Ghana’s political leadership benefits few – Tony Aidoo

Ghana’s former Ambassador to the Netherlands, Dr Tony Aidoo is advocating a political system that will inure to the masses and not a select few.

Analysing the current political leadership, Dr Aidoo bemoaned the situation where there is sharp contrast in political parties where the elite few control affairs much to the detriment of the masses.

In his view, it is time for critical thinking in order to put in a place a system where everyone benefits from the governance.

Dr Aidoo said this at a conference organised by The Progressive Intellectuals in Accra on Tuesday, 2 October 2018, on the theme: “Rethinking Political Leadership in Ghana”.

“The welfare of the mass population has not mattered much to the political leadership as much as their own parochial welfare and every change of government is nothing but a change of an elite to replace the previous administrations elite,” he stated.

Dr Aidoo continued that: “The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. We should ask ourselves how much wealth can an individual, a politician, create, in order to create wealth for even generations unborn at the expense of contemporary populations under circumstances in which a large majority of our people are indigent.

And we ask ourselves what is the value of the democracy? Is this the democracy that is beneficial to the masses or to the few? This is the question.”

Dr Aidoo said he wants to see a mass population that is attentive to the actions of the political elite and demand a change rather than participate in the partisanships whereby they only get droplets of benefits and the leadership gets the chunk.

On his part, former National Service Secretariat boss and a lecturer at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Ghana, Dr Michael Kpessa Whyte, called for a one time seven-year term limit for Presidents.

This he believes will give elected leaders ample time to concentrate on developing a nation rather than focusing on the next election.