Public leadership, in whatever form, is demanding due to the enormous
and complex responsibilities involved. A public leader must therefore be
upright, consistent, responsible, and accountable for results in order
to offer valuable services to his country and society.
Some of our political leaders have not measured up to these qualities in the past,
hence have not performed well in office. From where I'm standing now,I can see
president Mahama putting those characters which nearly put the ndc party out of
power in the just end elections into positions which have a lots of question marks.
Their actions and inaction have often reflected a
commitment for personal gains rather than promoting the economic
development of the country. In exercise of their duties, they have
failed to set good examples of honesty and truthfulness, and thus,
betrayed the confidence bestowed upon them.
Responsive
leadership deals with the affairs and welfare of the society. For this
reason, our political leaders must bear in mind that they are
accountable to the public in their decision-making and not their
''Selfish Masters'' . Though, for a public leader to be responsible, he
must have the liberty to exercise powers conferred on him for the
execution of his duties; this freedom must be guided by equity and
fairness to avoid its misuse against the citizenry. Regrettably, some of
our political leaders have acted outside this norm, and consequently
allowed their actions to impact negatively on public good.
Decision-making is no longer governed by objectivity, transparency and
accountability. We can see this in the way and manner some of them have
misused state funds for projects that do not benefit the public but to
satisfy the whims and caprices of few individuals.
It is
important to emphasize that we cannot move forward as a nation unless
there is a deliberate and concerted effort on the part of our leaders to
see themselves accountable for their actions and inaction and implement
policies that seek the welfare of the citizenry.
We are a
nation in want; lacking basic infrastructure for economic development.
Our education, health, energy, road, agriculture, and other social
sectors need improvement. Our schools require modern learning materials
and tools; hospitals must be adequately equipped; our roads need
improvement to reduce accidents and road fatalities; and alternative
power generation are among the many basic social needs calling for
urgent attention in Ghana today. Dr. Clement Apaak, Dr. Sule Gariba and
the rest,I hope you people are listening.
To be able to meet
these needs, our political leaders must learn to make sacrifices, and
put in place realistic development measures to improve the living
conditions of the deprived. They must see themselves as owing Ghanaians a
collective responsibility to implement programs that contribute to the
economic development of the country. This is absolutely necessary
because responsive leadership is all about achieving results for public
good. The downfall of many presidents in this world has been their
inability to separate loyalty from competence and surrounding themselves
with sycophants and “praise singers” who sing praises all the way to
their banks.
Leaders should remember question that use to be
ask in their early days at basic level of their education which up till
date solutions are not been found to it. I would end by quoting “The
majority never has right on its side. Never, I say that is one of the
social lies that a free, thinking man is bound to rebel against. Who
makes up the majority in any given country?. Is it the wise men or the
fools?. I think we must agree that the fools are in a terrible
overwhelming majority, all the wide world over. But, damn it, it can
surely never be right that the stupid should rule over the clever!”
–Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian playwright 1828-1906.
Ibrahim Hardi 0208235615
Email;Bigkolaaya@yahoo.com
