Anatomy of Political Indecency in Ghana

The devastation being wrought by contemporary partisan politics in the country has drawn unprecedented attention of most people. The modalities of the Ghanaian politics provide grounds for rethinking. Even though, the recent actions of the ruling party agitators or “footsoldiers” have received blatant criticisms from people even the Vice President and Ministers of State, pragmatic measures seem not to have been taken to clamp down on cases of footsoldiering. These footsoldiers who demand that their needs be met immediately apply illegal and perilous manners to make impossibilities possible. One cannot help but to attribute these unacceptable happenings to the increasing dimension of partisan politics.

In Ghana, politics continues to be observed as a platform or breeding ground for greed, oppression, corruption, political unrest and dishonesty. Rather unfortunate is the fact that these aberrant conducts are undoubtedly true in the Ghanaian politics. As it is often said, politics is a “dirty game”. But to the best experiences and practices elsewhere, politics is never a dirty game but rather the dirty attitude of some people is making politics in Ghana unworthy. It is important to note that whether or not the country would achieve her political and development ambitions depend entirely on the attempts to curtail these uprisings of the so-called party sympathizers. A country touted as the beacon of democracy in Africa is now, without shred of any doubt, the place for the demonstration of political indecency. Nonetheless, the question that deserves to be asked is what are the causes of these aberrant actions of footsoldiers who are even prepared to annihilate individuals and cause the unthinkable only if their standards of living will improve?

Intra-party dissensions within the National Democratic Congress, the New Patriotic Party, the CPP and others are normal occurrences in every day politics as far as opinions differ. But the way and manner the threatening of lives of innocent individuals and seizures of State offices and even party headquarters by footsoldiers of the ruling party are assuming alarming trends leaves much to be desired. One is made to believe how serious the issue is considering the fact that the targets of these attacks are not only limited to the opposition NPP but the ruling party NDC.

Most politicians behave like the chameleon which changes its colour depending on the environment. Chameleonic politicians are inconsistent in their words and conducts. Some politicians who pretend to be lovers of the interests of the masses rather incite these footsoldiers to act against their conscience. It would be unfair to shift the cause of this problem to those indulged in the conduct. There are certain behaviours of our own leaders that are partly responsible for these detrimental actions. These chameleonic politicians incite these youths to aggressively seek for their share of the national cake and hypocritically come to criticise their (footsoldiers) conducts. One need not to be told that we are the cause of our problems and unless the country diligently acts against this, Ghana would never witness any significant development. It is through politics that Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Botswana have made significant strides in development. Ghana can do same when we brand the nature of our politics. The political display of the country needs complete overhaul. Our politicians, our leaders, party followers and every Ghanaian need attitudinal therapy, else we should never hope to one day be like Malaysia.

The fact that footsoldiers of the ruling party are going haywire is attributed to the extravagant and empty promises that politicians make to them during campaigns. Instead of putting across realistic issues to these people at the local level, politicians establish in the minds of these people (footsoldiers) of a future heaven. The condition established is that the footsoldiers would be the first people to be served when the party is voted into power. This is wrong. After all, are they the only people that voted for the party to assume political power? Promises of contracts, employment and general livelihood improvements are made to the ordinary Ghanaian without consideration of their qualifications. The people as far as they know are qualified to even run state offices including National Youth Employment Programme and the National Health Insurance Scheme. How can this be actualised? They have no option than to chase out directors and chief executive officers. Even worrying is the seizure of toilet facilities known to be under the care of a sympathizer of the opposition New Patriotic Party.

It’s about time the country sets the record straight with regard to these wrongful and unacceptable acts.

Realising that government operations and economic conditions would not favour the heaven-made promises, aggrieved footsoldiers are compelled to act dangerously to have their conditions bettered. A feeling of dissatisfaction caused by politicians is the cause of the rampage of these seemingly emboldened footsoldiers.

All in all, it should be known that it is the country’s development aspirations that we are retarding. Ghana just cannot continue to grapple with politics of indecency and insincerity that brings nothing but aggravates extreme poverty and hunger. The government ought to rise up before these critical issues get out of hand and be a sword of Damocles hanging around the neck of the country known to be the trumpeter of peace. The country has not even yet curtailed the tensions in Bawku let alone political turmoil in the whole country.

Significantly, the country should press on achieving the development dreams set before us while attempting to meet the needs of all and not the selfish few. We need equitable and holistic development. Development of the country should not be skewed to improving the welfare of only footsoldiers but every Ghanaian. The threats of chronic poverty are being felt in all corners of the country and not only in the north or the south of the country.

On a simple premise, Ghana practices democracy but is democratically unaccountable. The country has failed put forward the basic tenets of democracy that attaches the principle of rule of law. The moments of footsoldiers even against some MMDCEs portray a system of the “rule of men”. If it is rule of men, then Ghana would have long developed during the periods of military junta. Indeed, we need practical and workable democracy and effective rule of law. No footsoldier is above the law.

It is the keen hope of all that these aberrant conducts of footsoldiers come to a halt for Ghana to move forward in the needed direction. The country has all it takes to change the structure of the economy and cause a miracle in Africa and the world at large. God bless mother Ghana!

The author, Stephen Yeboah is at the Department of Planning, KNUST in Kumasi-Ghana [email: stephenyeboah110@yahoo.com]