The Ethnic Factor in International Politics: Constructing the Role of the Nawuri in the Pan-Ewe Nationalist Movement

Abstract

This paper examines the German colonial project in Alfai in Northern Ghana as well as the roles the Nawuri played in the political activism of the 1940s and 1950s that sought to define the administrative status of the two Trust Territories of former German Togoland. Described as the “Togoland Question” or the “Ewe Problem”, the political activism has been labeled an Ewe affair, and examined largely within the framework of the pan-Ewe nationalists seeking to project an Ewe identity and establish an Ewe-dominated state. This study shifts focus to the roles that the Nawuri, a non-Ewe ethnic group, played in the pan-Ewe nationalist movement, and argues that the pan-Ewe nationalist movement was not entirely an Ewe affair; Nawuri association with and participation in its activities were conspicuous.

Keywords: Alfai, British, Ghana, Gold Coast, German, Gonja, Kanankulaiwura, Kete-Krachi, nationalist, Nawuri, Nawuriwura, Northern Territories, Trust Territories, Togo, Togoland Question