Ghana needs a ‘benevolent dictator’ – Nana Asaase

Poet Nana Asaase has said a benevolent dictator could help turn Ghana’s fortunes around.

“We need some benevolent dictatorship, somebody who would come in, very endearing to the people; our leaders could be like that yet would tell us as a nation: ‘This is where we are going,’” he told Prince Minkah on the Executive Breakfast Show on Class91.3FM on Friday June 3 during a discussion in remembrance of the June 3 flood and fire disasters which killed about 150 people at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra.

A GOIL fuel station located within the enclave exploded during a heavy downpour that fateful Wednesday night in 2015 killing most of the people who had sought shelter at that place and surrounding areas from the rains.

In Nana Asaase’s view, apart from citizens needing a change in attitude towards their environment and sanitation, there was also the need for strong leadership in dealing with problems of the sort.

Citing Lee Kuan Yew to buttress his point, Nana Asaase said a leader cast in the mould of the late Singaporean leader could do Ghana a lot of good.

“My grandpa keeps referring to Lee Kuan Yew…yes, people like that; look at what they’ve done to Singapore, or look at what they’ve done to Malaysia. It took revolutionary leadership like that; someone, not a dictator (dictatorship is not essentially negative, but the way it is held, this why I call it benevolent dictatorship). Somebody who is firm and says: ‘We have a national agenda; this is what we are pushing as a people, and then in a very short space of time’. So, you see from Third World to First World, that’s Lee Kuan Yew’s book; how they had to transform their nation to First World. But what do we have today?” he asked.

Lee, (born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, 16 September 1923 – 23 March, 2015), informally known by his initials LKY, was the first Prime Minister of Singapore. He led the country for three decades. Lee is celebrated as the nation's founding father, with the country described as transitioning from the "Third World to First World in a single generation" under his leadership.