Each of our Heads of State has had an agenda for national development and tackling other existential problems. Nkrumah’s socialist orientation, Afrifa’s “national liberation,” Busia’s “rural development,” Acheampong’s “national redemption,” Limann’s return to Nkrumahism, Rawlings’ “probity and accountability,” and Kufuor’s “property-owning” are programmes that come to mind. President Mills has his too to achieve; however, we shouldn’t expect him to adopt the methods that his predecessors used. The fact that he is leading an NDC government doesn’t mean that he should automatically adopt the blueprint used by Rawlings. That’s what the Rawlingses fail to recognize.
The going may still be tough for him, but he is still determined to press on. What will prevent him from achieving the goal of “Better Ghana” are the needless distractions and open, scathing attacks on him by the very people who helped to put him in power and whose backing he needs to pump himself up when he degasses. This contradiction is the NDC’s bane and must be tackled to prevent the disaster that looms.
Considering the extent to which the so-called backers of Nana Konadu have gone in setting up an uncompromising rival camp within the party, whipping up anti-Mills sentiments, and setting the stage for head-butting at the party’s Congress later this year to elect its Flag-bearer, one can safely conclude that the NDC stands to suffer from its own contradictions. As a political party whose members cannot claim to be united by any long-standing, time-tested ideological root in the well-known systems of governance (be it capitalism, property-owning democracy, socialism/communism, Nkrumahism, Danquah-Busia-Dombo political culture, or any other known to Ghanaians), the NDC shouldn’t push its luck too far. Already, there are many fault-lines in the party, waiting for anything of the sort that Nana Konadu has embarked on to explode at the seams.
This problem of lack of ideology (and considering the trial-and-error approach that the PNDC/Rawlings-led NDC 1 administration used to solve problems) seems to be lending itself to solution with the shift in stance as the party prepared for the 2008 elections with its agenda of “Social Democracy.” This agenda contains good strategies for tackling national problems, which might be one factor for the party’s success at the polls. More to that merit, President Mills did touch the hearts and minds of the Ghanaian electorate.
The problem since the NDC’s ascension to power has, however, not come from its failure to implement that agenda but from its own bigwigs (such as Rawlings and his wife) who seemed to have under-estimated the enormity of the challenges and sought to push President Mills toward prosecuting the parochial agenda of punishing the NPP functionaries alleged to have stolen public funds and property. We all know that this very penchant for “punishing” anybody alleged to have stolen public funds was the hallmark of the Rawlings-led governments, dating back from June 4 (AFRC) through December 31 (PNDC) and at some points in the 4th Republic (NDC 1). It didn’t solve national problems.
Despite the clamor for “probity and accountability” and the inflicting of corporal and capital punishment on those victims of the Rawlings “revolutionary fervor” era, bribery and corruption haven’t been eradicated from the system to date. The incontrovertible fact is that the very traits for which those victims paid the ultimate price are evident in the very people who inflicted the punishment on them.
We know that the perpetrators of that “unprecedented revolutionary action” themselves have gone ahead to own property and to enjoy openly (and unashamedly too!) the comfort deriving from such self-acquisitive instincts. So, why should they turn round to insist that unless those they brand as “thieves” are punished, they will break ranks with the Mills-led government? This sentiment has been the driving force behind the Rawlingses’ opposition to President Mills. It is at the center of Nana Konadu’s ambition to dislodge him and will continue to be so for as long as they see every problem as a nail and go for a hammer as their only tool.
It is undeniable that within this short period, President Mills’ government hasn’t been able to solve the systemic problems that have hindered Ghana’s development; but it doesn’t mean that President Mills should be written off as the Rawlingses will expect us to do. In any event, these very systemic problems didn’t emerge only when President Mills took office. They had been there since time-out-of-mind. When he ruled the country for almost two decades, Rawlings came face-to-face with them and did what he thought would solve them. But they defied solution and are still with us today. He added more, which the Kufuor government confronted but couldn’t solve and left behind, having also added more for Mills to wade into.
These systemic problems manifest in every department of our national life, especially in the economy. That’s why our country still remains the producer of primary commodities from which it doesn’t earn adequate revenue to improve living conditions. No drastic change has been effected in policy-making and implementation; hence, the prevalence of age-old problems that still keep Ghanaians in narrow circumstances. Some marked differences between the various governments that we’ve had so far are noticeable mostly at the extent to which they’ve contributed their quota toward worsening the plight of the people. Solving these problems goes beyond what Nana Konadu may have up her sleeves.
No amount of bad-mouthing President Mills and setting up barriers on his way will do the NDC any good either. That is the lesson for Nana Konadu and her backers to learn and recant from this deadly mission of digging the NDC’s grave. More importantly, they must be told in the language they understand that Ghanaians know Nana Konadu more than she knows herself and will not go for her. She has already seen better times in her life and must be content.
A good thing sells itself. Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings is not a political good and must not be allowed to lead the NDC astray and into the political wilderness. The electorate will not “buy” her when there are better quality materials in the other political parties to settle on. Nana Konadu and those behaving like her must be reminded of one hard fact: But for the slight quirk of circumstance that turned the table against the NPP’s Akufo-Addo, the NDC wouldn’t have been in power.
I don’t think that those who voted for Akufo-Addo in the previous polls will turn against him en masse just because it is no more President Mills who is the NDC’s Presidential Candidate. The circumstances that have characterized President Mills’ rule so far call for more hard work to claw back some good will and impress the electorate, not what Nana Konadu has embarked on. However patriotic she may consider herself to be, the Ghanaian electorate will have the discerning mind to see beyond such a smokescreen. The political horse is already dead; why continue to flog it, Nana Konadu?
E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com