Positive Change and the Rules of Old: A Call For Socio-Mental Emancipation

The uneasiness we are experiencing under our democracy should not push us to take flight from our troubles. Rather, it should revivify, and strengthen, our spirits to fight on like a truth-seeking defense force to hold our leaders to account. From the luxury of distance, I will not allow my voice to be stifled by those who wish I was never born to take position on issues that speak to the afflictions of my dearest nation. I speak of freedom; an inimitable endowment given to humanity by the Transcendent.

Who are my nation’s heroes? They are the voiceless and resilient people on whose backs we have nurtured and continue to telegraph our message of hope. To them, I say thank you for giving us the enduring spirit to challenge of a system of democratic tyranny that hardly listens to the voices of the people it purports to represent. To them I say, freedom will one come at a time when they least expect. They will live to see genuine freedom if they can reflect on their choice of future leadership; a class of insightful men, and women, who understand their blighted state and are willing to be part of changes at the grassroots.

What does democracy mean to the average Ghanaian? What is the value of a governing concept that promises equitable distribution of resources, yet rewards society’s elite, and party patrons, with pillages while the majority bear the wrinkles of social adversity? How do we tell our nation’s children to cultivate morality when, in fact, we glamorize a Minister for unzipping his pants to explore the “no-go” zone of an American lady while attending an international conference on HIV/AIDS? How can a leader of a nation lecture his citizens on fiscal frugality, and responsibility, yet he displays unbridled opulence at the expense of the state?

Where is transparency when a convicted cocaine dealer becomes the procurer of goods and services for the nation’s Police Service? Where is universal social justice when one individual who caused economic losses to the Volta River Authority not only escaped the dragnet of criminal prosecution, but also having his battered image rehabilitated at Judge Kobena Adoe Acquaye’s court? It is laughable to seeing an arbiter of fact intercede on behalf of this individual to stymie efforts by the prosecution to expose the depth of mismanagement at the Volta River Authority?

Where is institutional discipline when Superintendent Akakpo, an officer with the Anti-Armed Robbery Squad at the CID Headquarters, who was supposed to watch over the nation’s seized cocaine ended up finding a client to purchase the goods? Where is institutional morality when armed police officers, who were dispatched at the expense of the taxpayer, to arrest Asem Darke, a limping cocaine baron, supervised his escape? Where is discipline when a trained police officer who is supposed to protect the public from armed brigands signed up for three Kalashnikov assault rifles and joined his armed robber friends to go on a robbery spree?

Those who use the mistakes of the past administration to rationalize the growing failures of today are unexciting as their paymasters in shaping our nation’s future. While there were some policy missteps under the P/NDC administrations, the current government cannot sanitize its failures by juxtaposing them with the governing flaws of the erstwhile administration. The nation chose the NPP government with the thinking that they could offer a better alternative to the NDC administration. Sadly, we are confronted with arrogance, duplicity, waste, “akwantu boni”, and colorful lies. It was belly jiggling to watch the Honourable Ken Dapaah and Mr. Awuni, the president’s spokesperson, contradict each other over a simple national issue (i.e. the purchase of a new presidential jet) that requires simple answers. These are our leaders; the great visionaries, who, purportedly, have the wherewithal to lead the nation to the Promised Land.
Is the destoolment, and replacement, of an emaciated alligator with a gluttonous crocodile a positive change? Or is positive change the de-silting of the choking centre, and the re-clattering the same centre with pungent filth? What does positive change, and zero tolerance, mean to these neocolonial political boys and girls club? What exactly has the government shown to the nation that it does not tolerate? If anything, this administration is more permissive in tolerating waste and deception than any government in our nation postcolonial history. Where is positive change, if the size of the current government exceeds the previous administration? Where is change if the victims of public violence (i.e. the bereaved families of Ennin and Mobila), continue to wait for a justice they may never see in their lifetime? Where is change when those who condemned the ex-president for funding his children’s education in the United Kingdom are sending their children to Harvard University; a more pricy institution of higher learning?
Where is change if the nation’s Fast-Track courts robustly pursue the government’s political opponents while they turn a blind eye on the visible criminalities of certain party investors? Where is distributive social justice when certain government officials, and respected persons, who were implicated in the nation’s cocaine scourge, are walking free despite supporting evidence on their involvement in the importation of distribution of the white poison of the Andes? Where is change when the adverse state of the nation, and the institutional corruption that further compounds the preceding, are mistaken for perception by a president who is not malleable to the facts on the ground. I understand the president’s lack of understanding of the nation’s inhospitable socioeconomic problems. Who wouldn’t, when he spends most of his time on sightseeing, and attending international conferences, that do not require his leadership input?
Where is change if those who vilified Nana Agyeman-Konadu Rawlings for acquiring Caridem have become hotel owners, overnight, under inexplicable circumstances? Where is change when those who repudiate the 31st December Women’s Movement headed by Nana Agyeman-Konadu Rawlings are silent on the establishment of the MFCC, a non-governmental organization, headed by our first lady, Madam Theresa Kufuor, and her daughter, Amma Kufuor? Where is change when the Mitsubishi Pajeros, which were the official vehicle of the state, are now replaced with a fleet of deluxe Nissan Sports Utility Vehicles and Ford Expeditions? Is change about duplication, or is it about a departure from old, and unworkable, policies to generate positive outcomes? Maybe, Dr. Apraku, and my dearest Obenefo Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, can lecture the nation on political changes in the context of twenty-century odikro-democracy and indigenous capital production. We are not a serious nation. Are we?
I may come across, to some, as someone who hates her country and all the values she stands for, and the establishment that governs it. But do I really? I wish those who don’t understand the perspicuity of a revolutionary mind would take some time to engage it, and not muddy their fine thoughts by hurling expletives at me; a trademark that are not uncommon on Ghanaweb and Say It Loud. Let’s free ourselves from a neocolonial mindset that adulates the impositions of an indigenous leadership whose vision for our nation, and prescriptions for our nation’s many afflictions, far outweigh(s) the economic diseases their groundbreaking policies seek to cure. We are deafened by, and tired of, the incoherence, and inconsistencies, of a leadership that lack self-expression on our nation’s future, yet snort like overweight piglets in anticipation for another four-year term in office. “Asheasie mpo nie ena mo bre se yie na awieye. Adikanfuo abre egu.” Hope all is well. Good day and cheers.