6th May, 2004 was the day for the Ghanaian students in IUB to boast of their rich culture to their fellow students, professors and invited guest. It was an information day of a kind as the audience expressed after the evening. It all started with the sounds of drum amidst singing of folk songs in a style dubbed “gyama”. It was very thrilling for the audience as most of them started clapping in unison and tried to sing along but with very little success. This was just the beginning of the fun of the evening. After the intriguing cultural splash, Prof. Klaus Boehnke gave an opening remark and handed the microphone over to the Ghanaians to do their thing.

It was Evans Zuzie a.k.a da President who set the ball rolling. His co-Master of Ceremony Welbeck however took over from him in a very humorously but abrupt manner and introduced the programs for the evening. Next in line was a presentation by Abosoapanyin (appellation meaning family head) Kweku and Ato. They talked about the history of Ghana from the old Ghana Empire to modern Ghana.

Kweku made it clear to everyone that the present day Ghana used to be called Gold Coast because it had and still has a lot of gold in its soil. The name Ghana however existed in the ancient times in the north of present day Ghana. There was the map of Ghana that displayed the 10 regions of the country and where the Ghanaians in IUB come from. It was apparent that most of Ghanaians were from the Ashanti region. British colonialism was not a thing that could have been missed. The presentation touched on the invasion of the British with the initial idea of trading which later turned out to be something else. The Ashanti Empire however, as he said had great chiefs and queen mothers who stood up to the oppression of the British. A photo of one such chief was shown on the power point presentation and indeed he did not look like an easy man to be handled by the British as he elaborated. Independence is also very significant to Ghanaians.

Independence was gain by the toil of some great men such as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who became the first prime minister of Ghana and later the first President. After Kwame Nkrumah came a number of military regimes and democracy was restored in 1992 when an election was held.

After the presentation there was a skit which portrayed certain cultural norms of the people of the North and South of Ghana. The drama informed the audience of how marriage ceremonies are conducted in Ghana. Chieftaincy, an institution that has been in existence even before the introduction of democratic governance, was not left out either. There are two main forms of chieftaincy in Ghana-“enstoolment” in the South where the chiefs sit on traditional stools as a symbol of power and “enskinment” in the North where the chiefs sit onthe skin of wild animals also to symbolize the powers of the chief. The choice of a chief as the skit exhibited is not an easy task for the elders and this may sometimes demand consultation of the gods.

The evening ended with beautiful dance performances that kept the audience shaking to the end. Of course no one was left to go away without tasting the sumptuous food prepared by the lovely girls from Ghana. In the view of those who witnessed the information day, it was very unique in its own way and a lot was learnt about Ghana.