What is the ministry doing about Ghana Month and Heritage Month?
One day, Julius Caesar was followed by a big retinue which included Anthony (Marcus Antonius), Brutus and Portia. There was a great crowd following them among which was a Soothsayer.
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The Soothsayer screamed the emperor’s name and both he and the procession stopped to see who it was and what he had to say.
Caesar ordered whoever called him to come forward, whereupon the Soothsayer came forth. When Caesar asked why he had called him in that manner the Soothsayer only responded thus “Beware the Ides of March”.
When he was asked to say what he said again the Soothsayer repeated the same line.
The Ides of March is the 15th day of March. Needless to say, it was on 15th March that Marcus Brutus and his co-conspirators including Cassius, Casca, Trebonius, Ligarius, Decius Brutus, Metelius Cimber and Cinna murdered Julius Caesar by stabbing him with a dagger in his back.
Perhaps, if Caesar had taken the Soothsayer seriously he wouldn’t have died and William Shakespeare would have altered the cause of that that play.
But what do Ides of March and this simple column on radio, television and the arts have in common? Depends on how you look at it, they may have something or nothing in common.
A few days past the Ides of March this year, the Multimedia Group rallied the nation’s capital to go and climb the tallest land mass in Ghana, Afadjato in the Volta Region. It was said to be huge turnout as many found the need to respond to the clarion call.
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A week before that another Accra-based radio station, Citi FM had embarked on a week-long trek across the country in a specially branded bus loaded with staff of the station and others who were bringing news and sharing photos on social media from the various destinations and experiences.
I am sure it will be a week to remember for those who had the opportunity to ride in the Heritage Bus.
The trip to the Volta Region to climb Mount Afadjato was art of the monthly long campaign the station had embarked upon known as Ghana Month.
Over the course of the month of March, Joy FM and the other stations in the Multimedia Group stables have dedicated significant airtime to promote Ghanaian culture and everything Ghanaian.
Citi FM on the other hand had also dedicated bountiful amount of airtime to promote its Heritage Month which takes place in March every year.
In the process the station had given adequate exposure to many things Ghanaian: food, music, architecture, tourism destinations and what have you.
The station based at Adabraka has been embarking on this Heritage Month for a sometime now, while the station based at Kokomlemle joined the fray a couple of years or so ago.
Some say Joy FM could have done something else either than doing the same thing Citi FM had been doing for years.
If I have any beef with that it would be the fact that both Heritage Month and Ghana Month take place in the same month. What is it about March that they both want to compete for?
The one who came second could have chosen another month and the effect wouldn’t have changed.
However, I think there is an opportunity that these bitter rivals in the radio space in Accra have spurned that need to be taken advantage of in the grand scheme of things to promote this country and everything we have to ourselves and the rest of the world.
Last year I had the opportunity of visiting South Africa by courtesy of South African Tourism along with some of our compatriots and others from Nigeria.
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The month in which we were in South Africa was the Heritage Month in that country and believe me it is something that the entire nation takes seriously.
On one of the days that we were there it was wear South Africa day and everyone you met, on the streets, in offices and everywhere dressed in something traditionally South African.
It was very beautiful how people took it serious and did according to the ministry responsible for culture had communicated and driven the whole heritage thing.
I have heard the Honourable Minister for Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts Mrs. Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, applauding Joy FM for setting the month of March apart as the month in which they celebrate Ghana and bring light to many things Ghanaian.
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As much as recognising the need to commend radio stations going out of their way to promote the country, its diverse cultures and its tourism potential, I think there is the need for the ministry and or its agencies such as Ghana Tourism Authority and Ghana Tourism Development Corporation (or is it Authority) to latch on to these initiatives and exploit them for the bigger effect.
Joy FM calls their campaign Ghana Month while Citi FM calls their Heritage Month. The ministry and its agency should design the Ghana Heritage Month (an amalgamation of the two names) strategy which would seek to either liaise with these two stations or annex their campaigns and give it a national character.
Let’s face it, what both Joy FM and Citi FM do with their respective Ghana-centric initiatives in March would have some big effect in Accra and a modicum ripple effects just beyond Accra, however if the ministry were to do this with a nationwide tactical plan to implement the strategy, the effect would be bigger, in my humble view.
It is very important to commend the two Accra-based radio stations for trying to remind us each year and again of who we are and to energize us to patronise everything Ghanaian in the month of March. However, it is time the culture ministry take charge and gives it a national character.
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If this happens next year, I will be like that Soothsayer in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, except this time I will be screaming “Behold the Ides of March”.