Next year, Ghana will turn 50, the first previously colonized sub-Saharan African nation to hit gold. When we look back, we have a lot to be thankful for, a lot to be proud of, and a lot to be ashamed of. And we can dwell on the past and pound our chests, bury our faces in shame, point fingers, thank our stars, or use that previous half century as an educational period and get serious with our march towards prosperity. But that march will be successful not by doing the same things we?ve always been doing, but by maturing our democratic process.
An important attribute of maturity is the judicious use of power and privilege by the ruling class, complimented by an equally judicious use of freedom by the ruled. To that end, considering how power and privilege have been used by our rulers in the past, it is fair to say that in relative terms, this administration has been judicious in the use of both.
For example, we can contrast the torture that the Akuffo government subjected the then Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings to when he was captured after his attempted overthrow of the government with the judicial process through which recent plotters have been handled. Further, not long ago, merely accusing a government official of any wrongdoing was all that it took to land the accuser in prison without trial, or even be killed. Today, the courts always have the final say.
In the privilege department, an improvement has to be acknowledged when corruption in government involve a minister and $90,000, the son of the president?s purchase of a hotel in a private deal, associating frequent travels with per diem abuse, and so on. By contrast, in the past, corruption in government involved fat foreign accounts by people in power, unaccounted shipment of oil worth into the two hundred millions, a presidential jet purchased at $36 million despite its book value of $5 million, and so on.
In short, say what you may about our leadership in Ghana today, but there is a clear case to be made for improvement. For sure, we do not have a completely corruption-free government that is 100% innocent of privilege abuse. But honest minds and hearts can look at the trend and conclude that improvements have been made.
What about us the ruled? What have we done with our new-found freedom of the press and of expression? We have completely abuse it.
In Ghana today, certain portions of the media can only be compared to the likes of the National Enquirer ? a story only has to meet the sensationalism barometer to get print space or air time. And the worse culprit is a joker named Jo Jo Bruce Quansah. His Palavar has not published anything completely factual in a long time. He even got the story of his own so-called kidnapping wrong. And it gets worse when he tries to editorialize.
Recently, he made a point of questioning why the president should take time out to attend his son?s graduation from Havard University. Mr. Quansah wrote: ?The President, who had the ceremony, upper-most in his mind, has however, (labeled) it as a private visit and craftily romped in other ?assignments? in Europe, which could have been taken up by either our Ambassadors or Ministry officials.? To set the record straight, those ?assignments? include a ?keynote address at the International Cocoa Conference.? Of course, according to Mr. Quansah, the president of Ghana, the world?s second largest exporter of cocoa, should have nothing to do with a conference on the commodity.
He goes on to write: ?A visit to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and other leading regional Government hospitals during the week reveals such horrid experiences of the un-attended dying, that could naturally touch the hearts of all those, who are in a position to help find a solution to the doctor?s strike action.? Mr. Quansah, may we suggest the Minister of Health to deal with the Korle-bu situation since you were quick to suggest that other ministers could have picked up the keynote address in Europe?
What makes this particular attack on the president so unfair is that very few readers know the following attributes about him because they do not make the news: First, the president has not had any vacation since he assumed office five years ago. Who in the civil service can match that record? Second, the president?s schedule, when he travels, is so packed that he can barely make time for other important visits by Ghanaians abroad. In fact one such visit with Ghanaians, he looked so weary, some of the attendees cut their questions short to allow him some time to rest. Third, when in Ghana, the president works a full day?s schedule only to have people follow him home with their issues. Fourth, this is a president who went to work on Christmas Day in 2005 when his wife was seriously ill and bed-ridden. If his children could throw him out of the house, they would have.
The public must also know that in a Hotel conference room in Toronto, Canada, an NPP member angrily demanded to know why the president was still keeping some diplomats on the job in spite of the fact that they are NDC appointees. You should have seen the calm manner in which he answered, that diplomats will be hired and fired on merit and with reason, not due to party affiliations. ?If any diplomat misbehaves,? he explained, ?document the behavior and submit it to the appropriate authority, and he or she will be dealt with regardless of party affiliation.? Positions such as these are the reasons why the president?s own party members are furious with him. Yet others would have you believe he presides over nepotism.
On the other hand, there are those who submit arguably credible criticisms that the president tolerates ineptitude, a point that underscores the fact that he is no saint. But if the president deserves any criticisms, the one that stands out is his apparent insensitivity to his own immediate family members and other loved ones all because he actually places the nation above all else. Ironically, as many close friends are as angry with him as are his detractors. For a public figure of the highest level in our country, that, of course, is to be expected.
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