Dr Abu Sakara Foster
Leader of National Interest Movement (NIM), Dr Abu Sakara Foster has told students of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST to look beyond the prevailing National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) duopoly for the required reforms that can make Ghana's democracy more responsive and inclusive.
According to the internationally acclaimed Agriculturalist, the kind of Change the youth need to embrace is one of the constitutional and institutional reforms and not simply change in leaders or political parties.
"Systems change is necessary because of gaping flaws in our constitution that the political elite have exploited to skew things in their favour at the expense of the masses," he said with emphasis, "our democracy has become a flawed tool to work for the interests of a few not the many. To get the system change that we need, we must first embrace a credible reform agenda."
Speaking on the theme, "Embracing Change, leadership challenges for the youth", Dr Abu Sakara delivered a riveting Keynote Address over the weekend at Positive Transformation Foundation (PTF)'s Leadership Inspiration and Vision Empowerment Conference.
The 2012 Presidential Candidate explained to the students the connection between them and the global megatrends of population, technology, climate change, resource pressures etc, that are posing challenges to our world, our nation and communities today.
He brought things home as to how frustrations with unresponsive democracies are driving populism and the rise of mass movements of people that challenge the status quo.
Dr. Sakara exhorted the students to join the National Interest Movement in redefining Ghana's democracy for greater inclusion, meritocracy, devolution of power, equity and gender empowerment, and patriotism beginning with a commitment to action in our communities.
He said that Ghana's democracy is simply not delivering the democratic goods and services the 4th Republic Constitution promises because of the various challenges in the system that could only be addressed with serious transformative constitutional and institutional reforms.
He urged the students to rise to the challenge of their era, which is building prosperity for all and not just a few.
Dr Sakara recounted how the gold coast era saw a generation of freedom fighters that delivered independence for all of us citing the era of early independence that delivered a generation of "can-do" Ghanaians that built a foundation for nationhood with well-educated Ghanaians that excelled everywhere in the world like Kofi Annan and many others.
He then described the era of the Revolutionaries that rebelled against an emerging society of gross inequities, injustice and indiscipline to recast Ghana on its the current path of the fourth republic.
Finally, he referred the students to the entrenched inequity of Ghana today and the highly skewed distribution of opportunity, income and standard of living in favour of a few and at the expense of the majority of Ghanaians with ex-gratia and emoluments of officialdom being so big that they have to be discussed only in chambers.
He likened this era to the era of "edidija" and challenged the students to join in the pressure that NIM is exerting for reform by creating awareness and connecting that to action in the choices they make daily and also at the polls.
