You Do Me I Do You Democracy; Where Is It Taking Us?

Sagito Musah Issakah The general assertion and belief of all Ghanaians today is that our politics have come a long way since independence and maturing as the years, months and the morning rays cleaves through the darkness to give us days. Democratically also, the general assertion is that we are maturing and the hope is that we are very soon going to reach the matured stage. That we all hope for.

As the saying goes; ˜if wishes (or hopes) were horses, beggars will ride. Positively so but sometimes it is not enough to hope but working on ensuring that that hope achieved is the most important thing to do. Is that what we are doing as a country? Well after reading this piece, you will get a clue.

Happenings in Ghana today does not tell or predict anything good for this country as far as development of our politics and the general development of our society are concerned. Politicians are toying with the conscience and intelligence of the electorates. Unfortunately, this politics of deceit gained weight in the 90s when as a nation we decided to abandon the authoritarian rule system and adopted democracy as system of government.

The kind of democracy we adopted came along with it the entrenchment of lies, deceit and impunity in the Ghanaian society. The Ghanaian politician today sees him or herself as the custodian of knowledge and wisdom, meaning then that the politician sees the voters (electorates) as an unintelligent and easy to manipulate and convinced.

Days are turning into months, months into years and years into decades and Ghana our beloved country (which was free 52 years ago) is still on its marks yet to take off. Governments have come and gone with ‘take off’ policies and yet we are still waiting for the ˜take off shot. You know the reason why? Well I will tell you.

One main reason why Ghana is yet to ‘take off’ from the ˜transitional development stage as ˜Rostow puts it in his “stages of economic development” theory, has to do with the way we are practicing DEMOCRACY. Ours is a special form of democracy that I call Blame-It-On-Them (Paint-Them-Black) Democracy. This blame-it-on-him game is played between the government in power and the opposition party. It becomes overly serious and “development retarding” when the opposition party is the party that power was wrestled from in an election. Another of the reasons is the You-Do-Me-I-Do-You game; and lastly is the democracy of LIES. All these reasons are intertwined.

Let us go back to history to help us understand the point I am making. In 2001, the National Democratic Party (NDC) lost the election held in 2000. The new government formed by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) upon assuming office decided to paint black the former government, by telling Ghanaians the kind of economy they (‘deposed’ government) had left for them to manage. Then we started hearing stories about 41 trillion, over 40 percent inflation, high interest rate, corruption among other micro and macro economic terms; all pointing to the fact that the economy was in a bad shape. This strategy adopted was to buy time from Ghanaians since the picture painted about the economy meant that it would take a lot of years to bring the economy back to shape.

The NDC responded by making statements to the effect that the NPP was lying to Ghanaians and that the NPP was just trying to buy time, knowing very well that they had nothing to offer Ghanaians. In fact in their 2004 manifesto, the NDC also painted a picture that the situation they left for the NPP in 2001 was better than the situation Ghanaians found themselves in 2004. “The economic legacy that the NDC bequeathed to the NPP Government at the time of leaving office in January 2001 was very positive, contrary to the picture of the country at the time painted by the NPP in the President's ˜State of the Nation’ Address to Parliament in January 2004.â Chapter Two, paragraph Three (3) of the NDC 2004 manifesto. It says it all doesn't it?

The effect of the blame-it-on-them game was that, majority of Ghanaians were caught up in the web and instead of focusing on things that will develop the nation, the eight years of the NPP government was used to determine who won the game. The government was busy blaming the former government for the situation of the economy and the former government was busy finding faults with policies of the government in power. The result-few good policies where implemented and Ghana is still where it started since 1992.

During the 8 years of NPP rule, the opposition NDC had problem with the travels of the then president J.A. Kuffour. To them the president was wasting tax payers money with his ˜too much travels and the number of people that formed his entourage. They did not look at the angle of benefits derived from the travels. That did not matter to them. To them the cost of travels outweighed the benefits. How the analysis was done, only they and their God knows.

Now the NDC is in power and just one United Kingdom trip is enough to start the You-Do-Me-I-Do-You game. Trust me this game will continue till this government loses power. At least the actions and inactions of the party in power and the opposition NPP since January 7, gives me the cause to make that conclusion. Barring any positive change of attitude as to how we do politics, I am afraid to say that Ghana will still be at the ˜take off so many years to come.

Just as in 2001 to 2008, the blame-it-on-them game is being played by the new administration and the new opposition party. I believe the new government has adopted the same strategy so as to get enough time to put the economy in shape, it must paint black, the government they wrestled power from. Now what we are hearing is a ‘Deficit economy”, negative macro economic figures among other economic indices that make an economy. Of course, you would not expect the NPP to sit back and fold their arms. The status quo is followed. They have reacted and trust me, from the look of things, will continue to react till this government leaves office, if ever it happens. The question then is ‘Is this the kind of politics we want use to develop the nation? Where will this kind of politics take Ghana-on her marks ready to “take off” as usual?  Funny enough, this game that our politicians are playing with our economy and the general living situation of the country is against the principles of the president. In the 2004 manifesto of the NDC, the flag bearer (now president of this country) wrote in his ‘forward’ “Under a stable, constitutional democracy, any government which is obsessed with passing blame to its predecessors and seeing imaginary enemies at every turn can only be regarded as paranoid. And paranoia, as any psychiatrist will tell you, is a consequence of lack of self-confidence and the inability to cope with realities and challenges.”  Can we then say that the NDC is paranoid, lacking self-confidence and will not be able to cope with the realities of the time? Already the president is said on a couple of platforms that they (NDC) where misinformed about the situation of the economy during the time of campaign. This to me is not a good statement because Ghanaians would not have voted out the NPP government if the economy where to be good. More so, the campaign of the NDC sent out the message that all was not well with our economy and Ghanaians bought it.

Ghanaians believe in the message of the NDC and wants to see policies aimed at alleviating poverty and making their living conditions comfortable. The last thing they need is stories about the economy and who caused what, and who did what.

Ghana is blessed with the human resource that should be harnessed for the betterment of the nation. Life is hard as always and luckily we have a human centered leader and with his team able ministers we wish the government all the best as they strive to take us to a different development level.

In my capacity as someone who loves Ghana, I pray for wisdom for the president and his team of able men and also pray for a change of attitude by all Ghanaians especially the opposition NPP in the way we do politics.

sagitom@yahoo.com