Politicians beware: Ghana yesterday, today, and tomorrow!!

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Saturday, March 8, 2014

My good friends, the discourse on our national affairs is full of interesting peculiarities. Those of us who have chosen to do the yeoman’s job of raising pertinent issues for comment are clearly aware of the implications and won’t lose any sleep regarding comments made by readers who see us as threats to their political ambitions. If they can’t take the heat, let’s leave them to fight the wind!

I have been particularly resolute and brazenly resilient in my stance and will continue to be so, regardless of whose ox I gore in the process or who bounces back to attempt intimidating me with verbal actions.

Those days are long gone when people like us might be bothered by vain threats. That is why I am particularly intrigued by comments on my opinion piece on the return of the NPP’s Akufo-Addo to Ghana after “hibernating” for 6 months in London, proving to me that he and his followers don’t have the capacity to contain dissension or to come to terms with the sorry Fate that befell him (Akufo-Addo) at Election 2012—and will befall him again at Election 2016 if he deceives himself that God has spoken to him to lead the NPP to the land of milk and honey. No elaboration.

His followers may deceive themselves that they have matured enough and sharpened their fangs to attack us when we comment on him. Here is a comment on Ghanaweb from one such follower: “Michael I don't know where you got your Doctorate degree from if any. When Nana Addo said he was going to seek the face of the God, it was a figure of speech, fool. He needed time to reflect on his political life. MORON!

My immediate reaction: A figure of speech? Who needs a “figure of speech” when the truth beckons in Ghanaian politics? I am really intrigued. So, is it a “figure of speech” that Akufo-Addo and politicians of his ilk rely on to do politics in Ghana?

A figure of speech? A metaphor or a simile? Or a trope? Deceptive!! Is that the depth to which these NPP people have reduced Ghanaian politics? No wonder they are so desperate in opposition.

Where is the reality, then? I am really pissed off by this Akufo-Addo fanatic who has given me a strong reason to continue to suspect this Akufo-Addo and all that he stands for. A figure of speech? Is that all his politicking is about? A subterfuge? Who else is doing politics this way?

Are Ghanaian politicians more interested in doing politics on the basis of figures of speech or the reality that the ordinary Ghanaian knows? The reality that has made life difficult to live in a country that has all the natural and human resources that a country needs to be on top of the lot in this mundane world, but which Ghana has but cannot utilize to be on its feet? A figure of speech misrepresents issues in this case!!

Folks, our country has just chalked 57 as an independent entity; but it is still deep in the woods as its citizens continue to live in narrow circumstances just because their leaders cannot manage affairs properly to use the country’s abundant human and natural resources to advantage.

There is every reason why we can’t afford to give our politicians a blank cheque with which to continue misbehaving.

There is so much happening on our political scene as to warrant a probe into the mindlessness with which our politicians do things.

We acknowledge the bitter rivalry between our politicians, especially those camped in the NDC and NPP considering themselves as game changers. The main problem for Ghana today is the unhealthy interplay of forces between the NDC and the NPP, clearly because the Nkrumahist front is either so emaciated as not to know its own worth or to give the NDC and the NPP the dual carriage on which to flex muscles for nothing.

Ghana won’t profit from that futile show of force all over the country.

You see, before the NDC was formed in May 1992, Ghana had been in existence. Before the NPP came to power, Ghana had been in existence. And the removal of the NPP from office in 2008 and 2012 hasn’t changed the dynamics as far as the status of Ghana is concerned. Countries often outlast their citizens!!

History has it all. Before the Great Osagyefo led the fight for independence, there had been several attempts to get rid of the British. The weaklings in the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs and the United Gold Coast Convention or their anarchist National Liberation Movement successors couldn’t have operated outside the confines of the political dynamics. But they failed and couldn’t contain themselves, which was why they passed on that negative political genes to their forebears who are today our bugbear, overbearing and really irritating in all their configurations!!

Before all other governments that have ruled Ghana and messed up everything, there had been a country that many owed allegiance to. The country survives. It is the mortal citizens who vanish with time.

The main point now is simple: Are we Ghanaians so intellectually handicapped as not to know that we have no other country but this very Ghana to develop so life can be lived in comfort and our people given the chance to live their lives on this earth even before they die?

Why all this mad rush for political power as if that in itself is the panacea to all the problems that have bedevilled the country since its inception?

And why is it that when some get the chance to be in power, they behave as if this world is their permanent home? I can easily recall all the major figures that gave Ghana its stature. Where are they today? And what gives those in power today the assurance that they will remain in contention forever?

Who doesn't know what a cemetery is? A repository for dead people, skeletons and nothing more!!!

Interestingly, most of those who pioneered the struggle to establish the 4th Republic are in the twilight of their lives and cannot even do anything to change their own circumstances as they wait for the final moments of their lives.

Those in power today or those itching at the sidelines to be given power are themselves in that twilight of their political lives. It is not as if they are marching back into their lives to pick up the pieces. They are stepping forward in readiness to embrace Fate. No one can cheat Nature.

On that score, why this mad rush to behave as if there is no end to life? The Ghanaian politician is really pitiable!!

I shall return…

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