So, What Is Akufo-Addo Talking About?

Friday, July 23, 2010

I have been monitoring seriously the campaign tours that the NPP's aspiring flagbearers have embarked on since the gates were opened for them to announce themselves to the party's delegates to the August 7 Congress. 

These campaign tours have given them the opportunity to interact with cross-sections of those delegates and the broad membership of the party at various levels.

So far, they've all gone round the country and made themselves visible, especially at the constituency level. News reports on their activities and utterances have created the impression that each of them is out to register himself as a possible choice. 

Some of the reasons they've advanced to support their claims include: being loyal and hardworking members of the NPP, being interested in improving the lot of the party at the constituency level, especially; being capable of leading the NPP to victory at the 2012 polls; and many others that have more to do with the interests of the NPP than the country.

Yes, at this local level, they may be right in concentrating on what their aspirations for the party are. After all, it is an in-house affair at the upcoming congress. After that, one will expect the winner to roll out his plans for the country. 

If that is the line of action, then, one will have no justification to criticize any of them for limiting the campaign messages to NPP-related issues. But that is not the case. Nana Akufo-Addo, who considers himself the front-runner, has gone out of his way to open his mouth too wide. He has made daily verbal attacks on the NDC government his political stock-in-trade.

By taking on the government at this level, he may be seen as taking issues beyond the NPP in-house level. That's where he opens himself to scrutiny and possible tongue-lashing, especially since his verbal diarrhoea lacks substance.

I have carefully scrutinized Akufo-Addo's claims and can draw only one conclusion: he doesn't seem to know what exactly the call to be the party's flagbearer after its defeat at the 2008 polls means. If all he is using as his trump-card to win the confidence of the electorate is his persistent attacks on the Mills-led NDC government, then, he had better not waste anybody's time.

Throughout the period, his emphasis has been on the supposed failures of the Mills government to deliver on its campaign promises as if by harping on this issue he will be able to outdo Mills if given the chance.

Of all the aspirants, Akufo-Addo seems to be the most garrulous. Wherever he goes, all he does is to raise to the sky his allegation that the Mills government hasn't been able to solve the country's problems as if less than two years is enough for the President and his team to solve all that has been Ghana's problems for decades.

I want to take issue with Akufo-Addo's claims at only two levels to suggest that he seems not to have learnt the bitter lessons that his trouncing at the 2008 elections should have taught him by now.

He is still indulging in the kind of rabble-rousing that may draw curious people to his side but may not eventually earn him the nod to be Ghana's President. He may win the NPP's flagbearership but his luck is likely to fizzle out there again.

Using the media to do the politicking for him and basing his chances on the people who show up wherever he goes will surely take him back to the torments of the 2008 polls. People are often like that, especially when they latch on to the herd mentality, as is often the case in the pre-election period. But when the dust settles, they will raise serious questions whose answers will be known only in the polling booth.

Akufo-Addo still hasn't cleared the air on issues that negated his previous attempts at the Presidential elections nor is he giving anything concrete to suggest that he has qualities that the current President lacks. It's all about condemnation of the Mills government, which the people already know. What they don't know is what somebody else can do to solve their problems, which Akufo-Addo isn't touching on. 

Akufo-Addo is reported to have said that he “believes Professor John Evans Atta Mills and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration have mismanaged the Ghanaian economy to the extent that it is heading for collapse.” This serious statement wasn't supported with evidence for one to determine issues properly.

Where is the evidence of mismanagement? Considering the myriad economic problems that the Mills government inherited from the Kufuor government (just as the Kufuor one did from previous governments), one is baffled at this claim by Akufo-Addo. 

I am certain that the problems that the NPP government created at the Tema Oil Refinery alone, which the Mills government has been solving to date, are enough evidence for Akufo-Addo to know that the Mills government didn't inherit a “rosy economy” from the NPP administration.

The age-old problems that have stunted our growth are still with us, not because Mills is mismanaging affairs but because of more serious systemic factors, which Akufo-Addo can't claim to have the antidote for. He is just being a nuisance on this score.

Doubtless, the country's economic woes are still evident in the broad sense of poor earnings from exports, inability to reduce the huge government expenditure on imports and emoluments—which has made it difficult for the Mills government to improve living conditions between January 7, 2009 and now. Ghanaians can't claim not to know about these problems.

They also know that these perennial economic problems were not the creation of the Mills government nor do they indicate that the country is heading for collapse. They appear to be unhappy at the slow pace of tackling these problems. What does Akufo-Addo think he has to expedite action in solving these problems? That's what we want to be told.

One would have given credit to Akufo-Addo had he provided any alternative measures for solving the problems. But as usual, he just carelessly dropped such irresponsible utterances and satisfied himself with the howls from his party's activists that he had revealed what will win him the people's hearts. He shouldn't be deceived. Those whose votes will make the difference don't attend his rallies.

Another problem with Akufo-Addo's narrow way of politicking emerged when he said that “the NDC is taking us back into the days of cash and carry.”

This is the most outrageous and dishonest statement to have come from someone who should have known better because despite the NPP's loud boasts that it would abolish the cash-and-carry system if voted to power at the 2000 elections, it couldn't do so for all the 8 years that Kufuor was in power.

Its tinkering with the National Health Insurance Scheme (which itself is only a broader version of the pilot project of the sort that the Rawlings government had initiated in three districts in the Brong-Ahafo Region before leaving office) hasn't relieved Ghanaians of their healthcare delivery worries. 

We all know the problems (mismanagement, fraud, and outright stealing of funds) that have dogged the NHIS, which is still making it difficult for it to be run effectually. The Kufuor government didn't abolish the cash-and-carry system nationwide. Therefore, accusing the Mills government of “reintroducing” it is the height of ignorance and repugnant conduct.

For Akufo-Addo to presume not to know of these limitations is mischievous. Presenting himself as the one with the magic wand to solve Ghana's problems is just like taking himself to the slaughter house. He seems not to know the true spirit of Ghana politics.

I still have my convictions that Akufo-Addo is not the kind of person that Ghana needs as President. He may claim to be a successful lawyer but what I have noticed so far about him suggests strongly to me that he is creating too much fuss about his capabilities as a politician—more so, to be elected as the President of Ghana.

He hasn't impressed me in any way because he is more wont to indulge in pettiness than engaging the real issues that will place him above all others who have come to notice so far. 

Ghanaian politics in this century should be more issues-based than what he has raked up so far. I think that he is bent on whipping up mere sentiments rather than giving the people the food-for-thought that they need to consider in choosing their leaders. It is obvious that President Mills' government is facing serious problems but it is not to be raised as the main campaign issues of Akufo-Addo.

So far, all the other aspirants have given us some fair ideas as to what they would do to make the difference, especially if we consider what Dr. Frimpong-Boateng has revealed about the intentions that he will actualize if elected as Ghana's President.

I haven't seen a single one from Akufo-Addo except his daily fault-finding agenda. With this fault-finding attitude, he may lead only by pointing the way, not walking it.

Akufo-Addo must stop wasting our time with all these worn-out and tired criticisms of President Mills. He should tell us what solutions he has to the country's problems and explain to us why he deserves to be elected as the President.

He should tell us what he has that recommends him as such. No amount of rabble-rousing or sentimentalizing of politics will solve Ghana's problems.

Others with more charisma than him have been there before but couldn't rely on that personal charisma to get us where we've wanted to be all along. We want to be given solutions, not mere hot air or self-adulation and an empty vainglorious praise for control over the English language.

If parroting through the English language were all it would take to be Ghana's President, many others would have been there before him. The curtain falls.