Ghana faces a defining moment. The proposal to rename Kotoka International Airport has once again ignited passionate debates.

On one side, proponents see it as a vital step toward purging symbols of coups and instability, arguing that honoring Lieutenant-General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka—a key architect of the 1966 overthrow—undermines our democratic ethos. On the other, critics decry the move as needless revisionism, warning that it risks erasing complex historical layers and diverting attention from pressing economic woes. These contrasting views, while valid in highlighting the tension between progress and preservation, miss a deeper opportunity: any renaming effort that sidesteps Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is not just shortsighted but fundamentally half-baked.

Ghana stands at a pivotal moment in its post-colonial journey, one where Nkrumah’s visionary ideals of pan-African unity, self-reliance, and continental renaissance are not relics of the past but blueprints for the future. Consider the “Year of Return” in 2019 and its extension into “Beyond the Return”—initiatives that have drawn thousands of African descendants back to our shores, fostering economic ties, cultural reconnection, and a renewed sense of African pride.

Nkrumah’s clarion call for a united Africa, free from neo-colonial shackles, resonates profoundly with this renaissance. His foresight in championing the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) aligns seamlessly with today’s push for intra-African trade via the AfCFTA and the global reckoning with historical injustices like the transatlantic slave trade. Renaming the airport after Kotoka’s coup victim—Ghana’s founding president—would not merely correct a historical anomaly, it would signal to the world that Ghana is reclaiming its narrative in an era where African agency is ascendant.

There is no better symbolism for diasporan returnees arriving in Ghana — where their ancestors, centuries prior were sold into slavery — than arriving to reclaim their heritage at Kwame Nkrumah International Airport.

The reluctance to center Nkrumah exposes a national habit of incompleteness, a pattern etched into our landscape. Look no further than the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in Accra: a grand tribute to the Osagyefo, yet one that feels unfinished. In fact, my reading on the design, which resembles a broken pyramid, is meant to reflect both Nkrumah’s unfinished Pan-African vision and Ghana’s continuing journey after him.

I am not an expert in symbols and symbolsim, but I feel deeply that that symbolism is self-defeating. Spiritually, it may suggest we will never get anything completed; we will always be in a perpetual cycle of starting things and never completing. I digress. Back to the airport renaming.

Renaming the airport “Kwame Nkrumah International Airport” would be a bold act of completion, transforming our gateway to the world into a monument of triumph rather than division. It would honor the man who built the original airfield as part of his ambitious development agenda, ensuring that every arriving visitor encounters Ghana through the lens of its liberator, not its disruptors. Sometimes, it feels like we are only ones (I mean Ghanaians) belittling Nkrumah’s influence and impact on the African continent. But if only we could throw away our political lenses, his grandeur and vision would be visible to all of us.

A bold decision like changing the name of a country’s main international airport demands careful consultation to avoid partisan pitfalls, but let’s not let fear of controversy perpetuate half-measures. Ghana deserves a symbol that inspires unity and ambition, not one mired in the dark shadows of 1966. Kotoka did Ghana no good by masterminding Nkrumah’s overthrow. Let’s not split hairs about that. If Nkrumah had flaws at all, on hindsight, he was the best for Ghana and the Black race.

By embracing Nkrumah fully in this timely renaming agenda, we don’t just rename an airport—we complete a chapter, fortifying our role in Africa’s awakening. The time is now: let’s finish what we started!

Something seismic has just happened in Burkina Faso—and Africa, and the world, should be paying close attention.

With the stroke of a decree approved by the council of ministers, the military-led government of President Ibrahim Traoré has dissolved all political parties and scrapped the legal framework governing their existence. Party offices, assets, structures—gone. Transferred to the state. Politics, as Burkina Faso has known it for decades, has been put on pause.

This is not administrative housekeeping.
This is a fundamental rewrite of the political order.

The government’s justification is blunt: political parties, it says, have become engines of division, corruption, and elite self-interest. Too many parties, too little nation-building. Too much competition for power, too little service to the people. The solution, in Traoré’s view, is unity before politics—a state rebuilt first, elections later.

It is a message that resonates far beyond Ouagadougou.

Across Africa, fatigue with multiparty democracy is real. For millions, democracy has meant elections without electricity, constitutions without jobs, and politicians who rotate offices while poverty stays put. Against that backdrop, some are asking an uncomfortable question: If democracy has not delivered, why defend it so fiercely?

But history demands honesty—and honesty complicates the applause.

Africa also knows this story well. The suspension of political parties has often been the opening chapter in longer, darker books: prolonged military rule, shrinking civic space, silenced dissent, and leaders who promise transition but grow comfortable with control. Coups, too, have a long and disappointing record. They rarely end as advertised.

And yet—this is where Burkina Faso unsettles easy conclusions.

Traoré is not governing like yesterday’s coup leaders. His administration has moved aggressively on national sovereignty: reclaiming control over resources, rejecting external political tutelage, pushing self-reliance, and speaking a language of dignity that resonates deeply with a generation raised on the failures of dependency. Crucially, many Burkinabè appear to be backing him—not out of fear, but belief.

This is what makes the moment dangerous and fascinating.

Is dissolving all political parties the first step toward authoritarian consolidation?
Or is it an audacious—if risky—attempt to reset a political system that many believe was never truly democratic to begin with?

From Accra to Addis Ababa, from Paris to Washington, observers will rush to label this move. But Burkina Faso is not a textbook case; it is a country at war with insurgency, burdened by history, and searching—desperately—for a model that works for itself.

Still, power without pluralism is power unchecked. And no matter how popular a leader may be today, the absence of political competition tomorrow raises a simple, enduring question: who watches the watcher?

Burkina Faso now stands at a fork in the road. One path leads to a genuine, time-bound reconstruction of the state, followed by a return to accountable civilian rule—stronger, leaner, and more rooted in the people. The other leads to a familiar African tragedy: revolutionary rhetoric giving way to permanent exception.

Which path Traoré chooses will define not just his legacy, but Burkina Faso’s place in Africa’s political future.

This is not a moment for blind praise or reflexive condemnation. It is a moment for vigilance, debate, and clear-eyed realism.

A reset may be necessary.
But history warns: when politics disappears, it rarely stays gone quietly.

The question now is not whether Burkina Faso has changed.
It has.

The question is whether this change will liberate the state—or outgrow the consent of its people.

Donald Trump’s much-publicized “Board of Peace,” unveiled with pomp at the World Economic Forum in Davos, was designed to project global relevance, authority and inevitability. Instead, it exposed a troubling lack of legitimacy, credibility and balance—one made glaring by the absence of many of the world’s most influential democracies.

France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Canada either declined invitations or asked for more time. Their collective hesitation was not diplomatic shyness; it was a clear signal. For a body that claims to shape peace and stability, the refusal of major economies and long-standing diplomatic actors to sign on is not a footnote—it is the story.

The contradictions deepened with the invitation extended to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has overseen Israel’s war on Gaza and is currently indicted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes. That he could not attend the Davos ceremony because Switzerland would have been legally obliged to arrest him bordered on the surreal. A peace body that courts an indicted leader while claiming moral authority undermines itself at birth.

Even more troubling is the structure of the Board itself. Donald Trump chairs it for life, wields exclusive veto power, and alone can appoint his successor. Its executive arm—focused on diplomacy and investment—is dominated by Trump family members and close associates. This is not multilateralism; it is personalization of global governance.

Membership, too, comes at a price. Countries seeking permanent seats beyond a three-year term are reportedly required to pay $1 billion. Peace, in this framework, appears less a universal good and more a premium subscription.

The most jarring moment at the launch came when Jared Kushner unveiled a glossy redevelopment vision for Gaza—high-rise buildings, coastal tourism, data centres and factories—promising transformation within three years. The United Nations has offered a sobering counterpoint: up to seven years may be needed just to clear the rubble, much of it laced with unexploded ordnance.

Absent from Kushner’s presentation was any serious discussion of Palestinian agency, governance, or consent. Palestinians appeared not as stakeholders in their future, but as a problem to be managed—primarily through the disarming of Hamas. This omission mirrors a deeper flaw: while the Board of Peace claims to have emerged from Gaza ceasefire talks, its charter makes no meaningful reference to that founding cause.

Worse still, the ceasefire itself has been fragile in name and devastating in reality. Nearly 500 Palestinians have reportedly been killed since it took effect, calling into question the very peace the Board claims to champion.

For Ghana and Africa more broadly, the lesson is caution. Global initiatives branded as “peace” but built on spectacle, exclusivity and transactional politics deserve scrutiny, not applause. Peace cannot be chaired for life, bought with fees, or imposed without those most affected having a voice.

True peace is slow, inclusive, accountable—and deeply unglamorous. Any project that forgets this risks becoming not a bridge to stability, but another monument to power dressed up as progress.