There Is An Urgent Need For A “Middle Group” In Ghana.......

A COUNTRY THAT IS BEING TORN apart by two extreme groups that think, talk, write and act as if ones feeling must always be either “hate” or “love”; or as if something always has to be either “black” or “white”; or as if there are no other positions in between “left” and “right”; or as if every bad thing that happens in Ghana has to be seen through the crime-detection radar designed for either “Ewes” or “Ashantis”. On and on and on, one can recount in diverse ways the dangerous splitting of Ghana into two “fixed” halves by two “warring” battalions of “blind” and “mad” adherents of two political groups.

By: OTCHERE DARKO.

This Nation’s politics and all other national affairs and issues are now ALWAYS split into two “fixed halves”, with nearly everybody in Ghana divided accordingly and always backing the same half they have always backed. It is now always this or always that. Nothing has to be different. News focus, lines of discussions, party members, party supporters, journalists, chiefs and chieftaincy, Security Agencies, Council of State, etc, all have become politically one-sided and politically boring. One can always predict the position that will be taken on any issue by any of the parties registered in Ghana. One can always predict what is going to be written or broadcast on any issue by any particular journalist or media house, in a Ghanaian Press that is now very NEATLY DIVIDED into two “fixed” halves, with each half of it “paid” or “influenced in some other way” to serve one of two antagonistic parties that have turned Ghanaian politics into a “fight for control over the people”, rather than an opportunity to argue and win the hearts and minds of Ghanaians for their mandate to serve them. One can, also, always predict which Youth Group or Pressure Group or Party supporters will say or do what, on any matter or issue. One can always predict which of two “targeted” ethnic groups in Ghana is going to be linked with any bad thing that happens anywhere in the country. One can always predict which groups of people or journalists or politicians are going to say what, and in favour of or against which one of a pair of our contemporary former leaders, or a pair of our distant ex-leaders, whose personality appeals to Ghanaians and their command over their affection have similarly been divided into two “fixed” halves. One can always predict which people are going to be arrested by BNI or the Police. One can always predict which people are going to be prosecuted by the Attorney General. Does it have to come to this in Ghana? When did all this start? And when will it all end, if ever it will?

MY ANSWER IS THAT THERE HAS TO BE A NEW GROUP OF POLITICAL THINKERS, BELIEVERS AND INSPIRERS WHO CAN STEER GHANA TOWARDS A “MIDDLE COURSE” AND AWAY FROM THE POLITICS OF EXTREMISM AND HATRED. SEVERAL INDEPENDENT-THINKING GHANAIANS HAVE CALLED FOR THE EMERGENCE OF A “NEW CROP OF POLITICIANS” WITH CERTAIN ATTRIBUTES. I AM SPECIFICALLY CALLING FOR THOSE WHO WILL STEER GHANA TOWARDS A “MIDDLE COURSE”.

A “middle course” that can see and recognise that there are bad things in “Leftism”, just as there are good things in it. A “middle course” that can see that the “Right” has a bad side, just as it has a good side. A “middle course” that can see all the good things that Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah did, just as it can see all the bad things he did, “presumably”. A “middle course” that will see, admit and appreciate the fact that Dr JB Danquah did more for Ghana than just preaching “Mate Meho” and organising the throwing of “Bombs”, “presumably”. A “middle course” that will see Ewes in the same way that all other Ghanaians are seen, and will not single them out for “this” or “that”. A “middle course” that will see Ashantis in the same way that all ethnic groups in Ghana are seen and not anything more, or anything less. In fact, we need a “middle course” that will be towed by a “Middle Group” that will focus on binding Ghana together as one Nation with one people and one destiny, by having, pursuing and enforcing beliefs and ideas, policies, agendas and programmes that help and move the country towards the goal of reuniting this fast dividing Nation.

This “Middle Group” should not lean too much to either the “Left” or the “Right”; but rather, it should draw the best from the two political “left” and “right” camps to develop the country, and reject the worst in these two main political ideologies. Modern day lessons show that countries that are doing well today have shifted away from the former ideological “straightjackets”, with China and Russia being particularly notable examples. A few decades back, it would have been unheard of for some individual Russians and Chinese to be among the richest people in the world. Similarly, parties in Western Nations that have appealed most to their electorates and done well in general elections and in government in their countries have usually moved more towards their left side, or rather towards the Centre, [as it is best put], in comparison with those that have stuck to the strict dogmas of “old” Western philosophies. Moving a bit or more from the extremes of political and economic dogmatism helps both the “Left” and the “Right” to attract support and also to be capable of meeting modern challenges confronting nations, irrespective of what country one is dealing with. Countries that have stuck to pure and “old” ideological camps, like North Korea or Cuba, are less successful than those that have shifted away from the extremes. Commonsense shows that certain projects are better handled by the State, while other projects are better handled by the private sector. Commonsense also shows that creating a bigger public sector means either higher taxation or bigger public debt, both of which tend to burden the taxpayer now or later. And commonsense together with experience also show that individuals take better care of what belongs to them than they take care of what belongs to the State. On the other hand, both commonsense and experience show that without some level of State direction and control, resources are misallocated, creating sometimes excesses in some sectors while other sectors become under-resourced, creating undersupplies in those sectors; an imbalance which laissez-faire protagonists argue that the market is capable of correcting in the long run but which, you and I know, causes short-term economic problems with their corresponding painful socio-economic costs. Getting the right balance between the public and the private sectors is what parties and governments should be about. But this is what extremist parties are woefully incapable of getting right, because they are not prepared to accept anything that is contrary to or opposite their ideological beliefs.

*Ghana cannot afford to dwell in the past and entertain extreme political groups that see their opponents as “enemies”. *Ghana cannot afford to be tossed between extreme political groups that waste half of their first term in office “sniffing like pigs” to look for evidence to jail as many of their so-called “enemies” as they can, and usually just to pay back these “enemies” for what the latter also did to them, creating what in Ghana has become time-wasting “political tit-for-tat”. *Ghana cannot afford to tolerate extremist groups or parties that are notorious for changing or cancelling projects that were started by their rivals who ruled before them, without considering how much money and other resources were put into them. This country abounds in “relics” of several “abandoned projects” that were cancelled by Governments that “hated” those that started such projects. The lives of today’s Ghanaian parents and students have been turned upside down and ruined or stressed by politicians who have recently chosen to play ideological and self-satisfying “hate game” by using the education of SSS students in Ghana to achieve their diabolical political goals, while parents and these students are caught in the middle of it. Two Ghana oil cases which, in this write-up, are being referred to as “EO” and “TT”, together show another example of the work of two antagonistic groups that are prepared to play “DIRTY ‘JR’ OIL POLITICS”, with Ghana’s destiny at stake. I could continue to give more examples, if we could have the unlimited time to write and to read.

THE TIME IS DUE NOW TO HAVE IN THE COUNTRY A “MIDDLE GROUP” THAT WILL STEER THIS NATION TOWARDS A “MIDDLE COURSE”, AWAY FROM THE EXTREMELY HOSTILE FRINGES OF PARTY POLITICS, AND LET THE WELFARE OF THE NATION BE MORE PARAMOUNT TO GHANAIANS THAN IDEOLOGY OR POLITICAL HATRED. LET GHANAIANS WHO VALUE NATION-BUILDING AND DEVELOPMENT MORE THAN IDEOLOGY AND “POLITICAL HATRED” PUT THEIR HEADS TOGETHER AND FORM A “MIDDLE GROUP” TO PUT FORWARD THE STRONG CASE FOR THE COUNTRY TO FOLLOW THIS “MIDDLE COURSE”. IN VIEW OF WHAT HAS BEEN HAPENNING IN GHANA THROUGH THE DING-DONG “POLITICS OF EXTREMISM AND HATRED” BEING PERPETRATED BY TWO IDELOGICALLY INCLINED POLITICAL PARTIES WHOSE MEMBERS HAVE WOEFULLY MUDDLED UP GHANA’S POLITICS AND PLACED THE NATION’S FUTURE ON THE ROPE, THE PROSPECTS OF A “MIDDLE GROUP” WINNING THE LOVE AND CONFIDENCE OF GHANAIANS ARE VERY HIGH.

*YOU, THE READER OF THIS ARTICLE, MAY BE ONE OF THE MANY GHANAIANS WHO ARE FED UP WITH “POLITICS OF EXTREMISM AND HATRED” AND ARE WAITING FOR THIS “MIDDLE GROUP”. YOU CAN LOOK FOR OTHERS WHO THINK LIKE YOU AND TEAM UP WITH THEM TO BEGIN THE EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPLETELY NEW “CENTRE GROUP”. EXISTING “THIRD PARTIES”, LIKE THE CPP OR PNC, CAN ALSO SWITCH [VISIBLY AND TRULY] TO THE CENTRE AND STAY AWAY FROM IDEOLOGICAL DOGMAS; PURSUE THE “MIDDLE COURSE” AND, HOPEFULLY, WOO PEOPLE LIKE ME AND OTHERS WHO ARE FED UP WITH THE RHETORICS AND ACTIONS OF PARTIES CONSUMED BY FIXED POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES AND POLITICS OF HATRED AND RIVAL DESTRUCTION.

Source: Otchere Darko. [The writer is not the same as Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko; neither is he related to him by blood or by party affiliation or by political ideology.]