.

1. ** Our Sons, Hard Drugs and the Search for a “High”**

Our young men have their own fashions: unkempt hair and earrings. Elders have always frowned at the styles of the young, and I will not dwell on hairstyles. What alarms me is drugs. Tramadol, a prescription painkiller, is widely misused by young people. Cocaine and other hard drugs are reaching our towns and villages.

The cost is already visible. In May 2026, more than 6,000 applicants to the security services were disqualified on drug and mental health grounds. These were young people who wanted to serve their country. The Narcotics Control Commission, the FDA and the Ghana Police Service must go after the supply chain, while schools, churches, mosques and traditional authorities work on prevention and treatment.

1. ** What Has Happened to Our Family and Ancestral Values?**

In the Ghana I grew up in, a child belonged to the whole community. Any elder could correct any child. The extended family, the abusua, supported its members in need and disciplined those who went astray. Respect for elders, hard work, modesty and loyalty to family and stool were taught at home, at festivals and around the fire in the evening.

Much of that has weakened. Parents are busy. Grandparents are far away. The phone and social media now raise many of our children, and the values they teach come from elsewhere. We have kept the borrowed forms of the colonial era, and we are losing the substance of our own heritage.

1. ** How We Reverse the Drift**

Government. Extend the Speaker’s reform across the state. Make Ghanaian dress the standard for Cabinet, Parliament, the diplomatic service and official functions. Give preference to Ghanaian fabrics and tailors in state procurement. Let ministers and Members of Parliament lead by using their indigenous names in public life.

Judiciary. Review court dress. Design robes in Ghanaian cloth with our own symbols of justice, and retire the horsehair wig from our courts.

Education. Fund the mother-tongue policy properly, with textbooks in each recognised language and teachers trained to use them. Give Ghanaian language and Ghanaian history real weight in examinations. Teach our children the stories of their own towns and stools.

Traditional authorities. Each Traditional Council should revive and publish its own naming system on the Ga model, so that every family knows the names that belong to its children. Chiefs and queen mothers are custodians of culture. We should use our festivals, naming ceremonies and durbars to teach the young. Every stool can run programmes that bring youth and elders together. Our palaces should speak our languages.

Food. Buy local for the School Feeding Programme, government institutions and the security services. Support cassava, maize, millet and rice processors so that local food is convenient as well as healthy.

Regulators. The FDA must enforce the ban on harmful bleaching products in the market, not only at the ports. The Narcotics Control Commission must stem the flow of tramadol and hard drugs. The EPA, the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority and the assemblies must apply the law to large worship centres without fear or favour.

Families. The real change begins at home. Speak your mother tongue to your children. Cook and eat our own food with them. Tell them where they come from, who their ancestors were and what they stood for. Give them names that carry that history.

Media. Our broadcasters should give more airtime to programmes in Ghanaian languages and to content that celebrates our culture, for young audiences in particular.

Conclusion

Reclaiming our heritage does not mean rejecting the world. We have gained much from others, in education, medicine and technology. The issue is choice. A confident people takes what serves it and keeps what makes it who it is. For too long we have kept the colonial forms and let go of our own substance.

Dr Kwame Nkrumah spoke of the African Personality. The Speaker and the President have shown in dress what that can look like. It is now up to the rest of us, in Cabinet, in the palace, in the classroom and above all at home, to carry it into our language, our food, our faith and our family life. If we do not, our grandchildren will speak of Ghanaian culture the way we now speak of the old colonial gowns, as something from the past.

By Nana Annor Amihere II

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