In Ghana today, if you have the aspiration to become a president at a point in your life, then my only humble advice for you is that never complain when you are given a dirty slap by someone for no just cause. The best you can do under such circumstance is to, respectfully, turn the other cheek in readiness for a second slap!!!
Now, everybody must be wondering why I would prescribe such behavioral posture for my fellow Ghanaians aspiring to ascend to the highest office of the land. But wait a minute; casting our minds back just over two-and-a-half years ago, we can all vividly remember the heated campaign season of election 2008.
A whole lot of things were said for and against all the contesting candidates of the various political parties. Some were branded as arrogant while others were touted as heavenly ?angels?.
And what actually worries me is the fact that we have a very serious problem in this country when it comes to assessing the character traits of people and I hope something urgent is done about this since failure to do so will, someday, result in Ghanaians electing the devil himself as president, just because he/she might have presented himself/herself as an angel of light during campaign season.
For whatever reason, Ghanaians have come to accept people who are by nature, extremely timid as humble people. Now, timidity is simply the lack of self-confidence on the part of an individual to either take bold and decisive decisions with the purpose of changing the status-quo in order to bring about a real positive change in his personal life or the lives of the citizenry, which is a prime character trait expected of a president.
Ghanaians, by nature, are extremely peaceful people who will prefer to go hungry in a peaceful environment rather than having plenty on their dining tables in the midst of upheavals. Now, we have some very shrewd political demons in our nation who have carefully studied this unique Ghanaian character of instinctively gravitating towards peaceful people. These people, having studied this Ghanaian quality, decided to swindle most Ghanaians by presenting Atta Mills as an angel.
Those who contested Atta Mills were all portrayed by the followers of the NDC as devils who had nothing good to offer the nation. The sitting government at the time was branded as corrupt and incompetent and therefore had to be voted out of power for social democrats who had then just descended from heaven, to come and rid our nation of all social, economic and any other vices under the sun.
And in the end, through plain thuggery and fraud, the 2008 election was declared in their favour. And since then, our dear nation and its people have never known any kind of peace as was promised by these ?angelic? social democrats.
Now, for a nation to progress, it takes a leader who is focused, visionary and able to take decisions to make sure he is able to convince the citizenry to understand and buy into his ideas and vision. This leader must be able to surround himself with true patriots who sincerely believe in his agenda for the nation. He must be courageous enough to point out the short-comings of his appointees, reprimand them when necessary and let the hammer fall whenever the occasion demands. This leader must not use the past-mistakes of others to justify current corrupt, incompetent and immoral acts of his appointees.
But unfortunately, this kind of leadership qualities have all eluded the people of this nation as a result of total failure by Atta Mills to exhibit any of these above stated qualities. And I have five reasons for making this assertion, which are:
1. A plane-load of people from the seat of government and their concubines went to Cote d?Ivoire for the CHAN-football finals in 2009. The financial intricacies surrounding how the whole trip was organized and executed were shrouded in complete secrecy and this became a source of arguments on the airwaves for weeks. Yet, the Ghanaian tax-payer was never provided with any tangible answers and the issue continues to be shrouded in total ?akatamansocious? secrecy.
Alex Segbefia, a deputy chief of staff who was deeply embroiled in this saga, was left off-the-hook because the president decided to turn a blind-eye. Who says Alex Segbefia would have continued to be working at the seat of government in any civilized nation following his involvement in that scandal?
2. Carl Wilson, an employee working directly under the supervision of Alex Segbefia, was alleged to have engaged in massive acts of corruption, as regards stealing and selling of seized vehicles but Alex staunchly defended him. Carl Wilson was only sacked after the militant party fooled-soldiers rose up and took their entire party hierarchy hostage at their national headquarters.
And since it is now an established fact that the president acted only at the prompting of party fooled-soldiers- but the NDC has always tried to deny this- Ghanaians were, as expected, fed with a cock-and-bull story of Carl Wilson?s dismissal letter being written as far back as the day Israelites crossed the mighty red sea!!! Alex Segbefia, who defended such a plain act of criminality by Carl Wilson, is still at post. But according to information which was making rounds days after Carl Wilson?s dismissal, the man quickly wormed his way back to the office of Alex Segbefia where packs of extremely sumptuous meals wear being ordered during lunch time for their gastronomic pleasure!!!
3. When the issue of Muntaka broke, all decent people of Ghana were wondering why a minister of state could make a false representation to a Foreign Embassy with the purpose of securing a visa for his female concubine. The minister also received some cash from his ministry that turned out to be unlawful. This cash is what was expended on ?chinchinga? and diapers.
We all debated this Muntaka-Gate scandal for week?s un-end till the whole issue came before the president at the castle gardens during his interaction with the press on his first year in office.
Now, when the president was confronted with the issue by Emma Morrison (TV-3) and Kwame Sefa-Kayi (Peace-FM), the president, impertinently retorted, ?Is this the first time a government official has travelled abroad with a girl-friend??
By this, Atta Mills was, invariably, telling the decent people of this nation that it is well and good for all his appointees to embark on indiscriminate sexual escapades. Any wonder some of his people are going about dishing out the deadly HIV to young girls posted to their outfits while others go about having endless sexual bouts with innocent women at gun points?!!!
4. Currently, Atta Mills, according to the NDC constitution, is the leader of the party. Now, there was this Kwabena Adjei?s ?kill the cat? saga which the president sought to distance himself from on his return from annual leave in America. And the moment he spoke, some people within the NDC came to tell us to drop the issue because the ?father? of the nation had spoken. The matter was just about to die when the good old law professor sat aloof for the notorious league of ten NDC regional chairmen to jump into the fray with their familiar trade mark of ?unconditional-support? for Kwabena Adjei?s unconstitutional pronouncement.
5. As the storm surrounding the ?kill the cat? saga raged on, then came the ?Dogbe-Gate?. We have a ministry with a substantive minister and then two very efficient negative propagandists in the persons of Samuel Okudzato-Ablakwah and James Agyenin-Boateng, who have been appropriately described as Ghana?s answer to Nigeria?s famous midget actors, ?Aki and Porpo?. The name of these two individuals have become synonymous with ?Kweku Ananse? story-telling and the so-called ?asomdwee hene? is relishing such developments?
E-mail: [email protected]
By Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei
