Some Ghanaians believe strongly that our political and economic underdevelopment is attributable to predatory colonialism (or neocolonialism) and inept internal political leadership. Recently, a new crop of Ghanaian intellectuals-- people who engage in analyzing ideas, searching for solutions to problems, and undertaking rational inquiries — have placed a disproportionate focus on ineffective leadership as the prime root of Ghana’s underdevelopment. And there is a good justification for that, as an overemphasis on colonialism in the past diverted attention from internal forces such as dysfunctional leadership which, in a variety of ways, has contributed immensely to our underdevelopment. Most importantly, colonialism and neo-colonialism are variables that any Ghanaian political leaders should have the skills, abilities and knowledge to work comfortably or deal with without using them as an excuse for doing nothing.
Nonetheless, the new crop of Ghanaian intellectuals invariably neglects or ignores issues of culture in their critiques of Ghanaian political leadership. They view leadership as a rational, objective influence process insulated from bias, subjective feelings, distortion, untested beliefs and ideological assumptions embedded in our culture. These intellectuals talk also about searching for good political leaders to move Ghana forward without acknowledging that our societal culture informs and influences our political leadership. That is, the prevailing societal culture shapes our political leaders’ thoughts, feelings, and actions. But once the forces of societal culture on our leadership are fully acknowledged, the search for effective Ghanaian political leaders becomes crystal clear:
Candidates must have a clearly articulated vision, supported with a master plan and are capable of communicating it effectively to critical masses of Ghanaians;
Candidates must posses the skills, abilities and other attributes to influence and transform the beliefs, feelings and action of Ghanaians in order to win their absolute commitment to the leaders’ vision;
Candidates must be capable of building institutions on the foundations of accountability, probity, transparency, and monitoring mechanisms to support the achievement of the leaders’ vision;
Candidates must be committed to and maintain a set of ethical and moral principles or standards in their personal and professional lives in order to serve as role models for their colleagues, immediate followers and for the country as a whole;
Candidates must have a track record of or experience in resource mobilization, so that they could bring together a variety of talents, experiences, and other resources to help them achieve their vision.
A brief discussion of a few Ghanaian cultural elements will demonstrate a close affinity between the patterns of thinking, behaviour, feeling, and action of our political leadership and our culture. Culture, for the purpose of this discussion, may be conceptualized as patterns of thinking, feeling and acting, underpinning the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one society from another. The “collective programming of the mind” refers to the shared beliefs, ideals, values and practices of a group whether that group is a society, nation-state or organization. That said, in using this simple definition of culture, I am concerned mainly with what social scientists call worldview (the invisible aspects of culture or the inner drivers) rather than the visible part of culture such as styles of dressing, food types and manner of cooking, treatment of the dead, marriage procedures, methods of organizing funerals, and mode of entertainment. I am also concerned with contemporary Ghanaian culture which is shaped by colonialism, neocolonialism, and Christianity, not pre-colonial Ghanaian culture. Indeed, pre-colonial Ghanaian culture has fine values from which current Ghanaian leaders could borrow to enhance their leadership effectiveness. But I will leave this for my next article.
In Ghana there is a deep-rooted belief that “what is meant to be, will be.” We believe that everything is preordained by the creator of the universe. Put it more blatantly, God regulates events and that nobody can change the natural flow of events in contradiction to what God has preordained. In this cultural mode of thinking and feeling, we believe that things can not be changed through a proactive human intervention. The Akan sayings, “Nyame be kyere,” “saa ena etie” and “Nyame ahyeye dada” are metaphors that communicate that core belief. Akan is not the only linguistic group that has these sayings; other linguistic groups in Ghana have the same or similar sayings, portraying the fatalistic nature of our worldview. Similar to this belief is the notion that God provides material things to those who ask him in prayers. Our political leaders share the same fatalistic culture and believe in paternalistic God, which is why they are not motivated to work hard to bring about any progressive, fundamental changes in our society. And even where our leaders believe in progressive changes as individuals, they do not believe in themselves that they could design and implement such changes.
The psychological root of this problem may be partly traced to Afro-pessimism and partly to Afro-identity crisis both of which are caused by colonialism and its brand of Christianity.
Please note that that the term “Afro-pessimism” has been used inappropriately in many contexts in both South Africa and Ghana. For example, Afro-pessimism is sometimes used to describe Africans who question the rationale undergirding certain African behaviours, attitudes, and perceptions.
In another context, Afro-pessimism is used to refer to any African who critiques African culture and advances an alternative worldview to uplift the continent from its present social and economic doldrums. Even those who have opposed national craze such as celebration of Ghana’s “independence” from colonial rule and suggested alternate activities and uses for the colossal amount of money earmarked for the independence celebrations have been branded Afro-pessimists.
To me, Afro-pessimism is a cluster of psychological disorders but the major underlining condition is the tendency to entertain grave doubts about the authenticity of anything African or African related. However, “internal critics” are not Afro-pessimists in any critical usage of the term. Ghana needs internal critics to suggest effective alternative frameworks for social and economic reorganization, to push our politicians and policy makers out of their intellectual complacency, and for advancing new directions for renewing our society. Any society that stifles internal critics is most likely to remain mired in the throes of social and cultural backwardness.
Another reason for our leaders’ fear of designing and implementing progressive changes is that they dwell too much on the pockets of resistance and opposition to their program of reforms and then eventually they convince their inner spirit to back off. That is, our leaders lack tenacity of commitment to a specific purpose. Let me illustrate this example with a reference to the anti-corruption policies of Rawlings’ PDC/NDC government. Rawlings popularized himself as an anti-corruption crusader, who was determined to undertake a massive “house cleaning exercise” in our society and establish a new culture of accountability, probity and transparency in government. Most Ghanaians cultural analysts knew that Rawlings would not succeed, because Ghanaians culturally do not believe that government is an arena of service or that corruption is a heinous crime against the collectivity. On the contrary, Ghanaians generally adore and adorn rich people regardless of how they became rich. They also regard entry into government as a veritable
path to massing material wealth and symbolic powers, not an opportunity to work for the common good. A government official, for instance, who has stolen public funds to build a private mansion in his home-town is more respected in that town than the one from the same home-town who has refused to divert public funds for private gains. The central point I am trying to make is that our contemporary Ghanaian culture condones and reinforces corruption. Nevertheless, Rawlings and his cohort of revolutionaries did nothing substantial to change this fundamental cultural belief beyond sporadic physical violence, threats, and warnings often directed at the wrong targets. Rawlings’ PDC/CDR organization was built on a faulty mission—to safeguard the wealth of our society against exploitation by Euro-American neocolonialists and their local collaborators. Such mission was most suitable for a country struggling for initial political independence from colonial occupiers, not certainly for Ghana which had well-established political culture and institution. Little wonder, the PDC/CDR became a political prosecutor targeting the few entrepreneurs in our society, wasting valuable resources, and stifling the economic productivity of the country.
After almost two decades of running the wheels of government, Rawlings’ performance on anti-corruption index is indistinguishable from any of our past corrupt political regimes whose leaders he brutally murdered for leadership ineptitude. Not only that, Rawlings’ regime ended up being one of the most corrupt regimes in our political history. Even in the latter part of his regime, Rawlings allowed his ministers and officials to do whatever they wanted and, as a result, most of them looted the state’s treasury in tens of million of dollars. Indeed, the state treasury became metaphorically an elephant that had been killed in an African village, so to speak. Anybody could take a cutlass, knife, or axe and cut any quantity of the elephant meat free of charge! One may make a similar analysis of president Kufuor’s zero tolerance for corruption policy. Is the policy working? Why or why not? I am yet to get a list of corrupt officials of Kufuor’s government who have been convicted of corruption charges. Does president Kufuor have the political guts and moral rectitude to go after his ministers and officials entangled in a web of corruption and drug trafficking? Your guess is as good as mine!
However, in the case of the failed anti-corruption policies of both Rawlings and Kufuor, who should be blamed—Ghanaian culture or the leadership of these two individuals? Without any
fear of criticism, I think, we should blame it on their leadership. The reason is that a good leader should have a clear vision of what can be done to prevent corruption, who should implement and monitor the policy, and how to assess the effectiveness of the policy. And crucial of all, the leader should have the resources, skills, knowledge, and abilities to “sell” the policy to a critical mass of Ghanaians in order to get their commitment to the policy. Since both leaders failed to win Ghanaian commitment to their vision of anti-corruption, these leaders cannot be described as effective in the strictest sense of the word. Oh yeah, an effective Ghanaian leader, in my estimation, must be an aggressive sales person who is committed to change Ghanaian hard-core cultural beliefs, feelings, and actions that are detrimental to his policies or vision. In this illustration, an effective Ghanaian leader is ethically and morally justified, within the boundaries of the law, to employ both hardware and software approaches to implement and enforce their vision. I am sick and tired of the old platitudes being peddled around that Ghanaians are behaviorally difficult people to change. Certainly, Ghanaians are incorrigible people and so is the nature of human beings. Consequently, any prospective political leaders must have the wherewithal to deal with the incorrigible nature of the Ghanaian character.
Ghanaian culture can be aptly labeled as a “consideration culture”, by which a preponderant emphasis is placed on forgiveness, good relationship, solidarity and resolution of conflict by compromise and negotiation. Forgiveness or fa- ma-Nyame principle permeates the entire culture.
Offenders are easily forgiven in the course of time or by arranging for a prominent person or an elder to intercede on their behalves. Ghanaians resident in overseas countries tenaciously uphold this cultural norm. I know of a Ghanaian social organization in Canada whose members threatened to take a legal action against the president of the organization for misappropriating the organization’s finances. The membership was divided into three opposing camps. One group favoured legal action; one group favoured issuing the culprit a warning and complete forgiveness of the offence; and the other demanded that the culprit pay the money by instalment. Ultimately, the forgiveness or “fa- ma-Nyame group” won the battle, in the name of preserving the peace and maintaining good human relationship. However, one may ask this poignant question: How would that “consideration action” serve as deterrence to prospective embezzlers of collective finances? When are we going to stop this “forgiveness” stupidity and demand accountability and transparency from our leaders?
Building or maintaining relationship is very important to Ghanaians. That is why a Ghanaian always feels reluctant to point out his displeasure to a fellow friend who had offended him. The average Ghanaian would prefer to keep the matter to him/herself or complain to another person in private. In the same way, a Ghanaian will hardly say no openly to another Ghanaian’s request. Instead, he or she will play tricks to avoid carrying out the request. When asked why he is playing tricks, he/she would reply, “Well, eventually the person making the request would know that I am not ready to carry it through”. Another illustration will be helpful here. Why is president Kufuor so bent on maintaining a friendly relationship with Rawlings after the latter had rejected with utter disrespect the former friendly overtures? Does the effective performance of president Kufuor’s stewardship dependent on his cordial relationship with Rawlings? The persistent efforts on the part of president Kufuor to maintain friendly relationship with Rawlings have allowed the latter to play on the former emotions. In this specific instance, president Kufuor’s behaviour is explained in terms of Ghanaian cultural values of peace and friendliness.
Culturally how do Ghanaians conceptualize leadership? The average Ghanaian views leadership as a process of self-adornment, concentration of power, to seek absolute respect and devotion from followers. And lastly, it is regarded a means to amass tremendous material wealth. Contemporary Ghanaian expects every leader to be rich, regardless of the leader’s position. .In this traditional conceptualization of leadership, the leader is above reproach, beyond questioning, and accountable to either himself or to a small clique of faithful followers. Without any internal motivation or systems of accountability, our leaders perpetuate the old-order of doing things which has not brought us any iota of progress economically, politically and socially. Busia displayed this quality when he arrogantly side-stepped the ruling of the Supreme court and dismissed a number of civil servants. Nkrumah did the same thing by declaring himself life-president and enacting the Preventive Detention Act. Rawlings, likewise, ordered the torture, kidnapping, and murder of his political opponents. Up till now as a former president Rawlings arrogantly felt he owes nobody any explanations about what happened during his regime.
Through the aura of fear, threats, intimidation, and academic pomposity, Nkrumah, Busia, and Rawlings apotheosized themselves to the point where they felt they were unaccountable to Ghanaians but to themselves for the performance of their stewardship. They tinkered with the
separation of power among the arms of government, resulting in a higher concentration of enormous powers in their hands which they used to further their own self-interests rather than bringing about progressive changes in Ghanaian society. Masses of Ghanaians either approved expressively or acquiesced to the behaviour of these leaders, because they found it in sync with our cultural conceptions of leadership devoid of elements of accountability and transparency. In fact, the masses of Ghanaians do not believe that our leaders derive their political mandate from them and that any time our leaders are accountable to them.
Ghanaian culture appears more inclined to replicate or adopt ideas, approaches, or innovations developed elsewhere, particularly in Euro-America. Any thing imported is glorified more than anything produced in Ghana. Our national institutions or organizations are built on that cultural norm. Look at our education system; it is not designed to assist its graduates to develop the skills of knowledge construction, problem-posing or problem-solving. Instead, it is designed to consume ideas, theories, and concepts emanating from the West. We desire to learn everything from outsiders rather than generating our own ideas. For this reason, it is not surprising that the NPP government asked the Indian government for assistance in learning policy implementation modalities. Though policy implementation models are culturally and contextually bounded, the NPP government felt that the Indian government could teach us better policy implementation theories, models and practices than we could learn on our own. Again, last year the NPP government sent one of its ministers to Canada’s liberal party annual leadership convention to learn the system of delegate voting instead of generating its own ideas about how delegate should vote and elect candidates for political positions. Yet Ghana has produced numerous political or social scientists with BA, MA, and PHD accolades. So when will Euro-Americans come to us to learn something that we have uniquely produced or designed?
Owing to the replicative orientation of our contemporary culture, I was surprised but not shocked to read a Ghanaian on the Ghanaweb, arguing vehemently that our kente clothing was a borrowed cultural artifact from the Greeks! Nor was I shocked to read on the web that the NPP government was seeking the help of Tunisia government in designing and constructing low-cost houses in Ghana.
The persistent question I have in this regard is this: What can the Tunisia government teach the Ghanaian government and its people about low-cost housing construction that we do not already know?
Our political leaders travel to every nooks and crannies of the globe soliciting a variety of assistance ranging from financial, technical, and political to educational. However, in most cases solutions to our problems could be locally generated through painstaking mobilization of our own human resources. What concerns me is our high dependency on Anglo-American ideas, models, policies and practices that often seem to be misapplied and adopted unquestioningly in settings that are different from those in which they originated. That is, what we borrow from outside is generally unfit for our purpose. Let me give a simple illustration to buttress this assertion. A multi-campus university, for example, is a concept that is common in the United States of America than it is in Canada. In fact, the history of most universities in the U.S. and Canada indicates that they started as a single-campus and later on established other campuses. A case in point is the University of Toronto, which was established as a single- campus and subsequently set up other two campuses--- Scarborough and Mississauga, not more than one hour drive from each other. Others also were established as a result of amalgamation of several colleges. The primary philosophy behind multi-campus concept is to bring university education closer to the consumers--- students. In America and Canada where road networks and telecommunication infrastructures (i.e. Internet, faxes, phones, satellite & cable TV systems, etc.) are well-developed, a multi-campus university can function more effectively than it can in Ghana.
The University for Development Studies (UDS) in Northern Ghana was established in 1992 under the NDC government. The idea of having a university in the North was an excellent policy of the NDC government for three main reasons. First, it will ensure that the North gets its fair share of the distribution of higher education resources. Second, it will promote higher education among indigenous Northerners whose proportion of university student population is small compared to those of other regions of the country. Indeed, this latter reason conforms to the principle of social justice. Third, and lastly, higher education could make valuable contributions
to Northern societies in the areas of human resource development and improvement of indigenous industries (tanning, iron foundry, and agriculture). Nevertheless, I have worrying concerns about how the university has been structured initially--- its multi-campus organizational operations. UDS has five campuses spread over four regions (Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West): The Nyankpala Tamale campus houses the Faculty of Agriculture; Navrongo campus houses the Faculty of Applied Sciences; Tamale campus houses the School of Medicine and Health sciences; Kintampo campus is to house Allied Health Sciences; Wa campus houses the faculty of Integrated Development Studies.
Given the underdeveloped nature of roads and telecommunication systems in the north, how can the faculties of the University for Development Studies (UDS) be coordinated effectively and efficiently to attain its mission? With its poor funding status, how can this university with its geographically dispersed faculties utilize efficiently its small pool of professors and lecturers? Simply put, how could a professor in the Faculty of Applied Sciences in the Navrongo campus teach a course in Tamale or Kintampo campus? How possible it is for students in the Faculty of Agriculture, in the Nyamkpala Tamale campus, to take some courses in the Faculty of Integrated Development Studies in the Wa campus? How can the university provide student support services and library resources for every faculty? Moreover, how can the dispersed faculties be coordinated to prevent any of the faculties from becoming a separate university, to maintain consistent standards in teaching and learning, and to provide uniform facilities for all the faculties? Lastly, how do the administrators ensure that students do not feel like second class students because of the campus at which they are located? These problems are most likely to retard the growth of the University for Development Studies (UDS) and prevent realization of its noble objectives.
Having studied university administration in theory and practice, my suggestion is that the UDS should have been started initially as a single-campus university for some years, and as the university becomes well-established and infrastructures in the North improve, it could then decentralize its faculties. Admittedly, decentralized faculties or multi-campus university is highly an innovative concept in higher education but there are numerous problems in replicating
it in the Ghanaian environment without any substantial adaptations. For instance, the University of Ghana could decentralize its faculties or establish new faculties in Tema or Nkowkow, where distance factor or underdeveloped communication infrastructures would not pose any major administrative or management problems.
In the past, I spent hours reading books on development theories written in the West but now I have stopped reading those books. This is because I do not find them intellectually challenging or emotionally engaging. All the books I have read on development focus either on the symptoms or theories of underdevelopment, not the real causes of underdevelopment. For example, if a country has a high infant mortality rate it is labeled underdeveloped. But what are the causes of this problem? In fact, the cause of the problem is not simply lack of health facilities or doctors. The problem goes deeper than that. The etiology of the problem may be found in the attitudes, values, and methods of social organization in that country. In order words, the culture of a country contributes to its underdevelopment. Similarly, the level of literacy in a country is taken as one of the indicators of development. But literacy is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. So is education in general, which has been touted as a means to development. Recently, South American intellectuals are spearheading post-development theories to challenge the dominant development theories and practices emanating from the West. These intellectuals, basing their arguments on longitudinal empirical and experiential evidence, have concluded that Western development theories and practices are irrelevant to the development of the so-called Third World countries. I feel strongly that the culture of Ghanaian society should be the entry point of any critical or realistic studies of its underdevelopment and, for that matter, the ineffective political leadership of the country. We should also remember that we can not realistically study Ghanaian political leadership without studying Ghanaian political leaders. The two are inseparable and intertwined.
OISE/University of Toronto
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
