National Friday Wear – Six days to dress like the white man and just one day to dress African is a total joke and is unacceptable to Chief of Akwamu Adumasa and husband of Gifty Anti, Nana Ansah Kwao IV.
In a typical office in Ghana and most African countries, from Monday to Thursday, workers come in English wears and in their traditional wears on Fridays.
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In Ghana it is called National Friday Wear – a day set out for putting on the Ghanaian attire in offices, factories, and other workplaces. But Chief Ansah Kwao IV, who spoke to Bola Ray on Wednesday, October 8, wondered why Africans disregard their culture but embrace that of the Europeans.
According to the chief, that shouldn’t be the case because the white men whom Africans try to copy or try to model do not do the same with the African tradition.
Which country in this world; you go to Japan and they say from Monday to Friday don’t dress like a Japanese just dress like an African, this whole Friday wear business is a big joke. He said
Speaking further, the chief said that setting aside Fridays for Ghana wears only implies that six days in a week are international days while one day -Friday- is a national day. According to him, every day or more days should be made national days” in Ghana.
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Nana Ansah called on Togbe Afede XIV, President of the National House of Chiefs to help change things.
The “National Friday Wear Programme” was launched in 2004 to help project a unique Ghanaian identity through the extensive use of local fabric and designs as business wear.
The programme was to be implemented by the private sector. The government had urged that civil servants and office workers abandoned their Westernized business attire in favor of local fabrics.
It was part of a comprehensive programme to promote made-in-Ghana goods and to revitalize the textile and garments industry which was heading to a fall.
The question now is; can this aim be achieved by setting only a day aside for projecting that unique Ghanaian identity?
This question is sometimes asked silently or vocally on media platforms, by stakeholders who seem disturbed by the overweight patronage in which the western culture is receiving in Africa of today.
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