Members of Parliament ...

MEMBERS OF GHANA’S PARLIAMENT – IT’S YOU WHO HAVE TO LEARN FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA BUT NOT ORDINARY GHANAIANS

Should I call it a hypocrisy or change of heart? In any case, I was taken aback when I read a news story on Ghana web recently that members of Ghana’s parliament have called on Ghanaians to learn from the rise of President Obama who out of obscurity had defeated the odds and discrimination to get to the top. The Parliamentarians made the call on the floor of the House while heaping praises on US President Barack Obama on his election as the 44th President.

It is true that as Ghanaians we should learn from the rise of Barack Obama taking into consideration the fact that he is the first African American to occupy the White House. He rose to the top through his own determination and desire to help others. Logically, one can say that the lesson to be learnt from Obama’s rise is that as Ghanaians we can also rise to the top of the political ladder with determination but who needs the lesson more? Is it the members of Parliament or to put it more bluntly the careerist/professional politicians in Ghana or the ordinary citizens whose main pre-occupation has been the desire for basic survival?

A bit of Obama’s life would strengthen my position that the MPs have to learn more from the rise of the first Africa-American US President. After graduating from college, he headed to Chicago to become a community organizer, helping to put in place programmes to help the downtrodden of the society and the poor of the poorest black Americans living there. There were a lot of obstacles and frustrations on his way but he did not give up. He did this work for three years before entering Harvard Law School. After law school, he came back to Chicago, became a State legislator, a Senator and now President. As we all know, Obama won the election because of his message of change.

The question then is how many of our elected officials in Ghana have something comparable to Obama’s political resume? Probably, there might be some members of parliament who are attached to their constituencies but once they moved to Accra, they forgot the ordinary Ghanaians who voted them into office. As one of my friends once said the only legislation where support for it is unanimous across the political aisle has to do with ones that profit them directly. The recent noise about President Kufour’s outrageous entitlement has to be blamed squarely on the parliamentarians. The fact of the matter is that they voted for it without going through the whole package knowing very well that they are going to benefit from the bill. It is well documented that there are some MP’S who have received two car loans within the last eight years. For far too long, the behavior of the elected officials has created the impression that people go into politics to acquire wealth and something has to be done to change it. But if the parliamentarians are now telling Ghanaians to learn from the rise of President Obama, then they should take his message of change seriously and let this Fifth Parliamentary session be very fruitful.

In my humble opinion, Ghana’s MPs need to learn more from the rise of President Obama than ordinary Ghanaians. Put your praises of President Obama into action. There are a lot of problems to be tackled. After using millions of cedis and dollars to celebrate 50 years of independence, there are still people in Upper West who are living in inhuman conditions. A recent documentary showed in Ghana attested to this fact.

In the Central Region, residents of Cape Coast and Elmina townships defecate on the premises of the castles. Mr. Nicholas Ayivor, the Central Regional Director of Ghana Monuments Board, expressed grave concern about this in a recent interview with Ghana News Agency. What a disgrace but the truth of the matter is that in all regions of the country, the basic necessities of life are not there, thus driving people to do the unthinkable. Once again, I urge the legislators of the Fifth Parliament to use their four years in office to better the lives of Ghanaians under the leadership of President Atta-Mills.

G. Fiifi Owoo, CALGARY, CANADA