The writer is speaking about challenges within Ghana's political system
After a long search for answers to our political leadership paralysis, I have come to a certain realization.
I have always believed that leadership in all spheres of life is the key that unlocks the energies and creative capabilities of people to harness their physical, psychological, and emotional talents to achieve the dreams of society.
If a leader misses the visionary and missionary objectives of the peoples’ aspirations and hope, there is a resulting derailment of hope which transcends generations.
In sum, embedded in political leadership are the hopes, aspirations, and precious visions of generations of a people, which are vested in the leader to manage the destiny of current and future generations.
Leadership especially political leadership is so important because the decisions of today will determine the destiny of current and future generations.
Simply put, it is through futuristic leadership style that creates generational equity for society and when the leadership of a people miss the generational equity station, the train will then derail to the station of generational burden.
It does not take a professorial discourse to convince anybody that Ghana is not at the station which meets the aspirations of our people. Just like most Ghanaians, I am confused as to the clear difference between the two visible political parties in Ghana ie - the NPP and the NDC in terms of providing the kind of visionary and selfless leadership of hope for our people.
In my search for answers to the leadership paralysis which has gripped our nation, I singled out the leadership style of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who displayed a strong sense of nationalism, vision, and a deep understanding of global politics which is based on the exploitation of our resources by the Wild West to develop their countries.
The vision of President Kwame Nkrumah was to invest in education, health, and employment generation through industrialization that is firmly grounded on import substitution economic ventures to change the economic structure of our country from reliance on imports.
Our economy has been ripped of massive foreign exchange through the exploitation of our resources by foreign companies through contracts that provide generous incentives to foreign companies, especially in strategic sectors of the economy thus denying our economy of the required resources to lay the foundation for rapid economic transformation.
Companies such as Bonsa Tyre factory, Aboso Glass factory, Tema Shipyard, construction of Akosombo dam to provide hydro energy to support the rapid industrialization of our country are but a few of the many monumental structural changes in the economy of Ghana during the period of Nkrumah’s rule that ensured economic independence for the creation of jobs for our people and people from other African Countries. Through the Ghana Education Trust many secondary schools, Training Colleges, Nursing Training Colleges, Universities etc were established.
On infrastructural development, the Tema Motorway, Tema Township, and many roads were constructed to support the industrialization programme. It was under Nkrumah’s government that the underground mine in Tarkwa was nationalized with the main objective of providing jobs for Ghanaians.
To a large extent, Nkrumah led us on the path of transformation of our economy from being an appendage of the global economic dichotomy of developed countries and underdeveloped countries that provided raw materials to feed the factories in the so-called developed countries.
Though Nkrumah’s government cannot be described as a perfect one, at the time Nkrumah was overthrown, there was enough hope and psychological feeling of pride among Ghanaians that they had a visionary and selfless political leadership.
That was a period when Ghana became a beacon of hope for Africa and we have been riding on the leadership foundation of Nkrumah’s government in Ghana and Africa to date. We are lucky that Nkrumah’s government left us with a developed blueprint popularly known as the Seven-Year Development Plan.
Admittedly, the Seven-Year development plan of Nkrumah’s government may have gathered dust over the years and may not be perfectly suitable to current conditions.
However, if properly studied to understand the economic and political philosophy behind it and it is adapted to our current needs, it will go a long way to contribute to the restructuring of our economy. For example, the current free SHS policy of the NPP government which aims at taking out the element of cost from access to education because it serves as a barrier to deny many citizens access to education, aligns with the educational policy of the Nkrumah’s educational policy.
The Free SHS Policy implemented by the NPP government has turned out to be one of the greatest social investment policies that has earned the NPP massive political credit despite some weaknesses and implementation challenges.
In a few years to come, some brilliant but needy students who but for the free SHS policy would have been destined to a permanent life of poverty, would become lawyers, Doctors, Professors, Engineers, Agriculturalists etc.
It is a sad situation that some of the legacy industries and infrastructure which formed the basis of the dream of the country’s industrialization like the Bonsa Tyre Factory, Aboso Glass Factory, Tema Shipyard among others have missed the purpose for which they were set up as part of Nkrumah’s vision of industrialization for economic development.
The Tema Motorway which was part of Nkrumah’s pride, has become too bad to find an appropriate description for the level of deterioration from a showpiece to a wreck.
Paradoxically, this is a period when our country has destroyed every conceivable God-given treasures of gold, Diamonds, Bauxite, Forests, Rivers, and Mountains, in massive numbers and volumes but earned Zilch in return on a net basis. In return for our magnanimity in our dealings with foreign investors who are here to invest in our natural resources and strategic sectors of the economy such as the maritime industry, we have lost everything through very bad contracts in the strategic sectors of the economy.
How we got into negotiations in our strategic sectors and the nation got very bad deals are difficult to understand but they are not myths of being charmed into coercive trances.
However, your guess could be as good as mine. Nkrumah in his wisdom promoted underground mining so that human beings will live in harmony and peace with our rivers, mountains, forests, sacred groves on the surface of the earth.
People especially highly trained young professionals such as Nurses, Doctors, and Teachers are leaving our country as if they are expecting a natural catastrophe, war situation, or famine. The reason is clearly an indication of disappointment and lack of faith in our political leadership to build inter- generational equity through the prudent use of our natural endowments.
When leadership inspires hope for current and future generations, we turn brain drain into brain gain.
MY OPINION ON OUR POLITICAL LEADERSHIP:
Ghana is being ruled by two political parties of New Patriotic Party ( NPP) and the National Democratic Congress ( NDC).
These two major political parties have been ruling the country in turns for sometime as if they are running a political Shift system.
The two political parties are the same in structure and content. They behave differently depending on whether they are in power or in opposition.
When the NDC is in power, the NPP is very loud on accusations of corruption, bad governance, and flamboyant lifestyles of NDC Activists. When the table turns and NPP takes power, the NDC goes ballistic and pays back in loud accusations of corruption and bad governance.
The two parties exhaust their energies on these diversionary tactics whilst the real issues of harnessing national resources for the development of the nation is relegated to the back bench. That is an effective game of “ moral equivalence” played by NPP and NDC.
A clear game of “moral equivalence” played by NPP and NDC is in the mining sector where the two parties keep pointing accusing fingers at each other on the issue of the shameful problems associated with surface mining especially “Galamsey” when indeed, the two parties are guilty of tacitly promoting the ills of surface mining operations especially “ Galamsey".
Whilst this game of “ moral equivalence “ goes on, the masses get engrossed in these diversionary tactics of the NPP-NDC politicians. Development issues don’t matter in the contest of which political party wins the contest of political insults and accusations. The issue of social and economic development of the nation do not become important when politicians set the agenda for the mass of the people in a country.
As the two political parties continue to do that, the country drifts into economic quagmire and the hopes of current and future generations continue to diminish day by day. It is Ghana that becomes the loser.
Ghana’s Political situation could best be described as, “A case of one malfunctioning vehicle with two Careless Drivers” who take turns in driving the malfunctioning vehicle without fixing the problems of the vehicle.
