My Cola Nut Protest, From 1992 to Present
—By an unrepentant cola-chewing conspirator
Dear Nyaaba,
I recall vividly that you always had a piece of cola handy, though you could not be said to be a consistent chewer. I always got, as a child, the impression that you used it to stir yourself up to work, what the English folk call a stimulant.
As I grew, the consumption of cola came to be seen as an exploit of the unlettered, and so I naturally knew I was not going to have anything to do with it.
But. It all began as a humble crunch.
Not the crunch of democratic institutions blooming in post-military Ghana, not quite. No, mine was a crunch that began circa 1992, at the intersection of electoral politics and spiritual allegiance, and it came courtesy of a small, brown, bitter nut: the fabled cola.
At the time, I wasn’t seeking divine enlightenment or a natural energy boost. I was making a statement. A loud, juicy, slightly red-stained one in solidarity with a man: Dr. Hilla Limann, Sissala son of the Upper West, constitutional purist, and presidential candidate for the People’s National Convention (PNC). A man who, as fate and the tribal blender of Ghanaian politics would have it, had become a chewable symbol of marginalisation.
Now, let me be clear: this wasn’t a snack. This was protest. Performance. Resistance-by-mastication.
You see, as the 1992 elections loomed and the Fourth Republic tentatively poked its head out of the military shroud, Dr. Limann dared, dared!, to run again for president, invoking the memory of his brief, principled rule in 1979–81. But alas, in a country where political rivalry often wears tribal garb like Sunday best, Dr. Limann became less of a candidate and more of a chew toy.
His opponents, masters of fiction and full-time fabricators of scandal, accused him not merely of political irrelevance, but of defiling the very walls of Christianborg Castle, Ghana’s presidential seat then, with cola nut spittle. Yes, you read that right. Apparently, his alleged cola-chewing was so vigorous, so unholy, that it left crimson trails of blasphemy on colonial masonry.
The symbolism was too delicious to ignore.
Here was a man from the North, a devout Sissala scholar who revered constitutionalism like it was scripture, being reduced by the southern elite commentariat to a mouth-frothing bushman, too uncouth to govern. All because of cola. The sacred nut of communion, ceremony, and, if you asked them, carnage.
So I picked up a nut.
And I chewed. Loudly.
At lectures, for I was then an undergraduate, in meetings, in buses, in bank queues, even (once) at a suspiciously upscale funeral in Labone. My gumline became a frontline. My tongue, a banner. I chewed for Limann. I chewed for the Upper West, I chewed for Northern Ghana. I chewed for every tribe, every language group, that’s ever been deemed “less evolved” by the self-proclaimed curators of Ghanaian civilization.
Because let’s not pretend: tribal politics in Ghana is a contact sport dressed in kente. There are those who fancy themselves as the true face of Homo sapiens, as though evolutionary biology paused for a jollof break in their compound. These are the ones who speak of “development” like it’s genetic, not policy. Who weaponize accents, surnames, and yes, chewing habits, as proof of unfitness to rule.
But the cola nut is stubborn. It stains.
And so does history.
In my own small way, I’ve carried on the protest.
From 1992 to now, I’ve chewed through coups, dumsor, SSS reforms, and even an E-Levy. I’ve refused to let the symbolism dry up. Even when people tell me it’s “not cool”, “uncouth” or “archaic” or “discolours your teeth,” I smile wide and say: “So did truth, once upon a time.”
Let them talk.
As long as memory needs a mouth and justice has a jaw, I’ll be here, chewing.
Yours in the Cola Fraternity
Kasise Ricky Peprah
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