Our inquiring minds want to know: Who are the presidential candidates’ cabinet members?

The Presidential candidates should declare their cabinets before the election.

How much do you know about our President's cabinets? What about the non-cabinet members who have great influence on the President's decision-making process?

Every President has a ‘shadow cabinet’, so let us look beyond the titles and look at who the presidential candidates’ friends are. Why should it be a secret for us to know before we vote about people who are going to get the president’s attention and ears for 4years or more?

Don’t you think Ghanaians have the right to know before we cast our votes for a president who is going to be on our team? We put all our focus on the top guy, but governing the nation isn’t a one- man’s show.

I would like you to think about this as we enter the Presidential campaign season for 2024. I do not care about your party affiliation. So doesn’t it strike you a little bit strange that we do not demand that a presidential candidate introduce his/ her team players before we vote? Doesn’t it make sense to you?

Sure, we do know the vice-presidential pick before we vote, but is that all that we are supposed to know about politics in Ghana, given how badly they screw things up?

Interestingly, when we look up soccer teams in our newspapers, we always check out the players in the lineup. That pretty much gives us an idea if a particular team, especially, the defenses would be up to the task. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do that for our government to know if it is up to the task?

The Presidential candidates could present their line-ups for key posts, and we would be able to evaluate which team has the strongest team to handle our mountainous challenges.

We could use a similar process for picking our Parliamentarians as well. When the election time comes, we could look at our MPs and say well, this guy has been playing average for the last three years. Let’s see if we can find a better player who has the constituency at heart and he is a level-headed guy with tons of humility and visions”.

How many of you can name just five current cabinet members without cheating or looking it up?

This is supposed to be our national talent pool of people who are making major, major decisions every day that affect our lives and our children’s lives tremendously, and we don’t even know who they are and what they’re made of. That is sad, isn’t it?

Here is something else I would like to see in this campaign season; after we ask them to declare their cabinet members. Let us ask the candidates their three priorities for the nation and how they are going to tackle them within the next three years. One, two, three! No waffling. “Oh, and can you get it in writing for us, please?”

Once we have that out of the way, let’s ask them to put all their empty -promises in writing also; so that we could cross-check them after four years to see if they have defaulted on any of them.

Trust me, these mandatory demands will change the political equation and narrative very fast and we will see those who are up to the task, ASAP!

The point is when the nation’s future is at stake it is not the time to treat politics with kids’ gloves. After all, you won’t want your local auto mechanic who works on your car to pilot your flight.

The former legendary American automotive executive, Lee Iacocca once said, "Here is a test of a great leader: We should be better off when he leaves office than when he started “. It’s that simple!

Are we better off when they leave office than when they started?

Be blessed, informed, and educated.