After Kwame Nkrumah, Who Is Next?

Visionaries like the Late Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah of blessed, memory are not created ,they show up occasionally in our lives at different times and periods. These are people whose perceptions and understanding about life transcends beyond the reasoning of an ordinary man notwithstanding ones educational background and other unique qualities.

Dr Kwame Nkrumah whose nine -year reign as Prime Minister after independence and later as President of the First Republic ,created so much for Ghana in infrastructure and human development, was a man with a vision, a mastermind and a doer. He was someone who could translate ideas from paper to fruition and always exhibited high level imagination during his period.

Acting as the Managing Director of the Republic, he micro managed the economy with a deep understanding of his agenda and purpose for the country in relation to the world that we lived in. He was definitely ahead of his time and understood the intricacies of his era, especially the political and social conflicts of the racial world and the way forward for Ghana which many of his compatriots failed to understand, as attested by the late Mr Joe Appiah , one of Ghana’s protégées, during his last interview by BBC shortly before his death. Today , we cannot talk too much about most of our leaders because there is none so selfless, patriotic, less materialistic , imaginative, focused and visionary like the Late Dr Kwame Nkrumah who demonstrated extraordinary love, goodwill and commitment towards the growth of Ghana.

Ghana at 50 is an important milestone that has to be celebrated notwithstanding our socio-political problems, to enable us sit down and take stock of our past; discuss relevant related issues and amend our ways where necessary ; plan and create structures that will guarantee and make us competitive in the new world. Today, we celebrate this anniversary with mixed feelings taking cognizance of many missed opportunities that would have made our dear nation unique one in the world. Ironically, we cannot blame anybody because collectively, we have not been able to select very good leaders with the right vision to direct the affairs of this nation when we were given the mandate through the ballot box. On the other hand, we can be excused because more than often, we the electorate are always saddled with a herculean task of choosing a bad candidate among the worse as a result of choices coming out from the respective party delegates conferences. It is not only surprising but very shameful and disgraceful to see conscious people at this time and age in civilization electing people to lead a NATION on the bases of the candidate’s time spent with the party, loyalty to the party members, family ties and monetary consideration. This explains why at 50 we still have a disorganized society:- no operational laws in any area ; no functional courts system with pending cases taking from three to fifteen years before resolution ; corrupt police institution that allows the rich and the affluence to dictate the pace of our lives ; most of our citizenry have become tricksters and corrupt with many seeing nothing wrong with lying; bribery is now functional in our daily lives ; sanitation consciousness is totally absent and everything else seems directionless.

How do we expect investors to come to our country when most of our roads and houses are not numbered ? Where are our rest stops both in our cities , towns and on our roads ? We have to understand that civility is not just about the use of fine cars and beautiful houses but about the way we carry ourselves in our daily lives. Fellow countrymen and women, our woes are very deep and alarming , yet we cannot blame anybody nor the government but ourselves because our nation will be better off if we can all function from the basic principles of love for our own growth, explicit ideology of our nation first, develop a mind set to always do our best , endeavour to preserve our rules and security, ensure job consciousness and ethics. Everything is achievable with a good and visionary leader who practices what he says and leads by example. His persona will be a huge influence on the masses and help us change as a people. I am talking about a selfless person in the likes of Dr Nkrumah who did not even have a personal house after nine years and was ready and prepared to sacrifice his dear life for Ghana.

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah was a man of many parts, which is evident in his thought process and his plans to make Ghana a show piece within which anybody could come and enjoy and yet within its rules. He was a person with original ideals and a visionary. He left Ghanaians with a state that was destiny for glory with very little direction. All the related structures needed for economic take off were present . Osagyefo’s achievements are many including the best hospitals of the era, two new universities( KNUST AND CAPE COAST ), 28 completed secondary schools, efficient rail system, the Black star shipping line, Ghana Airways, state farms ,PWD, Urban Roads ,Akosombo Dam, factories like Aboaso Glass Factory, Komenda Sugar Factory, Kumasi Shoe Factory, Nsawam Canaries , POMAZE , GHANA Film Industry etc. Dr Nkrumah understood his era and the politics of the world around him. He had style and a good perspective about many issues around him. It is interesting to note that, the architecture of KNUST was unmatched by many universities (forty five years ago ) in the USA. As the Managing Director, he created a manufacturing economy that gave many people jobs to do. As usual, it was work and happiness in Ghana and we did not have the current unemployment mess, with people moving on the streets as if it was dooms day. This mess however, is not an attribute of the current administration but the result to a long period of poor and misguided economic planning without any regard to population growth. Presently, everybody is selling or acting as a distributor through imports from all parts of the world. When are we going to learn and start manufacting to create jobs and wealth. At 50, we need to discuss in detail the genesis of our country’s unemployment issues which is getting worse everyday because of our lack of purpose and clarity of our economic policies.

Osagyefo, at the least, made sure that the labour pool in Ghana was taken care off. Many of the factories which Osagyefo built have been sold to party functionaries during the era of the previous administration. It is therefore hard to believe that while many of our past leaders did not establish any meaningful economic policy to boost the private sector to create jobs , they succeeded in destroying our base by selling the few that we had in the system to their cronies , all in the name of divestiture. It is interesting to note that many of Osagefo’s factories had their raw material base in Ghana and those that we had to import material were still better, factoring in all the aggregates.

Today, we are all losers for sitting down quietly and allowing some of our past leaders to distribute the country’s resources in the name of Structure Adjustment Programme. How can this dear nation of ours grow or survive the current outrageous imports of our country from banana from South Africa to razor blade from China ? Have we had time to assess the kind of products coming into the country? How can we sit down and look while we waste hard earned currency in importing finished products which could have been manufactured here by using the same money component to import equipment for production and thereby creating jobs and wealth? Do we realize how quickly we are killing the few industries left in the system by abetting with other external economies like China with their anti-dumping practices here in our country? Have we so soon forgotten that nobody wanted China products some few years ago which are now being distributed to the whole world in different forms ? How does our fragile economy which is always supported by donor countries survive the current trend of imports and support our taste for foreign goods?

My fellow countrymen and women, we have come to the cross-road in deciding the fate of our nation now. It is a special time for us as we have the mandate for once to dictate the pace growth by voting in a man of integrity, dedication and talents .

At 50, we are about to enter the second half of our history with serious challenges and we need serious minded people who see life far and beyond the need to acquire self wealth but good memories of patriotism and sacrifice of one’s life for his or her country for posterity in the future. Ghana , our dear nation needs a comprehensive economic policy that takes into account the creation of a manufacturing economy that ensures productivity, employment and wealth. It is on the bases of this belief that I support the PSI programme and would like to suggest to the government to include rice production in the programme. I make this humble appeal since rice importation accounts for about $450,000,000.00 ( four hundred and fifty million dollars) of our scares foreign exchange, an amount which could be used to order machinery for manufacturing in our local areas. This initiative of creating raw material based industries in the districts will create jobs, prevent brain drain , ensure growth and wealth. We need to encourage ourselves and ensure the creation of small scale industries in the districts by tasking a ministry or setting up a task force within a ministry on identify areas of interest and help people through loan programmes and education. Ghana needs a visionary leader to direct our lives to reflect our environment as Ghanaians while we pursue incentives based programmes as a bate to creating jobs in our rural areas i.e. tax breaks , whiles we structure our imports in a way not to jeopardize the growth of our private sector ( our economy comes first) . Malaysia started from nowhere but with direction from a visionary leader , they are now an economic force . I am very convinced that Ghana, our dear nation would not have been a third world country if the late President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah were alive, after all, he struggled with the United Nation during his time to change the phrase “ under developed countries” to third world countries when referring to countries like Ghana ,Nigeria and chad, a stigma that he abhorred and disdained. He was a great leader by all accounts and in today’s Ghana, we equally need a visionary leader of our time to Shepherd this country to glory and that begins with PARTY DELEGATES CONFERENCES giving us better candidates.

After the regime of the Late Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah , Prime Minister and later President of our First Republic for about 9(nine) years, President Rawlings ruled for 19(nineteen years) and President Kufour for 6(six) years and going. The records of each Presidency is up to Ghanaians to assess. I will not attempt to talk about NLC regime for subverting our democracy , either would I talk about SMC 1and 2 for systematically destroying our socio-economic system with the introduction of derogatory terminologies like “kalabule” and “ginabu” . These military regimes succeeded in subverting our democracies and our economic growth ,putting us on this crises path of choes and helplessness. President Rawlings is a man of missed opportunities. We all followed him once because we failed to question the meaning of his actions and invariably did not get into his philosophy. After his initial populist pronouncements that galvanized many well-meaning people with a promise to institute the concept of Participatory Democracy , building a self-reliant economy and ultimately a manufacturing economy that would guarantee jobs and wealth, he succeeded in deceiving many progressive people who wanted real change for our country for his own personal aggrandizement. Nobody questioned the meaning of his actions and either did anybody know his philosophy with the excption of few people like the Ahwois and the Tsikatas . It took conscious people a long time to understand the meaning and the philosophy of President Rawlings. In the end, many patriotic citizens became aliens in their own setting, feeling used and abandoned. Many cadres became outcast in their own environment for believing and participating in a concept that did not exist . At 50 , we cannot waste time deliberating on the past as it tends to divide us and yet , I feel it as my duty as citizen of our dear nation to advise our former President Rawlings to live Ghanaians alone. He talks about Ya-Na impasse to create hatred for Kufour’s Administration, playing one ethnic tribe against the other. If we need people to talk about Ya-Na’s impasse, the ex-president do not have the moral mandate to say anything because of his own personal record. We should remember that the truth will always survive. Ghana will be one country despite many of his utterances that tends to divide us and play one tribe against another. I have two siblings who are married to Ewes and I cannot explain the pain when we are referred to as Ashantis “ Ablutos” anytime we find ourselves in the midst of Ewes. Why do we have to create hatred and friction among ourselves ? How do we as a group level the plain field economically without encouraging inter -marriages ? This is very disheartening and it hurts to feel unaccepted in a certain sphere of your life. The creation of life started with Adam and Eve as one flesh and everything that we have added to make life harder is our own making and not the creator. I do not see why we have to grow with so much hate and it breaks my heart when I see people of high position trying to play the chess game for their own good using tribal issues be it among Dagombas, Ewes, Fantis, Ashantis or Fulanis. Ghana is one nation, one people with a common destiny. I have been wondering for a long time to find an answer as to what it means to insight military Officers to call a democratic elected government to order ? Is it about instigating mutiny or what ? It is a privilege to have known our former President Rawlings for the past nineteen years and it is about time he changed his behavior and act as a statesman for the growth of Ghana. I am convinced that if the former President Rawlings had a vision and a desire to transform our economy and its people, he would have done it , taking into consideration of the facts that he had charisma to mobilize the people and the favour of world leaders like former U.S President Bill Clinton but he did not. I make this statement without malice but as a patriot and should be given a room to retract that it is important that our former President cherish the moments (nineteen years ) that he had as Head of State of Ghana and understand that he could not have been President in many countries by default of birth taken into consideration that he is not a full blood Ghanaian . He has to thank the drafters of our constituition for making it possible. President Rawlings in my mind will be remembered greatly for his Interstate Succession Law that touched the base of our inheritance ; rural electrification ; building of hospitals in Sunyani, Ho and Cape Coast and some roads i.e. Kumasi

President Kufour on the other hand have not performed to the level expected of him yet he seems to be the right person for our country at this moment and time of our history. I personally want to thank him for the PEACE that we enjoy in this country. Although, he is not in any shape or form like the late Osagyefo Dr kwame Nkrumah ,he could be credited as a good Ambassador for Ghana. His persona ,human relations and deeds have helped him to put Ghana on the world map gaining respect and admiration from many developed countries. We do not have to take for granted the PEACE that we enjoy in our country today in a war torn zone. We should remember that anybody with the power of the President would have reacted badly and forcefully to many sensitive issues in our political arena that have been orchestrated to divide Ghanaians and drive us into a state of war. There have been numerous crazy utterances by seasoned politicians in Ghana to create tribal conflicts and by playing one tribe against the other . It is about time Ghanaians took into accounts the role and purpose of these distractors and remember to strive hard to keep the peace. I am a bit frustrated and shocked at the government’s inability to spread the concept of HEALTH INSURANCE to the populace. It is by far the most laudable and exceptional program unmatched even in advanced nations like the USA. It is a programme that requires the full attention of the government for it will stand up in history as one of the greatest monumental achievement of the NPP if it should succeed. I have seen it operational while on holidays when I visited a friend of mine at the Komfo Anokye Hospital. Whilst at the hospital, I had to help a discharged patient who could not afford to pay his discharged bill of c4.850.000.00 million cedis whereas my friend who is registered with the HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN paid a little over one million on a bill of over 8 million cedis. I was later informed that the annual registration with the program was less than c200,000.00 so what prevent people from enjoying this important health benefit ? This insurance scheme in my mind is for the poor and every efforts must be ensured to get them registered using the MARKET QUEENS , CHURCHES, CHIEFS , GPRTU etc. I dare the President to take leadership and engage all the media on this drive. Let this information be preached everyday at churches, news slots, car parks, stadia, FM stations and indeed all areas. People who have audience should see this as their civic responsibility to send the information out which will save lives and cost to people, especially the poor. The health care concept is the best programme that I have seen and I believe this even surprise the citizens in the USA where healthcare is very expensive and a privilege of the few. President Kufour can also be credited with containing inflation and creating the base for investment and development. Similarly, he has helped in the building of roads, my only problem is that I do not personally believe in the modus oparandi i.e. the award of contracts in ensuring the development projects in a third world country like Ghana. It is time to change the way we do business to ensure efficiency with our scares resources. We have to organize our base and mobilize our recourses in the most efficient way to ensure productivity. Most of the expatriate companies working on our roads really have about 1% representation of the company here, the rest of the engineering crew and other unskilled labourers are Ghanaians. We have seasoned Ghanaians building roads in USA on a salary of about $100,000,00 (one hundred thousand dollars) per year. Can‘t we organize our human resources here and outside to construct roads that are cost us about $1,000,000.00( one million dollars) per kilometer .

Why can’t we buy the equipments ourselves, organize our human resources and other necessary materials for production ourselves which will save us a lot of money and create room for other projects. Let us forget about the kick backs and do the right thing for our country with our scare resources. A loan is a loan and would be paid at a point in time of our history and it is incumbent on us to sacrifice our lives and save our country by doing our best and ensuring efficiency with our limited resources. Lets us reorganize our PWD’s , URBAN ROADS with a new sense of direction , believes and motivation. You can not build a country by awarding every piece of project on a contract especially at a point where all the mayor contracts are performed by expatriates who bring few equipments and use our local labour pool (skilled and unskilled). Let us go back to the drawing board and study the concept of building a state as perceived by Dr Nkrumah, take what make sense in today’s world ,add on and let move forward. Ghana is for Ghanaians and it is our responsibility to join ideas and hands together and function in unison for the development of our country . The pitfall in President Kufour’s administration is his drive and desire to surround himself with friends, party loyals and family members without due consideration to seasoned Ghanaians with proven records, qualities and desire to help rebuild Ghana. In the end, we have many Secretaries who are under performing and are still at post. His administration enjoyed a lot of goodwill which seems to be dwindling very fast having talked a lot of friends and well wishers. The NPP owes the populace a duty of explaining to them their achievements and why they have to go to pools and vote for them again. Besides , most of their supporters are disillusioned as evident in the past bye-elections with the pace of economic growth and they have two years to repair the damage for their own good and the country. This brings to mind the ISSUE WITH PARTY DELEGATES.

PARTY DELEGATES

Ghana has come to a point in our history where we are confronted with a serious obligation to reason for once with our conscious and GOD and select a flag bearer on the bases of COMPETENCE other than reliance on monetary considerations, length of time spent in the party, family relations, party loyalty, looks and other unrelated factors. We need a visionary, a person of high integrity, humble, respectful and God-fearing. If history is a guide ,we will realize that we all lose if we chose incompetent leaders who do not only amass wealth for themselves, their friends, family and few party associates but also frustrate, waste the country’s time and invariably slow down the engine of growth of the country. In the end, we stand as losers and our children and the unborn suffer because of our bad decision as a result of some few cedis coming in as bribes . We need a VISIONARY LEADER, one very selfless with a proven record to lead us in today’s competitive world. The average age of Ghanaians residing in America is 50 years and many of them are depending on the result of the impending elections to decide whether to stay or come home. Many of them like myself are going to be involved in the elections although most of us do not have voting rights. The mantle is on our delegates to come out with FLAGBEARERS with PROVEN RECORDS to shepherd this country. Ghana, our dear nation has suffered for far too long having gone through a lot of mediocre leaders and it becoming clearer that this nation does not need ordinary thinkers but visionary men and women with good ethics , high morals with a sense of duty. Forget about their looks, their party affiliations , family names and connections, monetary considerations,etc. and listen to the candidates , their vision for the country and select your favourite. Every vote counts and do not think that you are wasting your vote by going contrarily to conventional wisdom, a lot of people might be is the same loop which always create surprises and respect for delegates independent thinking. Let your vote represent a decision that you can be proud off and equally defend in the near future. It should not be about name, resources or looks ,but about one’s exceptional proven qualities and his or her CAPABILITY to lead this country.

NDC DELEGATE CONFERENCE

Most of my friends including myself in the United States were shocked by the variance in election result at the delegate conference that elected Prof Atta-Mills as the party’s flag bearer. We objectively thought and believed that Dr Spio Garbrah’s election as the flag bearer of the NDC would have represented a new order and thinking of the party. We have nothing against Prof just that we felt Dr would have been a better candidate after factoring in all the variables. Similarly, there were a lot of independent minded people that I spoke to who were ready to switch their votes from the NPP in Presidential elections for Dr Garbrah, because they felt he looked very shape, likeable , assertive, deeply oriented with the new world order, articulate and generally had something good to deliver. On the whole, people felt that the Doctor would have run a very smart and better campaign to beat NPP. The pronoucement that he made about Prof Atta-Mills were very objective just that it was tactically unwise for him to put them in writing to the party’s founder in view of the lose ends in our system today. We live in a society where many people hate the truth especially, when it is hurting to their plan of action or modus oparandi. NDC has a lot of dedicated and loyal members and that is evident in recent bye-elections, however, you do not win elections with party loyals alone without the support of the independent minded people popularly known as the swing voters. These are people who do not have special allegiance to any party and their voting can go either way depending on their understanding of the issues at stack and other related factors. Many Ghanaians love former President Rawlings and there are others who hate him for his 19 years rule. There are a batch of the electorate who believes that voting for Prof Atta-Mills means voting for former President Rawlings which they can not accommodate and thereby force them to look to the other alternatives. We have to bear in mind that politics is all about perception and that is why some issues might be politically correct and intellectually wrong. As it stands now, it is belated to comment on the NDC Delegate Conference since it is over and it is up to the registered voters to make their decision based on the choise made by the party. I hope that the delegates voted based on their own believe and reasoning without any undue influence.

NPP DELEGATES CONFERENCE

My dear brothers and sisters of the faith, I salute you and thank you for your enthusiasm , participation and energies shown in the process of nation building. For the first time in our nation’s history, we are saddled with a very herculean task in selection the flag bearer for our party. It is important to remenber that the time of fighting to remove former President Rawling without emphasis on who was coming in as our leader is over. This is the time to select someone who in your eyes-mind has the pre-requites to shepherd this country in this competitive world . For the first time in your lives ,you are being called to exercise your independent thinking and vote without relevance to looks, monetary considerations, party favourite, length of time spent in the party and family name. This is crunch time and you should be ready to deliver in good conscious to save our nation with the selection a flag- bearer who has a vision and have demonstrated qualities of a leader in his or her field of endeavour. My friends , this is not the time for experiments but a period to elect a person with proven record to lead this nation to the promise land. This nation is tired with having to deal with mediocre leaders that ends up slowing down the engine of growth of the country. Whether we develop as a nation depends on the choises we make today and it against this background that I personally wish to suggest Dr Frimpong Boateng, as a possible candidate for the flagbearership in view of his proven record and his character as a selfless person.

He is an epitome of a modern day patriot , the pride of a Ghanaian worker and an advocate of service to the nation, a set of characteristics that will serve our democracy well and the future of our nation. He is a thinker who represents youth, truth and dynamism , qualities of a visionary that are needed for our growth. This man is not a normal politician that we know. His understanding about politics translates into one’s desire to sacrifice his or her life in the interest of his or her country. He is not in the race for his personal gains as could attested by many in our country today. He has demonstrated in numerous occasions about his love for Ghana and pure service to his people. His interest , I believe is only to help steer the affairs of our nation that abounds a lot of resources and yet refuse to grow because of lack of direction and a national agenda. Our country today is exemplified by the way we drive, no orderliness and everybody does what he or she wants. Dr Frimpong Boateng is an example of sacrifice and devotion to duty, very strict in ensuring performance , selfless with an image that will change us and make us good citizens. As usual , unlike other aspirants, he has not visibly been with party for too long partially because his position as the Executive Director of Korle Bu Hospital, but that should not debar him from getting the consent from delegates if he has the qualities to save our democracy. Please , delegates, do not pay attention to his length of time with the party but his proven record of his devotion , his sacrifice and vision for the country which is create a manufacturing economy, one that produces for local consumption and export, creates employment and wealth. I pray that the Lord Almighty God give you wisdom and the courage to do your country justice with your genuine vote during the Delegate Conference. Remember that when the rain falls, it does not fall in one man’s house for we are all in the loop.

Dr Kwame Nkrumah once said that ‘there is a new African, who when given the opportunity will show to the world that he is capable of ruling himself……”. I believe that he understood exactly what he said 50 years ago as compared to today’s generation who have lost their sense of self. Both Ghana and Malaysia are fifty years but our development curves reads differently because unlike Malaysia , we live in a society where the bulk of the people do not even know the national objectives and philosophies. There is not a national agenda so everybody does what makes sense to him or her and thereby breeding so much lawlessness and confusion. We live in a country where the major issues are crime, land acquisition and sanitation and yet I do not know whether there are any laws on them? Armed robbers move around with their chest open without arrest from their friends, the police ( let the law be life imprisonment for armed robbery); people feel free to sell lands that do not even belong to them and the cases thereon ends no where because you can get your way out at the police station and the courts; people sell lands for as much as 300 millions cedis without paying taxes and that is fine with the government. At 50 , we need to take stock and change the way we do business as a country for our own good? As countrymen and women, we do not have commitment as a group to our nation and lost our sense of pride. We have not been motivated nor organized to function as a group , hence unlike ants ,we are directionless in our daily activities with individuals trying to re-write their own agenda in a way that they feel will conform to a national one . Until we find a good visionary leader to set a national agenda, re-align our priorities, set our development projects and mode of execution, we will still grow as a nation where everything is left to chance without a comprehensive plan. Malaysia is where they are because of their visionary leader who although was a benevolent dictator , had an agenda for his country. I wish our leaders God’s blessings and understanding of our humanity. Everything means nothing only good memories. God bless us all at 50.