An antidote against winner-takes-all policy

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. English Department, SUNY-Nassau Garden City, New York November 13, 2016 E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

Much has been said negatively about constitutional democracy or political partisanship being inimical towards the rapid development of postcolonial African societies and nations. But the fact of the matter is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with democratic partisanship; for the latter state of affairs is the natural outcome of tried and tested governance methods. In other words, just as it is unnatural to expect all humans to think and behave alike, it is equally illogical to expect all leaders to pursue one and same governance methodology and/or ideology. In the end, the one common goal of all good leadership is the equitable distribution of our collective national resources, and not the sort of politically divisive and nationally alienating method of governance by which the spoils of our collective national wealth become the especial preserve of the ruling power.

Much has been said and written about this patently inauspicious system of governance by a legion of African leaders and globally renowned statesmen, notable among them Mr. Kofi Annan, the former United Nations’ Secretary-General. That this unsavory, if also regressive, mode of governance is almost exclusively unique to Third-World countries, where the imperative need for the equitable distribution of national resources could not be overemphasized, is all the more disheartening. This clearly appears to have been what the chiefs of the Borae Traditional Area, in the Krachi-Nchumuru Constituency were alluding to, recently, when they bitterly complained to the 2016 Presidential Candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had deliberately and totally neglected to allot them their fair share of our national development resources, primarily because the residents of the Borae Taditional Area tend to heavily vote in favor of the Nana Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party – (See “We Are Sidelined By Government Because We Support NPP – Chiefs” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 10/25/16).

As long as inhabitants of districts and constituencies in staunch support of opposition political parties are not exempted from paying their fair share of taxes and other national governance obligations, under absolutely no circumstances should opposition-party strongholds in the country be written out of the ruling party’s national development agenda. Such act of abject neglect is criminal and ought to be made legally and constitutionally actionable or justiciable. In other words, it ought to be constitutionally mandated for the local leaders of any part of the country that feels deliberately ignored and/or neglected by the ruling government to be able to sue for redress in any legitimately constituted court of the land.

This invidious state of affairs vividly recalls a time during the extortionate and protracted tenure of the Rawlings-led National Democratic Congress, when then-First Lady Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings rudely told the people of Asante-Bonwire that since they were not in the habit of voting for the National Democratic Congress, and instead had hostilely chosen to afford their ballots to the New Patriotic Party, the people of Asante-Bonwire had absolutely no right to expect any substantive developments projects from the Rawlings regime. Not very long ago, when Nana Akufo-Addo paid an electioneering campaign visit to the Krachi Nchumuru Constituency, the chiefs and people of this part of the northern Volta Region told the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice that “Because we wave an NPP flag, we have been sidelined” by President John Dramani Mahama and his henchmen and women of the National Democratic Congress.

The chiefs and people of Borae Number Two further added that the area woefully lacked such infrastructural development amenities as “schools, health facilities, good-access roads and potable water.” They, nevertheless, assured the NPP leader that they intended to vote based on their ideological principles, while also fully bearing in mind that unlike the pathologically cynical and vindictive leadership of the National Democratic Congress, it was the leadership of the New Patriotic Party that best understood the progressive concept of “equitable national development.”

They also cited the NPP’s government-initiated National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to shore up their claim. We hope the Mahama Posse that recently opened gunfire on the Nima home of Nana Akufo-Addo, on the clear instructions of the military fatigues and ceremonial uniform-sporting “Generalissimo” Dramani Mahama, will take a savory cue or two from the emulative statesmanship of the leadership of the New Patriotic Party in general, but Nana Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in particular.

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