Visionless Leadership: Is Pastor Mensa Otabil right?

The most sacrosanct and inspired book ever circulated in the history of humanity says: “where there is no vision the people perish”. After Pastor Otabil had assessed the governance of this country by the present leadership as compared to his own leadership and the deplorable situation Ghanaians are in despite our rich resources stated, “Our leadership lacks vision”.

The pastor cited lack of vision as his frustration but people with myopic views did not take lightly to his comment and descended upon him like honey bees.

However, revisiting his assertion, visionary leaders are described as social innovators and change agents. They search for solutions that transcend the usual adversarial approaches and address causal problems. Visionary leaders are the builders of tomorrow, working with imagination, insight, and boldness to better the lives of their people. Regrettably such qualities are what we have not seen in our leadership for almost five years now. Thus is the comment by Pastor Otabil out of line?

The pride of every nation is to be debt-free and one would have wished that with the immense economic background of Mills and Mahama they would have had a vision to take courageous action in transforming this country to debt free status.

Instead they went into borrowing and spending spree and with their combined leadership and in less than 5 years Ghana have over borrowed its limit. The country is in debt up to its neck and cannot meet its annual obligation.

When this present government assumed the leadership of this country on January 7, 2009 Ghana’s debt stood at GHS 8.5 billion, but today it is GHS 33.9 billion. One might ask, “How did we get here?” From Nkrumah’s megalomaniac ideas, to wanton dissipater Colonel Acheampong and J.A Kuffour’s beautification of Ghana amounted to GHS 8.5 billion.

Nkrumah has not been my favorite in my previous writings but one must “give credit to the antelope that it is able to run faster”. Yes, from Nkrumah to Kuffour the nation’s debt stood GHS 8.5 billion but Nkrumah built Aksombo dam, Tema motorway, Tema Harbour, Tema Township, 2 universities, he built Ministries, founded the black star line, Ghana Airways, Workers Brigade, food distribution corporation, schools, roads, industries, edifices etc; include Colonel Acheampong’s hyper inflation and wastage of resources; JJ Rawling’s destruction of property and Kuffour’s beautification of Ghana, all amounted to this 8.5 billion. All these happened in a long period of 51 year span. What about this government, all what we hear are corruption, misappropriation of funds, Wayome scandal, GYEEDA fraud etc. Well, as many plunder the nation the future of the younger people recedes steadily into a bleak unknown.

As we see in Ghana today there are many people experiencing frustration and indignity of their life, they have been reduced to begging for their daily sustenance due to lack of vision and poor governance. Surprisingly Ghana is very rich country with diverse and rich resources base and is one of the top-ten fastest growing economies in the world, and the fastest growing economy in Africa. Our major sources of foreign trade are gold, timber, cocoa, diamond, bauxite, manganese, oil and many other exports, yet many live in poverty in the midst of this plenty.

This government has been in office for a total of just 5 years and Ghana has been brought to its knees. It does not make sense that this government is still having defenders, for me I’m wishing the Supreme Court “rid me of this turbulent” government.

Kwadwo Nyantakyi Akosomo