Democracy is not just about development projects!

Friday, May 11, 2012

A careful assessment of the government’s campaign strategies indicates that President Mills hasn’t learnt any lesson from happenings in this 4^th Republic to prepare adequately for Election 2012. The government is boasting of infrastructural development and staking its electoral chances on it, which is a huge gamble.

The reality is that it takes more than infrastructural development for a government to win the trust and confidence of the electorate and have its mandate renewed or to be voted into office for the first time. The message (as the NPP sought to convey in 2000) is that electoral victory doesn’t depend on development projects alone. In a broader sense, then, governance entails more than an obsession with infrastructure.

There are some people who will not appreciate such projects, no matter how much the government does for their communities. Such people may not necessarily be ungrateful but just concerned that other variables have not been factored into the government’s handling of national affairs. And they are right.

Nana Konadu claims the NDC Logo: What next?

Thursday, May 10, 2012

The internal crisis facing the NDC has now reached a ridiculously harmful level. Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings is claiming the ownership of the NDC’s logo and has written to warn the party’s leaders not to use that logo for their political activities. She is all out to behead the NDC!!

She hasn’t indicated what she wants to use that logo for or how she intends to preserve it. Probably, as a memento to remind her of the art classes that she took at the then University of Science and Technology, Kumasi?

In any case, her demand is not only weird but it is also mind-boggling for whatever dire consequences it may have for the NDC and its place in our democratization process. One needs no reminder that the NDC is a formidable political force whose contributions have helped define our democratization, and anything that destroys it will have a far-reaching effect on it. Let its opponents sing “Halleluia” but there is a price to pay.

A good thing sells itself, Mr. President!!

Wednesday, May 8, 2012

Vice President John Dramani Mahama’s plea for a second term for President Mills is thought-provoking at several levels, probably excluding his premise that the two Presidents who have ruled since the inception of the 4^th Republic had 8 years apiece; thus, President Mills must also be given 8 years.

There is no logic like that in politics. Renewal of mandate depends on accomplishments—how the government has used the mandate of the people to work for their benefit, improving living conditions and demonstrating enough to instill hope in them for a brighter future.

Let us not reduce our democracy to this ridiculously formulaic level, based on an empty precedent of longevity in office. We must base it on nothing but practical achievements. A government that doesn’t help us to grow our democracy (which encompasses all departments of national life—economic, political, social, cultural, etc.) should be kicked out of office. No amount of sermonizing or pleading should be tolerated.

The essential question, then, becomes: Has President Mills done enough to satisfy the electorate who put him in office at the 2008 general elections? If he has, then, he should rest assured that at Election 2012, his mandate will be renewed. If not, then, he must start preparing its handing over notes right-away!!

If President Mills must go…

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Let’s be serious in any discussion of our leadership problems. Here is something to start with (from the great J.E. Casely Hayford’s propositions on Leadership in West Africa):

The story goes that a flock of birds once set out to find a king. And they climbed a high mountain if only they could find him there. And they climbed and climbed until they scaled the topmost peak, and there they did find him. But—he was only a bird!!!

The lesson is clear: the king of a bird is no different from the birds that set out to find him. Disgust, disillusionment, disappointment, and regret? Your guess is as right as mine.

Ghanaians may be looking for a leader of a different kind but are those parading themselves all over the political landscape any different from those we already have? We want to be sure that they are different before we commit ourselves into their hands.

When Akufo-Addo decides to fight the bull…

Saturday, May 5, 2012

The NPP’s Akufo-Addo is, indeed, a man of many parts—a lawyer, human rights activist, and politician, among others. Now, he has turned himself into a matador to kill the mammoth of a bull that Kennedy Agyapong’s hate speech has created.

He is wearing a red shirt to engage this bull, hoping first to hold it by its horns and bulldog it in the end. Mistake Number One: bulls hate the color red, which his shirt has. How tactically prepared is he?

At the first attempt, which he made yesterday (symbolized by the meeting with the chiefs of the Volta Region), he went for the bull’s tail instead. Mistake Number Two: Going for the tail is not the best initial move; the bull will turn round to sweep him off his feet and he should count himself lucky to survive.

Bawumia opens the hornet’s nest and…..

Friday, May 4, 2012

In his first major appearance on a politically motivated event to engage the major concern of Ghanaians (the state of the country’s economy), the NPP’s Mahamudu Bawumia presented a catalogue of critiques that the NPP activists have described as a “brilliant” analysis but which the official response from the Ministry of Finance and government spokesmen trashed as “intellectual dishonesty.”

Instantaneously, Bawumia has thrust himself into a political dust-storm. Let’s see how he will emerge when the dust settles. By taking on the government this way, he seems to have demonstrated enough courage and should seize the opportunity to prove that he is indeed an “economic guru.” The barrage of criticisms and rebuttal of his claims has already begun being unleashed. The hornets are coming for him.

The NPP can’t win elections with an old tune!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

The NPP’s strategy of exposing Bawumia is on course to catapult him into the limelight. That’s why he seems to be playing a frontline role these days and receiving media attention for it. In principle, that strategy is politically viable; but in reality, it doesn’t seem to be the solution the NPP needs to reap the benefits of a Bawumia Running-Mate candidacy.

I say so with hindsight—Bawumia couldn’t get the NPP the Northern votes that it had anticipated in the 2008 elections. Thus, by retaining him for the 2012 elections, whatever might have contributed to his inability to woo voters needs to be neutralized. That’s why the publicity stunt is all about him these days.

But he has joined the “Yen Akanfuo” choir to sing himself hoarse with an old tune that will not help the NPP win the elections. The cacophony grates on the ears—and it hurts too!!