(Making The State of Ghana’s Economy, Governance, Probity, Tribalism, Accountability and Corruption the real issues for Elections 2024)
If you think the high walls around your houses with police presence will offer you protection against the anger & hunger of the suffering mass of Ghanaians, think again… Politics shouldn’t enrich the few against the people, that’s plain thievery and not democracy but ‘A FAILED STATE’…
SATURDAY, 7TH DECEMBER, 2024 will be the most important date in Ghana’s history post-Independence Day of 6th March, 1957 for several reasons.
The primary reason is the fact that we will be facing an election featuring Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia (a 2-term Vice President) of the New Patriotic Party (NPP); John Dramani Mahama (a former Vice President and a former President) of the National Democratic Party (NDC); Alan John Kyerematen of the Movement For Change (MFC) and Alliance for Revolutionary Change (ARC); and Nana Kwame Bediako of The New Force (TNF); especially as such a scenario is set against the background of war cry of the governing NPP’s ‘BREAKING THE EIGHT’ mantra.
There will be three (3) opposition candidates against the ruling governing NPP candidate at this point, who is yet to nominate for the endorsement of his party, his running mate; two of them had selected their running mates namely, Prof. Naana Opoku Agyemang of the NDC and Dr. Michael Abu Sakara Foster of the ARC, whilst The New Force (TNF) party is yet to name the running mate.
I am not too sure if all the candidates are very mindful of the depth, profundity, and dearth of the socio-political and economic malaise facing us as a nation and as a people; much more the dire state of the economy: a case of near bankruptcy with attendant massive unemployment and especially where the government is pretending all is well?
The government is only bluffing with ‘BREAKING THE EIGHT’ battle cry as if there is so much to fight for and maintain the ‘status quo’: contrarily, to my mind, it is only a ploy to cover up the extent of the rot, corruption, mismanagement, looting of state resources like lands, forced sale of companies and properties, forced appointments into statutory positions of state as part of securing the ‘Agyapadie’ legacy as planned, and avoid prosecutions as well as investigations into various purported crimes and misdemeanors.
Against all these arguments, there will also be the compulsive need for any new government to plan, conceptualise the economic paradigm it will require to pursue in order to address the myriad of socio-economic issues bedeviling our nation and the people as well as how to right the junk economy to be inherited.
The issues that will surely confront any new government post–Tuesday, 7th January, 2025 will include the Comatosed Economy, The Distorted Governance Structure, a Resurging Tribalistic Environment, the Absence Of Accountability in all facets of our national life, the Over-Bloated Public Service With Corresponding Wasteful Remuneration packages, the Gargantuan End-Of-Service Benefits structure; and the acute state of Corruption In our national body politics – all requiring a Clean Up and a complete Reorientation of who and what we are as a People and as a Nation.
We still have issues of Gender and Youth Development, especially equal opportunities, to deal with towards reshaping the future in the true meaning of ‘Freedom and Justice’.
What lies ahead of us all is far more than just a fight to stop the ‘Breaking The Eight’ campaign strategy aimed at holding everybody into extended bondage or servitude of Ghanaians into some form of tribal bigotry, promoting the supremacy of one tribe over and above all of us as a nation and as a people.
We all need to join hands, bringing all the parties, short of the NPP, into a form of alliance or understanding, in the event of a possible run-off: so that the Alliance for Revolutionary Change (ARC), the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and The New Force (TNF) would team up behind the NDC to ensure that no matter any manipulation of the electoral processes, we would have the change, the people have been yearning for since 2021-2022, when the economy took a nose-dive for the worst-ever in the life of Ghana, our motherland.
What was even worse, had been all the intimidations, mayhem visited on some Ghanaians during the last elections, the nosedive of the economy into a junk status, the opulence of all kinds of corruption with reckless abundance in the face of extreme poverty facing our people.
As if all these are not enough, we now face the worst form of Dumsor, flowered by the arrogance of the Minister of Energy, who prefers to mix politics with chieftaincy in the handling of the Kumasi 1 power plant transfer to Kumasi, something that we could do without for now. As a caution, I would wish to crave the indulgence of the Minister to be mindful of how he relates to the general public, whose toils and sweat create the reserves for his salaries, benefits, comforts, indulgences and security, and it will be uncouth to be treated that way.
I am looking forward to a day in the not-too-distant future like after the coming elections with the other parties (other than the NPP), having a majority in the Parliament to enable them set limits on the number of Ministers of State, Chief Executives, and Regional Ministers (with Deputies limited to only one per establishment) to be appointed by any President; the number and membership of all Boards limited by a number the President can appoint against institutional representations.
We need to cleanse the system now, especially as the obscene abuse of power, including conflict of interests as well as high sense of family and friends’ situation, has contributed immensely to the high spate of corruption that we have witnessed in the last seven years under the current government.
I also pray that with a majority of Members of Parliament (MPs) by a party other than the current ruling party, there will be the opportunity for massive Constitutional Reforms, which will curb all the excesses we have witnessed over the last thirty (30) years of the 4th Republican Dispensation.
If we are able to execute such changes in the Constitution and the way our Members of Parliament (MPs) conduct themselves more to their party interests than state or the people; also able to insulate such institutions as the Police, Judiciary, Economic & Organised Crime Organization (EOCO), the Police Force and the other state institutions, we will then be seen as witnessing the advent of the real ‘Second Independence Day’ for all Ghanaians because for the very first time, we will be able to Impeach Any Sitting President, who will so conduct himself against the interests of the people and face their wrath.
I have in recent times wondered where all the voices, who rose up in the days of the late President Prof. J.E.A. Mills and then President John Dramani Mahama to lambast their administrations for the states of the economy then, particularly on the matter of then DUMSOR, the economy, the costs of petroleum products, and the number of appointees; especially as what we face now in recent times are quadrupled now than what we faced then?
Why the continued silences at the impunity with which their appointees regard the populace, whose sweat and labour cater to their ever-competing greed, extravagant lifestyles, and living?
Nobody should deceive himself or herself that this time round they will leave office without the due inquests; if this is their belief and or understanding then, they should think again as we will demand due accountability of the costs of their services and the management of the resources they inherited on assumption of office. This is the pledge of the people and we will hold their feet to the fire of accountability.
Need I say more…