Prof. Ali Al?amin Mazrui (full name) regarded as one of Africa?s foremost intellectuals is dead. He died in an American hospital at the age of 81. Prof. Ali Mazrui has been a household name in Kenya and beyond.? The professor had immense international experience in his academic career. He studied at some of the world?s most prestigious universities, including Oxford from where obtained a doctorate in philosophy in 1966. Prof. Ali Mazrui lamented the growing influence of Western culture.
Born in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa on 24 February 1933, some 20 years before the Mau Mau uprising against British colonial rule, he always portrayed himself as a true patriot.
Observers and participants of the local intellectual scene will remember the incisive intellectual well-researched three-day Aggrey-Fraser-Guggisberg Memorial Lectures delivered by Prof. Ali Mazrui at University of Ghana, Legon some years back in which he sought to prove that while Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was a good African, he was on the other hand a bad Ghanaian. .
The lectures raised emotions among the Nkrumahist fraternity to a boiling point. While some of them failed to acknowledge the good things he said about Nkrumah the African, there were those who took him to the cleaners on his claim of Nkrumah the bad Ghanaian.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, despite all his great achievements, by the time he was overthrown, he had become an irrelevant influence on the Ghanaian scene. Indeed, the coup d??tat of February 24, 1966 saved the last remaining legacy of Dr. Nkrumah. What many opponents of Dr. Nkrumah find disdainful is the fact the Dr. Nkrumah?s supporters? failure to acknowledge the failings of Dr. Nkrumah while they always seek to place the failures at the door steps of his political opponents. Take the Preventive Detection Act as an example which was used to incarcerate many innocent citizens for either daring to speak their mind or for falling foul to overzealous CPP advocates on matters bordering on personal grounds. Very often the CPP advocates shamelessly explain away such draconian instrument of human rights abuse as a cause and effect situation.
On the credit side, Dr. Nkrumah sought to build a united Ghana where discrimination of all forms (perhaps except the freedom to belong to a political association) would be banished from the Ghanaian society when he ordered the deletion of the word ?Tribe? from all official forms. On hindsight however, the advocates of the federalism during the early period in the fight for independence should be striking their chest for their foresight when one observes the short-sighted, inimical, nation wrecking, narrow minded ethnic policy being pursued by John Dramani Mahama NDC administration.
It is quite obvious that John Dramani Mahama has completely thrown to the dogs the presidential oath he swore to uphold the 1992 Republican Constitution to treat all Ghanaians fairly and justly.
Yesterday, under the Mills-Mahama NDC administration, it used to be that you must belong to the NDC fraternity in the making of public and civil service and political appointments.
Indeed, one of the most unjust and damaging actions Mills-Mahama NDC administration bestowed on the nation was the quality of political and public and civil service appointments that administration made.
Babies with sharp teeth and old evil dwarfs who could tell the biggest lies, who could insult their elders and superiors and political opponents with the foulest language, who could propagate the most mind-boggling propaganda and with no competencies and could not credit themselves with a single pay slip were appointed to high level positions of trust. Many of them initially owned allegiance to the NPP and only defected to the NDC when they saw that their CV will not entitle them to positions within an NPP political administration. Today the manifestation of massive corruption and classical failure of the socio-economic factors as exemplified by the fact that within six years the country has been driven into the ditch of dependency, poverty and national decay at all fronts by drivers who could only keep themselves awake while on the wheels by drinking Brazilian coffee and their latter day criminal usurpers of political power.
Today, under Mahama-Amissah Arthur (you can discount the Amissah Arthur factor) NDC administration, you must come from the Savanna Region to have any modicum of chance of landing a top position in the public-civil-political setting. Almost all top appointments in the public-civil-political setting have been reserved for people from the Savanna Region. Walk through the ministries and you will be amazed at the number of Chief Directors and their deputies from the Savanna Region. Almost all state corporations either have a person from the Savanna Region as the Chair of the Board or the Chief Executive or both. There is no single board of a state institution which is empanelled today without at least one representative from the Savanna Region. Today, the NDC parliamentary leadership is monopolized by the Savanna Region.? Today, more people from the Savanna Region have benefitted most from scholarship to pursue overseas course in the gas and oil industry than even the Western Region.
The traditional strength of the NDC lies in the Volta Region. So what the Mahama NDC administration has done is to compensate the Volta Region by reserving all the top positions in the financial sectors (both banking and insurance) to the indigenes from the Volta Region with Ewe background. Today the leadership of the Bank of Ghana, Ghana Commercial Bank, Agricultural Development Bank, National Investment Bank and the State Insurance Company have been reserved for indigenes from the Volta Region.
If all these appointments were made on merit, nobody will raise issues. However, the massive corruption and managerial incompetency which have bedeviled SADA, GYEEDA, National Service Secretariat and others which are all happened during the reign of indigenes from the Savanna Region is very worrying. Owing to ?the obvious incompetence at the leadership of the Bank of Ghana proves the point that under John Dramani Mahama NDC merit has been thrown to the dogs and ethnic consideration has taken the centre stage in the sharing of the limited national cake.
In all these skewed appointment makings, the grassroots people from the Savanna Region and Volta Region are not benefitting in any way. SADA a national instrument put in place to bring massive social and economic miracle and development to the Savanna Region was hijacked by the educated illiterates from the Savanna Region, who were put in place to manage the resources ended up looting and sharing the resources among themselves. So far nobody has been prosecuted for willfully causing financial lose to the state.
When I was growing up in my holy village, people from the Savanna Region were considered to be honest, trustworthy dedicated, incorruptible and hardworking. Today that myth has been completely broken. They appear to have acquired another negative trait in the minds of the good people of this country ? nepotism.
President John Dramani Mahama must be told that the people from the Savanna Region need a rejuvenation of the SADA programme which will take the poor down-trodden unfortunate souls from the Savanna Region from the streets indulging in dangerous and unprofitable trade of Kayaye and violent robbery and not juicy appointments to their fortunate elite who stay in Accra where they spend their wealth.
SADA must be given national outlook rather than the current myopic narrow regional balance given to it.
John Dramani Mahama must be told that the people from the Volta Region need massive infrastructural development like the construction of the Eastern Corridor road rather than penciling juicy appointment to a few selected elite from the Volta Region who are even afraid to bring development to their villages for fear of been struck down by juju.
It is ironic that the over blotted loans John Dramani Mahama NDC administration contracted for roads construction, the Eastern Corridor road was not factored in it.? The rest of the people of this country are waiting to see how voters from the Savanna Region and the Volta Region will vote the next time round.
By Kwame Gyasi
