Qanawu Gabby
March 2009 is ending with agitation over Ga lands and the threat of a similar agitation in the Western Region. In my view all this could have been effectively avoided or neutralised if only the New Patriotic Party was steadfast and more radical in its realisation of the dream of a property-owning democracy.
In April 4, 2007, I wrote an article explaining ‘Development in Freedom’ – the slogan of the NPP –– the party of proponents of free market and developmentalism like Danquah, Busia and Dombo That article argues, fundamental to the doctrine of Danquah-Busiaism is the principle that freedom is the primary end as well as the active means to development.
The party’s policy, in the thinking of J B Danquah, "is to liberate the energies of the people for the growth of a property owning democracy in this land, with right to life, freedom and justice, as the principles to which the Government and laws of the land should be dedicated in order specifically to enrich life, property and liberty of each and every citizen.”
President Mills and his Vice say, with tongue in cheek, that ‘Ghanaians have changed to move forward in the right direction.’ A violent twist of logic. ‘Forward’ is actually a direction – one that denotes positive or constructive mobility as opposed to being stabile - a state of motionlessness, static horizontal mobility or backward movement. You may it is still early days, however, you may require a superhuman sense of discernment to have anything resembling a remote idea of the direction that the NDC is taking Ghana. That is not to say that the Mills-Mahama team lacks a latent desire for success.
Providing free school uniforms to a ‘privileged’ few conveniently classified as ‘deprived’ in a nation where the majority is described as ‘poor’, is the only new clear policy initiative in tune with the NDC claim of social democracy . Worrying to some of us is that Ghana runs the risk of gaining a reputation as a nation where the gap between professed ideologies and practice is taken for granted as wide.
Ideally, in the thinking of the NPP, a primary duty of the state is to guarantee to individuals (who make up society) substantive freedoms to make them active agents of a positive change for prosperity rather than passive recipients of dispensed benefits. Crucial to this freedom is an inevitable social welfare foundation, which actively ensures the provision of an environment where every individual (particularly from childhood) has the opportunity (in freedom) to gain access (through decent, affordable education, housing and health) to climbing the ladder of self-development, prosperity and security.
Unfortunately, the jury is still out on whether or not the first eight years of NPP rule did anything distinctively and intrinsically profound to significantly promote the realisation of a property-owning democracy, as compared to what was achieved by previous regimes which has clear social leanings, such as the CPP, NRC and SMC. Apart from bettering the macro-economic environment, the underlining vulnerability of which has been recently exposed, very little was achieved in the area of reforming the housing system, from security of land tenure, through better town planning, to access to decent affordable homes.
Indeed, it became a campaign joke on the NPP that, besides grand mansions that deepened the perception of only a few getting richer, the disciples of property-owning democracy (NPP) could not boast of a single completed affordable home for the masses in 8 years.
But, how modest was NPP achievement in housing? The 2008 Manifesto captured it thus: The NPP has committed an unprecedented amount of government funds to address the nation’s housing shortage with GH¢30 million (¢300 billion) for the construction of affordable homes across the country… Within the conducive business environment, the private sector now provides an average of 40,000 homes a year. Government under its affordable housing programme is currently constructing a total of 3500 flats at Borteyman and Kpone in the Greater Accra Region (1,500 flats), Asokore-Mampong in the Ashanti Region (1,192 flats), Koforidua in the Eastern Region (400 flats), Tamale in the Northern Region (400 flats). The construction of an additional 1500 affordable housing units will commence in Sekondi, Takoradi, Sunyani, Cape Coast, Wa, Bolgatanga and Ho by 2009.
The Government now has land banks totalling 50,000 acres across the country for housing development by the private sector. It has also instituted a rural housing scheme for cocoa farmers starting in the Western Region. It has also instituted a housing scheme for civil servants with a US$10 million facility placed with the Housing Finance Corporation (HFC).
For the future, the NPP said, if re-elected for a third term: it would continue with the affordable housing scheme and extend it nationwide. It would create a special Housing the People Scheme to allow employers to receive tax credits for implementation of housing schemes for their workers. The NPP made a radical promise to provide 50,000 affordable houses every year for the next five years. Make many of these houses available for rent for those who can’t afford to buy; construct at least 13,000 units of decent, affordable housing across the North within the first two years; establish a mortgage culture to provide the loan facilities for more Ghanaians to own their own homes; name every street and number every property within our first term; create a new Department of Infrastructure and Physical Planning to ensure better land use and spatial planning in our cities; and, ensure cleaner streets with the development of 20,000 sanitation (Tankase) inspectors per year for the next five years in partnership with the private sector.
It would have been the most ambitious mass housing project ever undertaken on this continent – even relatively more than what South Africa did for poor blacks, during the first 5 years of freedom. The NPP was even able to estimate that the quarter of a billion homes in 5 years project it was presenting to the electorate would cost $1 billion, for which it was sure funds could be found. So why was the programme ridiculed or ignored by the media and the party’s own commentators, including the Flagbearer? The NPP campaign team treated it as if it was smuggled into the manifesto. A lot of work went into it, and yet it was made to lack credibility. Unhelpful remarks from the Manifesto Committee Chairman that it was not government’s job to provide homes for the masses, coupled with the faint attempt at doing so in the previous two terms, contributed to such a vital socio-economic programme not tickling the voter. This was a programme if believed and voted for and implemented could have surely modernised Ghana and directly connected the NPP full-square to the needs of the so-called ordinary Ghanaian.
It would have provided jobs for tens of thousands and direct homes for a million Ghanaians. The spiralling effect of creating a vibrant mortgage environment, expanding the building materials market and bringing down rents and house prices would have meant greater access to better shelter to some 10 million Ghanaians. Ghana would have clearly changed in 10 years!
The NPP was targeting mainly the bond market, with contributions from tax revenue and the housing project’s private partners to raise money for the 50,000 housing units per year project. Even in light of this year’s credit crunch, I posit that an Akufo-Addo government would still have been able to raise $1 billion domestically in five years by adding two percentage points to VAT. The government would have had the moral authority to demand some 15% rise in VAT to pay for such an important social programme, provided it could convince the people of its commitment to the project and spending discipline specific. In 2006, total VAT revenue was GH¢588 million. By 2008, it increased to a little over GH¢1 billion, nearly double in 3 years. Going even modestly under this trend, at least GH¢1 billion extra VAT revenue could be raised from the 15% rise in the next five years to help fund the scheme to house the masses. The difficulty in President Mills funding such a housing scheme mainly with VAT proceeds is the lid he placed on his own money-lending bucket. He has made a categorical manifesto promise that the individual tax burden on the Ghanaian shall not be increased, including income tax and VAT, during his four-year term..
The Tory government managed to build a property-owning democracy in the United Kingdom ( a policy continued by ‘New’ Labour) because the state had in decades past built ‘Council Housing’ for rent to the working class, which they were later encouraged to purchase, at subsidised prices, with the help of mortgage financing.
Margaret Thatcher
In June 1987, Times reporters Christopher Ogden and Frank Melville interviewed the just re-elected (for the third term) Prime Minister of Britian, Margaret Thatcher, after only four hours of sleep and a day spent thanking campaign workers and consulting with colleagues.
Below are excerpts from the interview:
Q. How do you interpret the election?
A. It means that the policies we were pursuing, which we put openly and frankly before the people, were thought to be right for Britain. They were policies which were a partnership between government and people -- namely, we do the things which only governments can do, running the finances in a sound way, keeping inflation down, cutting controls and giving tax incentives. And we got the response in an increasing enterprise and competitiveness from the British people. And that produced a higher standard of living.
Q. Why do people accuse you so bitterly of lacking compassion?
A. Some people think that to be compassionate and caring you have to talk a lot about it. We've always taken the view that you should be judged by what you do and not by what you say, and we're prepared to be judged on that -- any day of the week.
Q. What are the most important accomplishments of your first eight years?
A. First, we have reduced the fantastic number of controls that there were over the life of our society. The greatest driving force in life, which is individual energy and effort, was becoming really cocooned. Secondly, people do need incentives to encourage them to work harder, and if you take too much away in tax, then you will not get that driving incentive. Plus the trade union law…We now know that the spirit of enterprise is there. The economy is doing well and catching up with our European competitors.
Q. What are your plans for a third term?
A. I will extend opportunities to people who never had them before. As you know, we are building a property-owning democracy. Far more people own their own homes now. We are nearly up to the United States -- not yet quite -- but now one in five of our people owns company shares. Far many more people have savings accounts. That's all extending opportunity ever more widely. End
What comes out clearly from this interview was the ideological clarity and discipline in the programme of the Tory government for the two previous consecutive terms and for the new time ahead.
Within a week of President J A Kufuor’s re-election in December 2004, Franklin Cudjoe (a founder of IMANI think tank) observed in his article ‘Building a Property Owning Democracy’, “Even though four political parties sought the mandate of the electorate, three of them, all in opposition, had a social democratic agenda whilst the incumbent and re-elected, a liberal democratic party, believed it was practicing a property-owning democracy.”
He said one of the finest institutions that have the propensity to bolster a country's economy is property rights. “If there is one thing many Ghanaians praise the current government for, it is its unwavering commitment to free speech. But free speech ought to translate into free enterprise. Unleashing the potential created in property ownership into capital formation, combined with ease of transactions through very minimum taxation, will be helping to deepen the meaning of a property-owning democracy.”
A story published on the website, myjoyonline, on March 2, 2007 quoted a Professor Ata Britwum of the University of Cape Coast as saying that “the ideology of property owning democracy is inimical to Africans since it serves the interest of the west and not the continent.” Prof. Britwum went on to say that Ghana’s First President, Kwame Nkrumah boosted industrialisation during his rule by opting for a philosophy of communal property ownership.
Kwesi Pratt, Dr Tony Aidoo and others were allowed by the NPP’s tepid approach to realising the philosophy of property-owning democracy to preach to Ghanaians that property-owning democracy was a ‘feudal’ concept which reduced the eligibility to vote to the very few landowners. They cited new buildings in the plush areas of Accra, like Cantonments and Airport Residential Area, to bastardise the philosophy of the NPP to make the NPP ‘Property-Grabbing (-Looting) Democrats’.
This led the disciples of the ideology like Washington-based Baffour Ennin to ask a profound question in 2007: ‘What’s Wrong with Property-Owning Democracy?’
He pointed out in his article with the above title, “In Ghana, the most successful enterprise is privately owned. I’m not talking about giant factories. I’m talking about the cocoa farm. Next time you go to any farming village in Ghana, ask to see the communal farm…There is no truth to Professor Britwum’s statement that property owning democracy is inimical or pernicious to the African. In my ancestral towns and villages of Akrofuom, Akrokerri, Bobiriase, Sikaman, Domiabra, Ayaase all in Adansi and Techiman and Kwapong in the Brong Ahafo Region, every cocoa farm is privately owned. Every farm belongs to somebody. In the cocoa industry as a whole, every segment that is government dominated or owned is beset with corruption and mismanagement… I dare any government to follow his misguided advice and nationalise all cocoa farms in Ghana, make them communal property and see what happens.”
He charged, “A small minority within our academic clerisy is notorious for propounding unworkable and unsustainable political and economic models purportedly to advance and protect the interests of Ghana’s hoi polloi… These aging left wing ideologues should post on their bedroom walls Bernard Shaw’s favourite quote ‘a man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart and a man who is a socialist at age 40 has no head’. It should be the first thing they see when they get up in the morning and the last thing they see when they retire to bed each night. They need to examine their heads because the unexamined life is not worth living.”
There is nothing wrong in being rich, he said, adding, “Property owning democracy created the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Better than convincing Ghana’s 22 million people to stop chasing filthy lucre or looking for creative ways to confiscate it, we should understand that wealth is an enabler of everyone’s success. The so-called philosophy of communal property ownership rewards mediocrity, it also stifles initiative, creativity and competition and it almost invariably engenders laziness and dependency. What Ghanaians want is less government.”
For the sake of a better Ghana for the masses, property-owning democracy must come back in the shortest possible time and big time next time!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
The president, his decisions and his party's interest
By: Qanawu Gabby, (2008-01-25)
What has become very clear to Ghanaians, whether right or wrong, is that nine days ago President J A Kufuor took that big decision to sack his National Security Minister of seven years with very little consultation as to how best to go about it.
Cabinet Ministers such as the Attorney-General, Defence Minister, Information Minister, Interior Minister and others whose names Qanawu is too embarrassed to mention only got to hear about Francis Poku's dismissal after it had been announced on radio.
It could be said to be a decision taken, if not in consultation with then in the presence of only core members of President Kufuor's kitchen cabinet: Chief of Staff Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani and Secretary to the President D K Osei.
The weaknesses in the current quasi-informal structure of doing things have been painfully exposed. But, one must take a positive posture here by focusing on what lessons can be learnt and how to make sure those lessons are learnt. The way the whole exercise of Francis Poku's dismissal and handing over was bun-handled could be easily construed as an expensive but timely signal on the need to rejig presidential affairs for the next eleven or so months of President Kufuor's 8 years.
After seven years in office and with a cabinet that has been so unfairly described as 'injury time' squad, there is always the human tendency for 'superiority mongering' on the part of the Commander-in-Chief. Thus, advice from his staff or cabinet members that he would have easily paid particular attention to four years ago, he is likely to find 'boring' today. The President has to be restrained from over-reaching his own principles for the sake of his legacy, party and country. With a presidential candidate elected and general elections in December, the relationship between party and government must be emphasised in ways that will ensure that decisions taken either at the Castle or at the West Airport residence do indeed bring mutual benefit rather than mutual deficit to both party and government.
The party, Cabinet and the President's kitchen cabinet must all help him to ensure that pronunciamentos and decisions are made with the greater interest in mind. This is the time that the President's 2001 belief in strong, collective leadership must be manifestly revived. This is not the time for subservient uniformity. The President must have the confidence and selflessness to relish rather than relinquish lively competition of ideas and welcome points of view that may differ from what he wants to hear.
Indeed, the NPP congress and the frightening culture that it created - where political appointees especially Ministers, felt obliged (using the pretext of intimidation and fear) to tow the line of the President's preference in an unquestionable regimental manner uncharacteristic of the Danquah-Busia tradition, should not be allowed to take hold.
President Kufuor owes his history, tradition, principles, values and legacy an overriding duty to restrain himself from being reckless. That threat of recklessness can only be real if those with whom he consults are prone to yes-manism.
The tendency to mistake a lickspittle groveller or kowtower to a true loyalist can be very dangerous in elective politics. It can easily turn a democrat into an elective dictator. That is why a President's small inner circle of advisors must not be minions or simple Uriah Heeps. This is not to suggest that the wonderful, brilliant men and women who form his inner circle of advisors are not up to it. The responsibility is for them to stay ever honest to their intellectual constitution.
There is concern in the governing party's intelligentsia over the threat of creating a situation in the NPP government today where the kitchen predominates over the parlour? If that is the case, then what indeed is the intellectual firepower of this kitchen cabinet? Has the President surrounded himself with intellectual, courageous and respectfully opinionated giants who are not given to self-preservation before national or party interest?
If that is the case, then when the President seemed to have been understandably afflicted by a momentary interlude of hotheadedness which sober head emerged to help steady matters?
Or are we to proceed this year with a presidency that prizes above all subservient uniformity? The nature of Ghana's Constitution which gives the President enormous powers is such that the President has to surround himself with a reliable group of confident intellects and political loyalists, who are also equally loyal to party, country and principles.
Cabinet meetings may be long but are they still about deep discussions or exploration of alternative policies or views? If Kufuor does not readily draw upon the collective leadership of a talented, diverse Cabinet, with whom does he share the responsibilities of leadership?
If many of the major decisions of government are taken in closed-door consultation with Kufuor's kitchen cabinet, like US leader Andrew Jackson did in the 19th century, then that informal cabinet has a very arduous responsibility to steadfastly assist the President maintain the posture and character that will secure and enhance his legacy to both party and country.
We all have kitchen cabinets. The issue is how often one keeps one's kitchen cabinet clean and stockpiled with goods that have not expired, sharp knives and china without cracks. The usual is to avoid cleaning it until there's no room for fresh groceries, Christmas hampers or more utensils. But, you don't only have to walk into the kitchen in the middle of the night for some cold water after a hot, steamy session with her only to turn the light on to see cockroaches of all sizes dancing on your wares and stuff for you to discover a virtue in cleaning-up.
Ronald Reagan was certainly nowhere near as intellectually gifted as Kufuor, but he surrounded himself not only with wealthy, conservative California backers but men of intellectual weight, in a relationship at the White House guarded and strengthened by mutual respect. For example, Beer baron Joseph Coors, the most active member of Reagan's kitchen cabinet also funded many think-tanks and policy institutes, such as the Heritage Foundation.
The party leadership, the presidential candidate, cabinet colleagues and the President must all make it a matter of policy to establish a relationship between party and government that ensures adequate consultation and ensures checks are put in place between now and December, but certainly without attempting to usurp or undermine the authority of the Commander-in-Chief. It is in everybody?s interest.
What has become very clear to Ghanaians, whether right or wrong, is that nine days ago President J A Kufuor took that big decision to sack his National Security Minister of seven years with very little consultation as to how best to go about it.
Cabinet Ministers such as the Attorney-General, Defence Minister, Information Minister, Interior Minister and others whose names Qanawu is too embarrassed to mention only got to hear about Francis Poku's dismissal after it had been announced on radio.
It could be said to be a decision taken, if not in consultation with then in the presence of only core members of President Kufuor's kitchen cabinet: Chief of Staff Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani and Secretary to the President D K Osei.
The weaknesses in the current quasi-informal structure of doing things have been painfully exposed. But, one must take a positive posture here by focusing on what lessons can be learnt and how to make sure those lessons are learnt. The way the whole exercise of Francis Poku's dismissal and handing over was bun-handled could be easily construed as an expensive but timely signal on the need to rejig presidential affairs for the next eleven or so months of President Kufuor's 8 years.
After seven years in office and with a cabinet that has been so unfairly described as 'injury time' squad, there is always the human tendency for 'superiority mongering' on the part of the Commander-in-Chief. Thus, advice from his staff or cabinet members that he would have easily paid particular attention to four years ago, he is likely to find 'boring' today. The President has to be restrained from over-reaching his own principles for the sake of his legacy, party and country. With a presidential candidate elected and general elections in December, the relationship between party and government must be emphasised in ways that will ensure that decisions taken either at the Castle or at the West Airport residence do indeed bring mutual benefit rather than mutual deficit to both party and government.
The party, Cabinet and the President's kitchen cabinet must all help him to ensure that pronunciamentos and decisions are made with the greater interest in mind. This is the time that the President's 2001 belief in strong, collective leadership must be manifestly revived. This is not the time for subservient uniformity. The President must have the confidence and selflessness to relish rather than relinquish lively competition of ideas and welcome points of view that may differ from what he wants to hear.
Indeed, the NPP congress and the frightening culture that it created - where political appointees especially Ministers, felt obliged (using the pretext of intimidation and fear) to tow the line of the President's preference in an unquestionable regimental manner uncharacteristic of the Danquah-Busia tradition, should not be allowed to take hold.
President Kufuor owes his history, tradition, principles, values and legacy an overriding duty to restrain himself from being reckless. That threat of recklessness can only be real if those with whom he consults are prone to yes-manism.
The tendency to mistake a lickspittle groveller or kowtower to a true loyalist can be very dangerous in elective politics. It can easily turn a democrat into an elective dictator. That is why a President's small inner circle of advisors must not be minions or simple Uriah Heeps. This is not to suggest that the wonderful, brilliant men and women who form his inner circle of advisors are not up to it. The responsibility is for them to stay ever honest to their intellectual constitution.
There is concern in the governing party's intelligentsia over the threat of creating a situation in the NPP government today where the kitchen predominates over the parlour? If that is the case, then what indeed is the intellectual firepower of this kitchen cabinet? Has the President surrounded himself with intellectual, courageous and respectfully opinionated giants who are not given to self-preservation before national or party interest?
If that is the case, then when the President seemed to have been understandably afflicted by a momentary interlude of hotheadedness which sober head emerged to help steady matters?
Or are we to proceed this year with a presidency that prizes above all subservient uniformity? The nature of Ghana's Constitution which gives the President enormous powers is such that the President has to surround himself with a reliable group of confident intellects and political loyalists, who are also equally loyal to party, country and principles.
Cabinet meetings may be long but are they still about deep discussions or exploration of alternative policies or views? If Kufuor does not readily draw upon the collective leadership of a talented, diverse Cabinet, with whom does he share the responsibilities of leadership?
If many of the major decisions of government are taken in closed-door consultation with Kufuor's kitchen cabinet, like US leader Andrew Jackson did in the 19th century, then that informal cabinet has a very arduous responsibility to steadfastly assist the President maintain the posture and character that will secure and enhance his legacy to both party and country.
We all have kitchen cabinets. The issue is how often one keeps one's kitchen cabinet clean and stockpiled with goods that have not expired, sharp knives and china without cracks. The usual is to avoid cleaning it until there's no room for fresh groceries, Christmas hampers or more utensils. But, you don't only have to walk into the kitchen in the middle of the night for some cold water after a hot, steamy session with her only to turn the light on to see cockroaches of all sizes dancing on your wares and stuff for you to discover a virtue in cleaning-up.
Ronald Reagan was certainly nowhere near as intellectually gifted as Kufuor, but he surrounded himself not only with wealthy, conservative California backers but men of intellectual weight, in a relationship at the White House guarded and strengthened by mutual respect. For example, Beer baron Joseph Coors, the most active member of Reagan's kitchen cabinet also funded many think-tanks and policy institutes, such as the Heritage Foundation.
The party leadership, the presidential candidate, cabinet colleagues and the President must all make it a matter of policy to establish a relationship between party and government that ensures adequate consultation and ensures checks are put in place between now and December, but certainly without attempting to usurp or undermine the authority of the Commander-in-Chief. It is in everybody?s interest.
A Fighter And A Diplomat -Akufo-Addo's Versatility Examined
By: Qanawu Gabby, (2007-08-03)
“In a tradition extending from Freud and Weber to me,” says Prof Robert Hogan, the author of Personality and the Fate of Organizations, “people argue that leadership is a function of the characteristics of individuals. This means that some people have more talent for leadership than others.” Thus, writing in the Accra Daily Mail last Thursday, seeing it as superfluous to show his readers why, columnist Ato Kwamena stuck his head out to say “the NPP presidential primary remains a contest between Foreign Minister, Akufo-Addo, and Vice-President Aliu Mahama. The circumstances are just not right for the others, and my blunt truth to the others is that they are throwing money at a lost cause.” But after a categorical intro that the circumstances are right for both Aliu and Nana Addo, the writer retracts with obtrusive perplexity, “I admire Akufo-Addo a lot. He’s a serious man. A man who has his head screwed on straight. But deep down, you and I know that Akufo-Addo is not the man we want at the helm of the affairs of this country. He’s not the man to ‘heal’ this country – bring us together as one.” Well, according to the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, the only thing we truly own are things that come from inside and are under our own control: opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, these things are free, unbound and can never be taken away. So, go Ato! While calling Nana Addo “extremely competent,” Ato goes on to pontificate, “But at this time in our history, he’s not the right man for the job.” In his view, the Kufuor presidency “has taught us that confrontation is not the most effective way to govern a country. What has kept us together as a country, to a large extent is Kufuor’s ‘gyae man monka’ attitude.” Ato, the analyst, conveniently forgets that it was the uncompromising ‘confrontation’ of the leadership and rank and file of opposition forces that sent the National Democratic Congress packing cement and foreign accounts into opposition.
He describes Nana Akufo-Addo as “a no-nonsense man,” but with a twist of disparage. Under Akufo-Addo, “Rawlings’ perennial lies, slanders, and provocations would have been matched with an equal and proportional force. And this would not have been in the national interest. When two elephants fight, the grass suffers. But through Kufuor we know that the most effective way of dealing with a megalomaniac is to ignore the person.” His conclusion is simplistically disguised with some deleble gloss of intellectual stamp duty, “Akufo-Addo, in Kufuor’s position, would have been a tit-for-tat President. We don’t need that now.”
The truth is that there are so many Ato Kwamenas out there who still see Nana Addo as ‘patapaa’, aggressive, and belligerent, despite the fact that in the last five years Nana Akufo-Addo has won overwhelming praise, both at home and abroad, as an accomplished, consummate international diplomat. Indeed, it is rumoured that shortly before Rawlings handed over to Kufuor, the latter asked the former if he had any special request he would wish satisfied. Mr Rawlings is said to have responded: “Just don’t make that Akufo-Addo boy your Attorney-General.”
In his relatively short time as A-G, top government officials, former and present, were prosecuted. This, to his detractors confirms his belligerent nature. Ironically, he was also lambasted for going ahead to secretly negotiate with certain former government officials to quietly pay back monies allegedly stolen by them from state coffers but hard to secure a conviction on. This was apparently squarely criticised within his party or, as legend would have it, at Cabinet. Akufo-Addo was reluctant to leave the A-G’s. Qanawu, often the pundit on reshuffles, remembers going to Nana Addo one evening to say, “I’ve heard that you are to be moved to the Foreign Ministry.” He looked up with a saddened but straight face and said: “I wish he [Kufuor] makes me stay here [the A-G’s]. There’s so much to do in terms of legal reforms.” The point was that to him the priority was in institutional reforms and not to use the law for ‘tit-for-tat’ politics.
Ato, with the confidence of Saddam’s Information Minister, Comical Ali, invents a claim and, abusing his poetic licence, tags the presidential aspirant with it: “The main claim of Akufo-Addo to the presidency of Ghana is that he has sacrificed a lot for this country and for the NPP.” Theresa Tagoe, Amadu Kaleem, Kweku Baako and Harruna Attah have all sacrificed for country and NPP. Ato continues on Nana Akufo-Addo, “He feels he’s served Kufuor faithfully for over 6 years as Attorney-General, and then Foreign Minister, and coupled with his years of leadership in the NPP he’s the right man for Ghana. So to his supporters, he is the inevitable heir of the NPP leadership, after President Kufuor.”
If Ato had taken time off from his busy one-track agenda and revisited Nana Akufo-Addo’s five years as Foreign Minister in some detail, he most probably would have revised his notes; that is, if he wanted to.
There is something about Akufo-Addo’s leadership credentials that his detractors choose to ignore: his versatility. The multi-million Ghana Cedi question is this: how can a man that we are constantly told is arrogant and elitist at the same time draw the critical mass of his support from the grassroots – the so-called ordinary man and woman? Remarkable! Perhaps, as people we can be dubiously adept in interchanging self-confidence with arrogance, and selfless patriotism with elitism. From 1978, when he mobilised the nation to reject Gen Acheampong’s ‘Union Government’ concept, through his Supreme Court battles, transiting at Kume Preko junctions to political platform shredding of the NDC, Nana Akufo-Addo has carved an enviable national reputation for himself as a fighter. He is by no means alone in this, except he has chosen to aim for the very top in local politics.
The enduring image of him as spokesman for the Alliance for Change, looms large. It is as if he was the man who instructed the Association of CDRs to bring mayhem on what endured as a peaceful demonstration in Accra on May 9, 1995, even though the hired thugs saw to the death of Hongar, 14, Asante, 22, Opey, 25, and Aminga, 43. A press statement read by Nana Akufo-Addo on Friday, 12 May, 1995 spelt out the fighting spirit of the Ghanaian which he, Messrs Pratt, Baako, Newman, Wereko Brobbey, Adjiri Blankson and others represented: “We shall not relent, but shall continue to struggle until the noble aspirations of those who fell in the battle for improvements in the living standards of the people and the establishment of genuine democracy are achieved. Let those who are cocooned in the colonial slave castle, surrounded by guns and Mowags, know that Ghanaians will not give up, until change is won.”
Change was won and since then the other aside of his leadership prowess has been more than obvious but for those who just refuse to see. Leadership is in the army commander who has the versatility of mind, the prophecy of sight and the pragmatism of action to devise and customise his strategy of offence to counter any given enemy and war situation. The P/NDC regime could not be fought and defeated with a “gyae man won ye” [leave them to be] attitude of pacifism. Effective leaders, Ato, must possess a number of seemingly contradictory qualities and skill sets. They are the dedicated disciples of the Yin and Yang principles and dimensions. Leadership development experts Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser, who are also the authors of Versatile Leader, have demonstrated a reliable connection between leader versatility and corporate or institutional effectiveness – and an equally strong connection between a lack of versatility and stalled or derailed policies or careers. Current thinking on leadership generally acknowledges the need for qualities and skills that are seemingly in opposition – and, Ato, this is what Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has demonstrated from street marches to chairing crucial UN Security Council meetings all throughout his political career. He is by no means not alone in this – but, at least grant him that.
Sometimes leadership calls for forcefulness, sometimes for tactful negotiations. Nana Addo and many like him kept the pressure on the NDC to defeat their will power, an annihilation strategy which in war is called ‘Enveloping the Enemy.’ Has the NPP forgotten so soon how the constant pressures from its leadership, through the courts, in the constituencies, in Parliament, in the mass media and on the streets, forced the NDC to concede in improving the integrity of the electoral system? In war you maintain the pressure and advance to give your opponent a reason to conclude negotiations. It is not for nothing that Diplomacy, that popular chess-like game developed by Alan Calhamer in 1954 is all about how best you can conquer, whether through aggression or by stooping. Diplomacy differs from most war games in several ways. The result of a move depends on the support or opposition of the units in neighbouring spaces, making social interaction and interpersonal skills, the formation and violation of alliances crucial parts of the game plan. The game can't be won by going it alone, except in a last mad dash of aggression from a strong position. In the mean time one makes compromises and promises to one's allies while spreading fear and confusion among one's enemies.
Discerning Ghanaians should not allow the exceptional assets of leadership, like versatility, to be seen as liabilities. Should those who are blessed with remarkable energy, fortitude, and boundless faith in their own prowess be embarrassed by such gifts? If, it cannot be doubted that those who fought against the Rawlings regime and others before it fought for something noble, then we should not use such gallantry to deny the nation of the benefits of leadership versatility. A fighting spirit founded on the bedrock of democratic principles is what Nana Akufo-Addo possesses – and you doubt that at your own embarrassment. The same force that was behind the heroic taming of the P/NDC in the 1990s is the same force that can push this nation to unleash its potential to the fullest. The challenge for the versatile leader, they say, is to hold contradictory directions in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function at a high level. The versatile leader is the kind who is skilled at forcefulness and yet will equally welcome the useful skill of enabling others to lead themselves in productive ways. He knows, as recommended by Sun Tzu’s Shih, to keep himself in a position of force and when to compromise but even then from a position where the enemy is fully aware of his reserve might.
Without versatility at the top, indecision may reign as rigidity and imbalance become the driving force of policies and personnel. This can serve as the most common impediment to developing effective leadership and, ultimately, developing a nation. Kaplan and Kaiser, consultants with Kaplan DeVries Inc of Greensboro, North Carolina, view versatility, the absence of imbalance, as the key to high performance levels. Versatile leaders are able to continually adjust their behaviour, deftly applying the right approach or blend of approaches to the right degree for the circumstances at hand.
So what is it about Akufo-Addo that after his deft diplomacy in helping to negotiate peace in Liberia and la Cote d’Ivoire, in finding a common ground between Mbeki and Gadhafi, he can still be seen as a war-monger? It is worth recalling that in the very week that Akufo-Addo and others led the Kume Preko demonstration that cut him out in contemporary Ghanaian politics as an uncompromising fighter, The Statesman of weekending May 21, 1995, reported that, “Speaking at the La Dade Kotopon Ward meeting of the New Patriotic Party at Quartey’s Villa… Nana Akufo-Addo deplored the current situation where the indigenous businessman has been completely marginalised, while foreigners systematically take control of the commanding heights of the economy…” The paper also quoted him calling for massive participation in the voter registration exercise, “to ensure that we use our brains, and not guns, to get out of a situation we don’t like and not set our country to a Liberia or an Algeria.” The import of the above reference is two-fold: that he is a stickler of tried and tested principles, articulated in his concept of Indigenous Capitalism; that his fighting spirit is principled on the achievement of a peaceful, prosperous environment of liberal democracy in which the masses of our people will be the major beneficiaries. Not many Britons (or even European leaders) liked Margaret Thatcher but they admired her strength in conviction. She had the quirk to define her fight and her opponent and fought relentlessly and often successfully for what she felt was right, regardless of the force of opposition against her. The same energy she used to fight the Falklands War was brought to bear in her relentless offensive in reducing the size of the working class and bringing more Britons into the middle classes. You may love her or hate her, but the lady had a handbag and she was not afraid to use it when she had to! Qanawu would recommend Robert Greene’s The 33 Strategies of War to the Kwamena Atos of this world. One reviewer has called the book "an indispensable book, [which] provides all the psychological ammunition you need to overcome patterns of failure and forever gain the upper hand."
Some of the keys to warfare is to drop preconceived notions, re-examine beliefs and principles, keep inventing new plans, adapt to current times and reverse course doing the opposite of what has been done before if that is what the situation demands, without losing track of the underlining principles and main goal. There are times for hyper-aggressive tactic. If Lord Nelson had listened to his superior Sir Hyde Parker in 1801 and not used his own confidence and leadership he would not have defeated the Danish Navy for Britain.
In his classic, Seizing Destiny, Richard Kluger gives a historical detail of how three of the most brilliant Founding Fathers of America — Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams — with knowledge of the military readiness of the republican army in the background, outfoxed British, French, and Spanish diplomats to win more than ample boundaries for their new republic. Finesse, however, had little to do with General Andrew Jackson’s Indian-slaughtering and disdain for the Spanish garrison in capturing Florida, we are told. Or with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams’s bluff and bluster in gaining for the nation a northwest passage to the Pacific. Yet, it never stopped any of the last two pioneers from meriting the presidency of a nation that was to later become arguably the ‘greatest’ on earth. Surely, it is way past time to see Nana Akufo-Addo’s versatility as a leadership asset to take this tortured nation to this next level after Kufuor.
“In a tradition extending from Freud and Weber to me,” says Prof Robert Hogan, the author of Personality and the Fate of Organizations, “people argue that leadership is a function of the characteristics of individuals. This means that some people have more talent for leadership than others.” Thus, writing in the Accra Daily Mail last Thursday, seeing it as superfluous to show his readers why, columnist Ato Kwamena stuck his head out to say “the NPP presidential primary remains a contest between Foreign Minister, Akufo-Addo, and Vice-President Aliu Mahama. The circumstances are just not right for the others, and my blunt truth to the others is that they are throwing money at a lost cause.” But after a categorical intro that the circumstances are right for both Aliu and Nana Addo, the writer retracts with obtrusive perplexity, “I admire Akufo-Addo a lot. He’s a serious man. A man who has his head screwed on straight. But deep down, you and I know that Akufo-Addo is not the man we want at the helm of the affairs of this country. He’s not the man to ‘heal’ this country – bring us together as one.” Well, according to the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, the only thing we truly own are things that come from inside and are under our own control: opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, these things are free, unbound and can never be taken away. So, go Ato! While calling Nana Addo “extremely competent,” Ato goes on to pontificate, “But at this time in our history, he’s not the right man for the job.” In his view, the Kufuor presidency “has taught us that confrontation is not the most effective way to govern a country. What has kept us together as a country, to a large extent is Kufuor’s ‘gyae man monka’ attitude.” Ato, the analyst, conveniently forgets that it was the uncompromising ‘confrontation’ of the leadership and rank and file of opposition forces that sent the National Democratic Congress packing cement and foreign accounts into opposition.
He describes Nana Akufo-Addo as “a no-nonsense man,” but with a twist of disparage. Under Akufo-Addo, “Rawlings’ perennial lies, slanders, and provocations would have been matched with an equal and proportional force. And this would not have been in the national interest. When two elephants fight, the grass suffers. But through Kufuor we know that the most effective way of dealing with a megalomaniac is to ignore the person.” His conclusion is simplistically disguised with some deleble gloss of intellectual stamp duty, “Akufo-Addo, in Kufuor’s position, would have been a tit-for-tat President. We don’t need that now.”
The truth is that there are so many Ato Kwamenas out there who still see Nana Addo as ‘patapaa’, aggressive, and belligerent, despite the fact that in the last five years Nana Akufo-Addo has won overwhelming praise, both at home and abroad, as an accomplished, consummate international diplomat. Indeed, it is rumoured that shortly before Rawlings handed over to Kufuor, the latter asked the former if he had any special request he would wish satisfied. Mr Rawlings is said to have responded: “Just don’t make that Akufo-Addo boy your Attorney-General.”
In his relatively short time as A-G, top government officials, former and present, were prosecuted. This, to his detractors confirms his belligerent nature. Ironically, he was also lambasted for going ahead to secretly negotiate with certain former government officials to quietly pay back monies allegedly stolen by them from state coffers but hard to secure a conviction on. This was apparently squarely criticised within his party or, as legend would have it, at Cabinet. Akufo-Addo was reluctant to leave the A-G’s. Qanawu, often the pundit on reshuffles, remembers going to Nana Addo one evening to say, “I’ve heard that you are to be moved to the Foreign Ministry.” He looked up with a saddened but straight face and said: “I wish he [Kufuor] makes me stay here [the A-G’s]. There’s so much to do in terms of legal reforms.” The point was that to him the priority was in institutional reforms and not to use the law for ‘tit-for-tat’ politics.
Ato, with the confidence of Saddam’s Information Minister, Comical Ali, invents a claim and, abusing his poetic licence, tags the presidential aspirant with it: “The main claim of Akufo-Addo to the presidency of Ghana is that he has sacrificed a lot for this country and for the NPP.” Theresa Tagoe, Amadu Kaleem, Kweku Baako and Harruna Attah have all sacrificed for country and NPP. Ato continues on Nana Akufo-Addo, “He feels he’s served Kufuor faithfully for over 6 years as Attorney-General, and then Foreign Minister, and coupled with his years of leadership in the NPP he’s the right man for Ghana. So to his supporters, he is the inevitable heir of the NPP leadership, after President Kufuor.”
If Ato had taken time off from his busy one-track agenda and revisited Nana Akufo-Addo’s five years as Foreign Minister in some detail, he most probably would have revised his notes; that is, if he wanted to.
There is something about Akufo-Addo’s leadership credentials that his detractors choose to ignore: his versatility. The multi-million Ghana Cedi question is this: how can a man that we are constantly told is arrogant and elitist at the same time draw the critical mass of his support from the grassroots – the so-called ordinary man and woman? Remarkable! Perhaps, as people we can be dubiously adept in interchanging self-confidence with arrogance, and selfless patriotism with elitism. From 1978, when he mobilised the nation to reject Gen Acheampong’s ‘Union Government’ concept, through his Supreme Court battles, transiting at Kume Preko junctions to political platform shredding of the NDC, Nana Akufo-Addo has carved an enviable national reputation for himself as a fighter. He is by no means alone in this, except he has chosen to aim for the very top in local politics.
The enduring image of him as spokesman for the Alliance for Change, looms large. It is as if he was the man who instructed the Association of CDRs to bring mayhem on what endured as a peaceful demonstration in Accra on May 9, 1995, even though the hired thugs saw to the death of Hongar, 14, Asante, 22, Opey, 25, and Aminga, 43. A press statement read by Nana Akufo-Addo on Friday, 12 May, 1995 spelt out the fighting spirit of the Ghanaian which he, Messrs Pratt, Baako, Newman, Wereko Brobbey, Adjiri Blankson and others represented: “We shall not relent, but shall continue to struggle until the noble aspirations of those who fell in the battle for improvements in the living standards of the people and the establishment of genuine democracy are achieved. Let those who are cocooned in the colonial slave castle, surrounded by guns and Mowags, know that Ghanaians will not give up, until change is won.”
Change was won and since then the other aside of his leadership prowess has been more than obvious but for those who just refuse to see. Leadership is in the army commander who has the versatility of mind, the prophecy of sight and the pragmatism of action to devise and customise his strategy of offence to counter any given enemy and war situation. The P/NDC regime could not be fought and defeated with a “gyae man won ye” [leave them to be] attitude of pacifism. Effective leaders, Ato, must possess a number of seemingly contradictory qualities and skill sets. They are the dedicated disciples of the Yin and Yang principles and dimensions. Leadership development experts Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser, who are also the authors of Versatile Leader, have demonstrated a reliable connection between leader versatility and corporate or institutional effectiveness – and an equally strong connection between a lack of versatility and stalled or derailed policies or careers. Current thinking on leadership generally acknowledges the need for qualities and skills that are seemingly in opposition – and, Ato, this is what Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has demonstrated from street marches to chairing crucial UN Security Council meetings all throughout his political career. He is by no means not alone in this – but, at least grant him that.
Sometimes leadership calls for forcefulness, sometimes for tactful negotiations. Nana Addo and many like him kept the pressure on the NDC to defeat their will power, an annihilation strategy which in war is called ‘Enveloping the Enemy.’ Has the NPP forgotten so soon how the constant pressures from its leadership, through the courts, in the constituencies, in Parliament, in the mass media and on the streets, forced the NDC to concede in improving the integrity of the electoral system? In war you maintain the pressure and advance to give your opponent a reason to conclude negotiations. It is not for nothing that Diplomacy, that popular chess-like game developed by Alan Calhamer in 1954 is all about how best you can conquer, whether through aggression or by stooping. Diplomacy differs from most war games in several ways. The result of a move depends on the support or opposition of the units in neighbouring spaces, making social interaction and interpersonal skills, the formation and violation of alliances crucial parts of the game plan. The game can't be won by going it alone, except in a last mad dash of aggression from a strong position. In the mean time one makes compromises and promises to one's allies while spreading fear and confusion among one's enemies.
Discerning Ghanaians should not allow the exceptional assets of leadership, like versatility, to be seen as liabilities. Should those who are blessed with remarkable energy, fortitude, and boundless faith in their own prowess be embarrassed by such gifts? If, it cannot be doubted that those who fought against the Rawlings regime and others before it fought for something noble, then we should not use such gallantry to deny the nation of the benefits of leadership versatility. A fighting spirit founded on the bedrock of democratic principles is what Nana Akufo-Addo possesses – and you doubt that at your own embarrassment. The same force that was behind the heroic taming of the P/NDC in the 1990s is the same force that can push this nation to unleash its potential to the fullest. The challenge for the versatile leader, they say, is to hold contradictory directions in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function at a high level. The versatile leader is the kind who is skilled at forcefulness and yet will equally welcome the useful skill of enabling others to lead themselves in productive ways. He knows, as recommended by Sun Tzu’s Shih, to keep himself in a position of force and when to compromise but even then from a position where the enemy is fully aware of his reserve might.
Without versatility at the top, indecision may reign as rigidity and imbalance become the driving force of policies and personnel. This can serve as the most common impediment to developing effective leadership and, ultimately, developing a nation. Kaplan and Kaiser, consultants with Kaplan DeVries Inc of Greensboro, North Carolina, view versatility, the absence of imbalance, as the key to high performance levels. Versatile leaders are able to continually adjust their behaviour, deftly applying the right approach or blend of approaches to the right degree for the circumstances at hand.
So what is it about Akufo-Addo that after his deft diplomacy in helping to negotiate peace in Liberia and la Cote d’Ivoire, in finding a common ground between Mbeki and Gadhafi, he can still be seen as a war-monger? It is worth recalling that in the very week that Akufo-Addo and others led the Kume Preko demonstration that cut him out in contemporary Ghanaian politics as an uncompromising fighter, The Statesman of weekending May 21, 1995, reported that, “Speaking at the La Dade Kotopon Ward meeting of the New Patriotic Party at Quartey’s Villa… Nana Akufo-Addo deplored the current situation where the indigenous businessman has been completely marginalised, while foreigners systematically take control of the commanding heights of the economy…” The paper also quoted him calling for massive participation in the voter registration exercise, “to ensure that we use our brains, and not guns, to get out of a situation we don’t like and not set our country to a Liberia or an Algeria.” The import of the above reference is two-fold: that he is a stickler of tried and tested principles, articulated in his concept of Indigenous Capitalism; that his fighting spirit is principled on the achievement of a peaceful, prosperous environment of liberal democracy in which the masses of our people will be the major beneficiaries. Not many Britons (or even European leaders) liked Margaret Thatcher but they admired her strength in conviction. She had the quirk to define her fight and her opponent and fought relentlessly and often successfully for what she felt was right, regardless of the force of opposition against her. The same energy she used to fight the Falklands War was brought to bear in her relentless offensive in reducing the size of the working class and bringing more Britons into the middle classes. You may love her or hate her, but the lady had a handbag and she was not afraid to use it when she had to! Qanawu would recommend Robert Greene’s The 33 Strategies of War to the Kwamena Atos of this world. One reviewer has called the book "an indispensable book, [which] provides all the psychological ammunition you need to overcome patterns of failure and forever gain the upper hand."
Some of the keys to warfare is to drop preconceived notions, re-examine beliefs and principles, keep inventing new plans, adapt to current times and reverse course doing the opposite of what has been done before if that is what the situation demands, without losing track of the underlining principles and main goal. There are times for hyper-aggressive tactic. If Lord Nelson had listened to his superior Sir Hyde Parker in 1801 and not used his own confidence and leadership he would not have defeated the Danish Navy for Britain.
In his classic, Seizing Destiny, Richard Kluger gives a historical detail of how three of the most brilliant Founding Fathers of America — Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams — with knowledge of the military readiness of the republican army in the background, outfoxed British, French, and Spanish diplomats to win more than ample boundaries for their new republic. Finesse, however, had little to do with General Andrew Jackson’s Indian-slaughtering and disdain for the Spanish garrison in capturing Florida, we are told. Or with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams’s bluff and bluster in gaining for the nation a northwest passage to the Pacific. Yet, it never stopped any of the last two pioneers from meriting the presidency of a nation that was to later become arguably the ‘greatest’ on earth. Surely, it is way past time to see Nana Akufo-Addo’s versatility as a leadership asset to take this tortured nation to this next level after Kufuor.
The Svengalis Add Nothing To Our GDP
By: Qanawu Gabby, (2006-11-15)
When it comes to the development of multi-party democracy, Ghana suffers from a surplus of deafening, stentorian commentaries and a deficit of credible action. For decades, we have allowed the political, populist Svengalis to divert our attention from the things that matter and how best to deal with them. The word Svengali means 'a person who completely dominates and controls another, usually for selfish or sinister motives'. It is a literary allusion to the character Svengali, a hypnotist, in George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby.
The Statesman has received a lot of knocking for accusing the NDC and NPP, the only two parties likely to rule this country for the next decade at least, of having lost the core plot of seeing to Ghana’s development, and instead, engaged in a mudslinging contest. When you challenge the gospel according to the NPP/NDC dichotomy, you should don a tin helmet. The truth is, the noise and criticism thrown at The Statesman have come mainly from the ruling party.
Some have accused us of foolishly and disrespectfully comparing former President Rawlings to President Kufuor. Some say, it only confirms the long-standing perception that The Statesman has lost its way and lost its ground as the NPP paper to a paper like Daily Guide. Some have even gone on to say that it’s all in line with a scheme by one ambitious cabinet minister to undermine the good works of President Kufuor.
The unfortunate thing is that the NPP continues to show such nonchalant simplicity in grassroots politics. Qanawu found extremely interesting, news last week that both the First Lady and wife of the Vice President were on a historic tour in the North. For the past six years, the two women appeared to have failed to learn some few useful lessons from Mrs Rawlings. Oh, yes, give it to the lady. Whilst her husband was busy cleaning gutters and pretending to govern this country, she was busily winning as many Ghanaian women as she could to their political cause. The least she did achieve was to keep the women already in the fold in the fold.
The NPP has everything to lose by allowing themselves to be dragged into the pit of mudslinging and bog wrestling with an opposition that appears to have nothing more than negative campaigning to offer. The party must continue to stay focused on governing. Even if you are forced to comment on a supposed assassination attempt of NDC key figures, you dismiss it with contempt and remind Ghanaians that you are in the business of providing leadership and that’s where your focus is; you don’t spend a whole week spokespersoning on such a topic that adds no percentage points to our GDP.
The likes of Gabby, Kwame Sefa Kayi, Kweku Baako, Egbert and co should take the bulk of the blame. Can we simply not choose to deny some of the nonsense the oxygen of publicity? Do we have to spend three weeks talking about a supposed coup plot or coup-conduciveness? Couldn’t we just kill such a story by analysing how not viable it is to stage a coup today? Posterity, Qanawu fears may judge us with such contempt that our children’s children may drop our surnames.
President Kufuor is also becoming uncharacteristically reckless. It is so below him to allow whatever frustration from opposition and his predecessor to get to him so much as to be heard publicly talking about who is allegedly importing cocaine or funds for a coup. His popularity in 2004 was not won by the level of the decibels of his boom-to-boom responses to Rawlings. No, it was based on the fact that he stayed above the fray. He was seen, as he has been seen in Asia the last couple of weeks, to be concentrating on the things that will help move this nation forward. Not on that which divides us and keeps us dancing with the bird called Sankofa.
Qanawu believes it is time the country’s social actors speak out and act against this no-business-to-do as usual kind of attitude towards the great task of development. We want our politicians to show to us that they are wholly determined to take this country in a new direction. We want politicians who can constantly give us the confidence that they share our values, understand our needs, and respect our intelligence. The days of too much heat and brimstone on our morning airwaves and newspapers must be numbered.
Yes, there should be room for the occasional sensation, but we cannot continue making it the norm when ours is such a pathetic lot. As the Editorial of The Statesman today laments, we are so far behind the global economic ladder that it is not funny. The world is passing us by as we watch screaming at each other. Yes - President Kufuor, even going by his weeks of eating strange foods in China, Korea and Japan and humbly pleading for foreign assistance and cooperation shows that - a lot is being done. But, modern history teaches us that a very crucial aspect of every nation’s development is the ability to get the national psyche in tune with the development programme.
The truth, in the view of Qanawu, is that Ghana is yet to reach that collective psychological zone. Frankly, the people of this country are yet to show that we are wiling, committed, prepared and ready to make that all-important leap out of poverty, misery, and mediocrity with alacrity.
Why else would we allow our leading politicians to keep taking us back and either exaggerating the failings of today or underscoring the challenges of today? What else would make them keep frightening us that Ghana is today ripe for a coup? Why do we keep reminding ourselves of our past not as lessons for the future but as a whip to spank our political opponents? Why can’t we just up the quality of, at least, our discourse a few more notches? Those who have managed to cross over from the shrubs of under-development to the mowed lawns of prosperity did so by challenging the collective psyche and constantly throwing logs into the fire of national will to keep it burning.
If this year’s Human Development Index by the UNDP is anything to go by, Ghana has made some progress, from 138 last year to 136. Last Friday, The Statesman erroneously published the 2005 figure as this year’s rating. The good news may be that at 136, we are among the list of Medium High Development countries. Top of this is Libya at 64, followed by Russia (65), ending with Swaziland (146), just beaten by Cameroon (144) and Uganda (145). Look at it from the other way, and we just missed the unenviable category of Low Human Development countries by ten! Togo, of course, at 147, Senegal (156), and Nigeria (159), are there to remind us that we have serious national and regional issues to address.
Here at least, the NPP is doing extremely well, if looked at on a scale of domestic relativity. But, the truth is that what is being achieved is far from enough and a lot more needs to be done. A lot of what needs to be done is also psychological, to reiterate. The politicians and others in leadership positions must make it a national task to find what other nations did – to find a psychological path upon which to drive the people on that destiny-defining trek. The Ministry of Information and National Orientation, it is hoped, will be focusing more on this and less on theatrics.
Also, Government should be less quick in taking defensive positions whenever an issue arises. We have serious difficulties as a people, as a nation. You only help Ghanaians to blame you when you think you are being blamed and seek to defray that. It is this kind of attitude and unnecessary sensitivity that emasculates otherwise good advisers from giving their counsel. When your approach is to tackle issues from a defensive posture, you end up not helping that problem to go away because it impetuously blinds you from dealing with the real causes. If NPP does not learn to sing its praises and at the same time be critical of its failings Ghanaians may be forced to reluctantly throw the party out in 2008. This, notwithstanding the fact that NPP, for the foreseeable future, is the only party with any semblance of a project to move this country forward.
Even in America, where mid-term congressional elections and the absence of ministers being chosen from the legislature affords a greater level of legislative independence from the executive, the Republicans have learned the hard way. They have seen the electoral cost of keeping mum when the direction is not the best. They have seen the cost of losing touch with the simple realities of life.
The story is told of a mid-level executive, who got his job through an exaggerated CV, becoming frustrated at being passed over for promotion year after year. He decided on a brain-transplant in the hope of raising his IQ some 20 points. After some tests he was presented with a pre-surgery bill. The brain surgeon informed him: “An ounce of accountant's brain for example, costs ¢5 million; an ounce of an economist's brain costs ¢10 million; an ounce of a blue chip CEO is ¢20 million. An ounce of a politician’s brain is ¢50 million.”
Flabbergasted, the man asked, “¢50 million for an ounce of a politician’s brain? Is it imported?”
“No,” the surgeon responded, “100 percent home grown.”
“Why on earth is that? All they do is to fight among themselves and behave as if Ghana is so advanced that we have the leisure to mudsling.”
“Do you have any idea,” the surgeon asked, “how many politicians we would have to kill to get an ounce of useable brain?”
Qanawu Gabby, The Statesman,
Monday, Nov 13, 2006
When it comes to the development of multi-party democracy, Ghana suffers from a surplus of deafening, stentorian commentaries and a deficit of credible action. For decades, we have allowed the political, populist Svengalis to divert our attention from the things that matter and how best to deal with them. The word Svengali means 'a person who completely dominates and controls another, usually for selfish or sinister motives'. It is a literary allusion to the character Svengali, a hypnotist, in George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby.
The Statesman has received a lot of knocking for accusing the NDC and NPP, the only two parties likely to rule this country for the next decade at least, of having lost the core plot of seeing to Ghana’s development, and instead, engaged in a mudslinging contest. When you challenge the gospel according to the NPP/NDC dichotomy, you should don a tin helmet. The truth is, the noise and criticism thrown at The Statesman have come mainly from the ruling party.
Some have accused us of foolishly and disrespectfully comparing former President Rawlings to President Kufuor. Some say, it only confirms the long-standing perception that The Statesman has lost its way and lost its ground as the NPP paper to a paper like Daily Guide. Some have even gone on to say that it’s all in line with a scheme by one ambitious cabinet minister to undermine the good works of President Kufuor.
The unfortunate thing is that the NPP continues to show such nonchalant simplicity in grassroots politics. Qanawu found extremely interesting, news last week that both the First Lady and wife of the Vice President were on a historic tour in the North. For the past six years, the two women appeared to have failed to learn some few useful lessons from Mrs Rawlings. Oh, yes, give it to the lady. Whilst her husband was busy cleaning gutters and pretending to govern this country, she was busily winning as many Ghanaian women as she could to their political cause. The least she did achieve was to keep the women already in the fold in the fold.
The NPP has everything to lose by allowing themselves to be dragged into the pit of mudslinging and bog wrestling with an opposition that appears to have nothing more than negative campaigning to offer. The party must continue to stay focused on governing. Even if you are forced to comment on a supposed assassination attempt of NDC key figures, you dismiss it with contempt and remind Ghanaians that you are in the business of providing leadership and that’s where your focus is; you don’t spend a whole week spokespersoning on such a topic that adds no percentage points to our GDP.
The likes of Gabby, Kwame Sefa Kayi, Kweku Baako, Egbert and co should take the bulk of the blame. Can we simply not choose to deny some of the nonsense the oxygen of publicity? Do we have to spend three weeks talking about a supposed coup plot or coup-conduciveness? Couldn’t we just kill such a story by analysing how not viable it is to stage a coup today? Posterity, Qanawu fears may judge us with such contempt that our children’s children may drop our surnames.
President Kufuor is also becoming uncharacteristically reckless. It is so below him to allow whatever frustration from opposition and his predecessor to get to him so much as to be heard publicly talking about who is allegedly importing cocaine or funds for a coup. His popularity in 2004 was not won by the level of the decibels of his boom-to-boom responses to Rawlings. No, it was based on the fact that he stayed above the fray. He was seen, as he has been seen in Asia the last couple of weeks, to be concentrating on the things that will help move this nation forward. Not on that which divides us and keeps us dancing with the bird called Sankofa.
Qanawu believes it is time the country’s social actors speak out and act against this no-business-to-do as usual kind of attitude towards the great task of development. We want our politicians to show to us that they are wholly determined to take this country in a new direction. We want politicians who can constantly give us the confidence that they share our values, understand our needs, and respect our intelligence. The days of too much heat and brimstone on our morning airwaves and newspapers must be numbered.
Yes, there should be room for the occasional sensation, but we cannot continue making it the norm when ours is such a pathetic lot. As the Editorial of The Statesman today laments, we are so far behind the global economic ladder that it is not funny. The world is passing us by as we watch screaming at each other. Yes - President Kufuor, even going by his weeks of eating strange foods in China, Korea and Japan and humbly pleading for foreign assistance and cooperation shows that - a lot is being done. But, modern history teaches us that a very crucial aspect of every nation’s development is the ability to get the national psyche in tune with the development programme.
The truth, in the view of Qanawu, is that Ghana is yet to reach that collective psychological zone. Frankly, the people of this country are yet to show that we are wiling, committed, prepared and ready to make that all-important leap out of poverty, misery, and mediocrity with alacrity.
Why else would we allow our leading politicians to keep taking us back and either exaggerating the failings of today or underscoring the challenges of today? What else would make them keep frightening us that Ghana is today ripe for a coup? Why do we keep reminding ourselves of our past not as lessons for the future but as a whip to spank our political opponents? Why can’t we just up the quality of, at least, our discourse a few more notches? Those who have managed to cross over from the shrubs of under-development to the mowed lawns of prosperity did so by challenging the collective psyche and constantly throwing logs into the fire of national will to keep it burning.
If this year’s Human Development Index by the UNDP is anything to go by, Ghana has made some progress, from 138 last year to 136. Last Friday, The Statesman erroneously published the 2005 figure as this year’s rating. The good news may be that at 136, we are among the list of Medium High Development countries. Top of this is Libya at 64, followed by Russia (65), ending with Swaziland (146), just beaten by Cameroon (144) and Uganda (145). Look at it from the other way, and we just missed the unenviable category of Low Human Development countries by ten! Togo, of course, at 147, Senegal (156), and Nigeria (159), are there to remind us that we have serious national and regional issues to address.
Here at least, the NPP is doing extremely well, if looked at on a scale of domestic relativity. But, the truth is that what is being achieved is far from enough and a lot more needs to be done. A lot of what needs to be done is also psychological, to reiterate. The politicians and others in leadership positions must make it a national task to find what other nations did – to find a psychological path upon which to drive the people on that destiny-defining trek. The Ministry of Information and National Orientation, it is hoped, will be focusing more on this and less on theatrics.
Also, Government should be less quick in taking defensive positions whenever an issue arises. We have serious difficulties as a people, as a nation. You only help Ghanaians to blame you when you think you are being blamed and seek to defray that. It is this kind of attitude and unnecessary sensitivity that emasculates otherwise good advisers from giving their counsel. When your approach is to tackle issues from a defensive posture, you end up not helping that problem to go away because it impetuously blinds you from dealing with the real causes. If NPP does not learn to sing its praises and at the same time be critical of its failings Ghanaians may be forced to reluctantly throw the party out in 2008. This, notwithstanding the fact that NPP, for the foreseeable future, is the only party with any semblance of a project to move this country forward.
Even in America, where mid-term congressional elections and the absence of ministers being chosen from the legislature affords a greater level of legislative independence from the executive, the Republicans have learned the hard way. They have seen the electoral cost of keeping mum when the direction is not the best. They have seen the cost of losing touch with the simple realities of life.
The story is told of a mid-level executive, who got his job through an exaggerated CV, becoming frustrated at being passed over for promotion year after year. He decided on a brain-transplant in the hope of raising his IQ some 20 points. After some tests he was presented with a pre-surgery bill. The brain surgeon informed him: “An ounce of accountant's brain for example, costs ¢5 million; an ounce of an economist's brain costs ¢10 million; an ounce of a blue chip CEO is ¢20 million. An ounce of a politician’s brain is ¢50 million.”
Flabbergasted, the man asked, “¢50 million for an ounce of a politician’s brain? Is it imported?”
“No,” the surgeon responded, “100 percent home grown.”
“Why on earth is that? All they do is to fight among themselves and behave as if Ghana is so advanced that we have the leisure to mudsling.”
“Do you have any idea,” the surgeon asked, “how many politicians we would have to kill to get an ounce of useable brain?”
Qanawu Gabby, The Statesman,
Monday, Nov 13, 2006
Science & Technology, Stupid!
By: Qanawu Gabby, (2006-10-12)
Saturday, Qanawu read this Reuters report from London with some interest: Tens of thousands of British children go to failing schools which should be closed because they are so poor, a senior government adviser said. “There are these 80,000 going to schools that are underperforming, and some very badly underperforming,” Taylor told the BBC in an interview. “They vary so much. Some are so bad they ought to be shut down quickly and some are struggling and need help.”
Bad GCSE results suggest about 500 UK schools are seriously underperforming, he added. The situation is far worse in Ghana. Figures seen by Qanawu show that in this year’s BECE in Ghana, the average pass mark for the over 300,000 students in English was under 20 percent in 2006, as compared to a little under 25 percent last year. The figures are even worse for general science, with several schools not getting a single pass mark.
When in November 25, 1964, Kwame Nkrumah laid the foundation stoneo Ghana’s Atomic Reactor at Kwabenya, his vision was to create a special scientific where members of the Academy of Sciences would live and work. We are reminded by E A Haizel that this was the Science City, with a ‘Palace of Science’ to contain laboratories, research institutes “and be a centre where the Academy would undertake pilot industries based on its discoveries.” It was to even have a National Bureau of Standards to test the quality of manufactured goods.
Last week, two prominent Ghanaians, one a politician and the other a scientist, re-iterated the indisputable fact that our pursuit of growth, development and prosperity must be driven by science and technology.
Edward Ayensu, Chairman of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, told The Statesman last week that “we are joking as a country,” until we begin to take science and technology (S & T) seriously. To buttress his point, he cited the way Science as a Ministry has faced several evictions in the last few years, which to him reflected how much of a priority it is considered. He could have further shored up his point had he disclosed (as Qanawu is now) that the CSIR uses 93 percent of its annual budget to pay salaries. Only 3 percent actually goes into research and development (R & D)!
Earlier in February, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and NEPAD, in referring students and lecturers to the role of KNUST to Ghana’s future perspective, stated, “History teaches us that the greatest resource a society can possess is its people. Ghana’s future depends on the accelerated growth of the economy, which is best fed by knowledge, particularly in the fields of science and technology.”
Again last Saturday at the UDS, he reiterated to students and lecturers that “Our future competitiveness as a nation and our quest for advanced status as a nation are fated for a crash-landing without the major impact of science and technology.”
He continued, “For our part as government, I think we can do much more to develop science and technology in Ghana. It would be cost-effective and significantly better if we take a pan-African approach to this. I would like to see an African Union whose leadership prioritise science and technology. An African Union, whose membership breaks down the geographical barriers between the continent’s scientists.”
In saying this the Minister in charge of NEPAD was aware that there is already in place the African Ministerial Council on Science and Technology and its Steering Committee for Science and Technology consolidates the science and technology programmes of the African Union Commission and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
And, that next January, the heads of member states of the AU will meet to discuss S&T in what will be a unique opportunity to support the continent's scientific renaissance. Africa's scientific community, for example, will have an opportunity to develop its case at a meeting of scientists and policy-makers planned for October in Alexandria, Egypt.
The meeting, which takes place between 27-30 October, will present its recommendations to the African Union summit next year. But, even before that, next week, 15-16 October, there is an inter-ministerial Dialogue on Building an African Network of Centers of Excellence in Water Sciences and Technology. Also, the importance of providing support for science and technology was emphasised by an African finance ministers meeting in Nigeria in November 2004 to discuss the initial draft of an international development report for Africa. This meeting identified “infrastructure, agriculture, science, technology and related tertiary education” as “top priorities towards realising Africa's development aspirations.”
Clearly there is an African recognition that S&T is the only way forward, no short-cuts. This point was strongly made last June, when science academies of the G8 group of the world's most industrialised countries and the Network of African Science Academies in a statement warned that Africa's problems will only be overcome if science and technology are made an integral part of the solution. “Without embedding science, technology and innovation in development we fear that ambitions for Africa will fail,” said the statement. The statement was signed by the science academies of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The need is to not only invest in S&T in Africa, but also to increase the continent's ability to solve its own problems by strengthening its higher education sector and helping nations train scientists. Thus, in 2005, ministers and senior government officials from a broad range of African countries met in Senegal to discuss what should be done to enhance science and technology capacity on their continent.
They endorsed the Consolidated Science and Technology Plan of Action worth more than $160 million, which sets out an ambitious set of projects to boost African science. It is still in a discussive stage, but there is the need for our media, scientists and all to put pressure on the politicians to make that recognition tell.
The projects listed in the plan, for instance, range from biodiversity research to laser technology. Every single one of them must be an Africa-led initiative, informed by the feeling that this would enhance Africa's efforts to tackle its own problems and economic needs in an integrated manner. The projects would operate at either a regional or continental level, complementing the parallel efforts of national governments to boost science and technology.
Over the last couple of years, Africa’s search for development roadmaps has been signposted by S&T and R&D pointers. Another example, the now defunct 17-member Commission for Africa set up to review the challenges facing Africa concluded that science and technology have a critical role to play in promoting economic growth and social progress. It acknowledged that scientific skills and knowledge bring about “step-changes” in areas ranging from health, water supply, sanitation and energy to the new challenges of urbanisation and climate change. But the report — published in March 2005 — also said that “critically, [scientific skills] unlock the potential of innovation and technology to accelerate economic growth and enter the global economy.”
As a result, said the commission, specific action for strengthening science, engineering and technology capacity "is an imperative for Africa." Strengthening universities across the continent would be important in meeting this need. In particular, it proposed that rich countries commit themselves to providing a combined sum of US$500 million a year over a ten-year period to this end. The Blair commission also supported the idea that a range of centres of research excellence should be created across Africa, each focusing on developing a strong research base and teaching the technical skills required in particular areas of high technology. It calculated a commitment of up $3 billion over a ten-year period to this end. Identifying the most promising areas of research for such centres, as well as their location, would be carried out in collaboration with the science and technology commission of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Union.
An initiative being put together jointly by Akilapka Sawyerr’s Association of African Universities — the body that brings together representatives of almost 140 universities from across the African continent — with the London-based Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the South African vice-chancellors' association must be encouraged. These three bodies have already drafted a proposal for a ten-year investment strategy to address the weaknesses of African universities, many of which have been experiencing dramatic resource shortage in recent years. But, are the politicians ready to cough out funding? Is the private sector ready to vote with their bank accounts to encourage establishing that crucial town and gown link between the academia and business?
A study has shown that at present there are more African scientists and engineers working in the United States than there are in Africa. Yet, we need not see the brain drain from Africa as a one-way street – one country gains “brains” that are “drained” out of another. The new thinking is that both sides gain from this kind of migration – the creation and transfer of knowledge, the emergence of a skilled and educated workforce, and the fostering of commercial ties – are shared to some extent by countries on both sides of the equation. Our scientists who were forced by harsh local conditions to travel abroad have grown more in intellect; it is the duty of our leaders back home to work out how those expatriates can be made to contribute to Africa’s S&T growth.
Saturday, Qanawu read this Reuters report from London with some interest: Tens of thousands of British children go to failing schools which should be closed because they are so poor, a senior government adviser said. “There are these 80,000 going to schools that are underperforming, and some very badly underperforming,” Taylor told the BBC in an interview. “They vary so much. Some are so bad they ought to be shut down quickly and some are struggling and need help.”
Bad GCSE results suggest about 500 UK schools are seriously underperforming, he added. The situation is far worse in Ghana. Figures seen by Qanawu show that in this year’s BECE in Ghana, the average pass mark for the over 300,000 students in English was under 20 percent in 2006, as compared to a little under 25 percent last year. The figures are even worse for general science, with several schools not getting a single pass mark.
When in November 25, 1964, Kwame Nkrumah laid the foundation stoneo Ghana’s Atomic Reactor at Kwabenya, his vision was to create a special scientific where members of the Academy of Sciences would live and work. We are reminded by E A Haizel that this was the Science City, with a ‘Palace of Science’ to contain laboratories, research institutes “and be a centre where the Academy would undertake pilot industries based on its discoveries.” It was to even have a National Bureau of Standards to test the quality of manufactured goods.
Last week, two prominent Ghanaians, one a politician and the other a scientist, re-iterated the indisputable fact that our pursuit of growth, development and prosperity must be driven by science and technology.
Edward Ayensu, Chairman of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, told The Statesman last week that “we are joking as a country,” until we begin to take science and technology (S & T) seriously. To buttress his point, he cited the way Science as a Ministry has faced several evictions in the last few years, which to him reflected how much of a priority it is considered. He could have further shored up his point had he disclosed (as Qanawu is now) that the CSIR uses 93 percent of its annual budget to pay salaries. Only 3 percent actually goes into research and development (R & D)!
Earlier in February, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and NEPAD, in referring students and lecturers to the role of KNUST to Ghana’s future perspective, stated, “History teaches us that the greatest resource a society can possess is its people. Ghana’s future depends on the accelerated growth of the economy, which is best fed by knowledge, particularly in the fields of science and technology.”
Again last Saturday at the UDS, he reiterated to students and lecturers that “Our future competitiveness as a nation and our quest for advanced status as a nation are fated for a crash-landing without the major impact of science and technology.”
He continued, “For our part as government, I think we can do much more to develop science and technology in Ghana. It would be cost-effective and significantly better if we take a pan-African approach to this. I would like to see an African Union whose leadership prioritise science and technology. An African Union, whose membership breaks down the geographical barriers between the continent’s scientists.”
In saying this the Minister in charge of NEPAD was aware that there is already in place the African Ministerial Council on Science and Technology and its Steering Committee for Science and Technology consolidates the science and technology programmes of the African Union Commission and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
And, that next January, the heads of member states of the AU will meet to discuss S&T in what will be a unique opportunity to support the continent's scientific renaissance. Africa's scientific community, for example, will have an opportunity to develop its case at a meeting of scientists and policy-makers planned for October in Alexandria, Egypt.
The meeting, which takes place between 27-30 October, will present its recommendations to the African Union summit next year. But, even before that, next week, 15-16 October, there is an inter-ministerial Dialogue on Building an African Network of Centers of Excellence in Water Sciences and Technology. Also, the importance of providing support for science and technology was emphasised by an African finance ministers meeting in Nigeria in November 2004 to discuss the initial draft of an international development report for Africa. This meeting identified “infrastructure, agriculture, science, technology and related tertiary education” as “top priorities towards realising Africa's development aspirations.”
Clearly there is an African recognition that S&T is the only way forward, no short-cuts. This point was strongly made last June, when science academies of the G8 group of the world's most industrialised countries and the Network of African Science Academies in a statement warned that Africa's problems will only be overcome if science and technology are made an integral part of the solution. “Without embedding science, technology and innovation in development we fear that ambitions for Africa will fail,” said the statement. The statement was signed by the science academies of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The need is to not only invest in S&T in Africa, but also to increase the continent's ability to solve its own problems by strengthening its higher education sector and helping nations train scientists. Thus, in 2005, ministers and senior government officials from a broad range of African countries met in Senegal to discuss what should be done to enhance science and technology capacity on their continent.
They endorsed the Consolidated Science and Technology Plan of Action worth more than $160 million, which sets out an ambitious set of projects to boost African science. It is still in a discussive stage, but there is the need for our media, scientists and all to put pressure on the politicians to make that recognition tell.
The projects listed in the plan, for instance, range from biodiversity research to laser technology. Every single one of them must be an Africa-led initiative, informed by the feeling that this would enhance Africa's efforts to tackle its own problems and economic needs in an integrated manner. The projects would operate at either a regional or continental level, complementing the parallel efforts of national governments to boost science and technology.
Over the last couple of years, Africa’s search for development roadmaps has been signposted by S&T and R&D pointers. Another example, the now defunct 17-member Commission for Africa set up to review the challenges facing Africa concluded that science and technology have a critical role to play in promoting economic growth and social progress. It acknowledged that scientific skills and knowledge bring about “step-changes” in areas ranging from health, water supply, sanitation and energy to the new challenges of urbanisation and climate change. But the report — published in March 2005 — also said that “critically, [scientific skills] unlock the potential of innovation and technology to accelerate economic growth and enter the global economy.”
As a result, said the commission, specific action for strengthening science, engineering and technology capacity "is an imperative for Africa." Strengthening universities across the continent would be important in meeting this need. In particular, it proposed that rich countries commit themselves to providing a combined sum of US$500 million a year over a ten-year period to this end. The Blair commission also supported the idea that a range of centres of research excellence should be created across Africa, each focusing on developing a strong research base and teaching the technical skills required in particular areas of high technology. It calculated a commitment of up $3 billion over a ten-year period to this end. Identifying the most promising areas of research for such centres, as well as their location, would be carried out in collaboration with the science and technology commission of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Union.
An initiative being put together jointly by Akilapka Sawyerr’s Association of African Universities — the body that brings together representatives of almost 140 universities from across the African continent — with the London-based Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the South African vice-chancellors' association must be encouraged. These three bodies have already drafted a proposal for a ten-year investment strategy to address the weaknesses of African universities, many of which have been experiencing dramatic resource shortage in recent years. But, are the politicians ready to cough out funding? Is the private sector ready to vote with their bank accounts to encourage establishing that crucial town and gown link between the academia and business?
A study has shown that at present there are more African scientists and engineers working in the United States than there are in Africa. Yet, we need not see the brain drain from Africa as a one-way street – one country gains “brains” that are “drained” out of another. The new thinking is that both sides gain from this kind of migration – the creation and transfer of knowledge, the emergence of a skilled and educated workforce, and the fostering of commercial ties – are shared to some extent by countries on both sides of the equation. Our scientists who were forced by harsh local conditions to travel abroad have grown more in intellect; it is the duty of our leaders back home to work out how those expatriates can be made to contribute to Africa’s S&T growth.
West African Unity, Re-awakening that ancient dream
West African Unity, Re-awakening that ancient dream
31/03/2008
"When we think of West Africa and of Africa before we reflect upon our own countries, we are not just being pan-Africanists, we are being true nationalists."
The wise words of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo when he addressed an association of Nigerian lawyers in Abuja last Wednesday.
The view of the former Ghanaian Foreign Minister and probable next President is that anything that strengthens the viability of West Africa as a coherent, orderly and robust region will strengthen the domestic capacities and prosperity within each of our countries for our local populations and varied constituents.
On Thursday, March 13, when he outlined his vision for Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo mentioned four main thematic areas: (i) continued consolidation of democracy (ii) transformation of the Ghanaian economy (iii) modernisation of society (iv) and Ghana's full participation in both the regional and continental integration project. The processes of globalisation have certainly created the conditions which have made the Pan-African project real today.
The common view is that Kwame Nkrumah was a Pan-African visionary. He was pushing for African unity at a pace that his contemporaries could not fathom.
Today, the saying is that Nkrumah has been vindicated. Qanawu begs to differ. A visionary is not a man who seeks to achieve the improbable at the wrong time and fails. The fact that the very thing he sought to achieve is now being seen as probable defeats the generous tag that has been hitherto accorded him.
In SKB Asante's 2007 J B Danquah Memorial Lectures, he reminded us of an episode. Danquah confronted Nkrumah when Danquah met the Working Committee of the UGCC on 29 December 1947 for confirmation of Nkrumah�s appointment as general secretary of the UGCC. Dr Danquah said, "This is a Gold Coast national movement" and not a "West African movement; to bring all these people together is not an easy thing. We want to concentrate on making the Gold Coast a nation to serve as the base for launching the liberation of the rest of West Africa. Are you prepared to accept our policy."
This did not make Danquah less a Pan-Africanist or integrationist. Unlike Nkrumah, Danquah had the foresight to see the wider objective of West African unity as being better fulfilled by making Ghana work.
In West Africa, regional integration must be pushed to the top as the guiding inspiration, shaping our various current projects of nation-building. There is at least one obvious historical antecedent for this trend: in the early parts of the twentieth century, the quest for regional integration was inextricably linked to the nationalist drives for independence. In 1953 when Kwame Nkrumah declared the unification of West Africa as his "basic personal philosophy," he was speaking in the context of a foundation that was laid down decades before.
It was West Africa that provided the continent's original venue for the outdooring of Pan-Africanist consciousness. Another great figurehead in our shared heritage of ideas is the Liberian Edward Wilmot Blyden, often regarded as the ideological uncle, if not the very father, of West African unity. Since his death in 1912, the concept of African unity has always being linked to the continent's nationalist movements.
Blyden's heir, the Ghanaian Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford, had no problem in weaving the concept of a 'United West Africa' into his advocacy for Ghana's earliest expressions of nationalism. In 1926, Joseph Boakye Danquah was a powerful opinion leader as the publisher of the major newspaper for the West African Students Union in London.
He was of the view that West Africa was in pole position to be the torch bearer for the future progress and prosperity of Africa. But, like the practical visionary that he was, his approach was a systematic one that was both ambitious and realistic.
Danquah saw West Africa as bearing the greatest burden of responsibility for the future of Africa for the simple and practical reason that far more politically astute consciousness and intellectual power was based here than could be found in either Eastern or Southern Africa during his generation.
In December 2 of that year 1926, Dr. Danquah wrote, and I quote, "you cannot make a nation of Africa [except] by securing unity in West Africa..." Danquah saw regionalism as a more effective, practical way of achieving unity for the continent and that the strength of that regionalism would lie on the viability of its parts. Hence, his focus on Ghana as a launching pad.
"[B]y securing unity in West Africa, and by securing African rights in the Western portion, you thereby raise the general standard of African welfare and lay down an ideal of life which the African in East and South will strive to realise," Danquah said. SKB Asante observes, "Like Casely Hayford, Danquah argued that if Africans were to survive, West Africa must become a nation and that it might unite under the sentiment of national progress."
The time has never been this ripe since our post-independence leaders dreamed of African unity. Between January 1956 and the end of 1985 there were sixty successful coups in Africa, that is, an average of two every year. In 1966, the year that Ghana's First Republic made its exit, there were eight military coup d'etat in Africa.
Today, democracy, however currently flawed in some jurisdictions, is increasingly the norm. Akufo-Addo is among a new crop of leaders who believe that the integration project which generation after generation of Africans have long cherished should no longer remain an elusive goal.
And, when he warned against 'half-hearted' commitment to this, he was calling for bountiful political will that we know never actually existed. A typical example was the long delay to implement the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action, which envisioned the regional blocs as the most effective way of achieving integration.
Also, some current leaders may still not be viewing their nationalistic actions in the context of the collective; what Akufo-Addo describes as thinking West African should be synonymous to thinking Nigerian, Ghanaian or Ivorian.
So for example, when he tells Nigerians to imagine what their $2 billion annual salt budget can do for Ghana, he is wondering why they rely on far away Brazil for a product that Ghana can supply to Nigeria in abundance if only, first, Ghana can sort out its salt industry and, second, it can get Nigeria to look nowhere else.
Experts have recognised two obstacles preventing Africa from entering the phase of self-reliant development: irrational fragmentation from a casual tearing up of the continent into incoherent real estates of the Africans and dependence on donors to finance African development.
The expectation is for African economies to grow from 7% to 10% annually to make that necessary leap. We are not there yet. Ghana is yet to breach the 7% historical mark.
In the twentieth century, 1958 to be precise, Nkrumah said, "in the last century ... the Europeans discovered Africa: in the next century the Africans will discover Africa." That century, ladies and gentlemen, is now.
Henry Sylvester Williams was the creator of the Pan-African Movement in 1900, it was W.E.B. Du Bois whose consistent activity kept it alive and developing to the point where in 1945 it could become the launch-pad for the African Independence Movement.
Until the 1990s, most African countries were under military or one-party rule. Those were the days when our leaders could make grand promises at regional or continental summits and get away with it when they do nothing to implement them.
Civil society organisations are in a much stronger position to demand that their leaders keep their promises. Africans today understand better than ever before that our small economies can only improve and compete if we allow free movements of people, goods, services, culture, arts, skills and knowledge through our borders. We appreciate better the factors that suffocated the integration dream.
When Akufo-Addo went to Lagos/Abuja last week, he had to change cedis to American dollars before changing it into naira. So what is stopping us from allowing a direct exchange of our currencies? As one expert put it, "[t]he existing state currencies that are not exchanged directly with each other, and whose exchange rate is mediated with the dollar, the franc and the Euro, should give way to direct exchanges based on a fair settlement of the appropriate par value."
The irony is that it was only during colonial times that we managed a system of common currency across borders. The British created the West African pound. They also created but a not-so-successful East African Currency Board in 1919 and issued a common currency unit, the East African Shilling, as legal tender in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda. After independence in the 1960s, the common currency area broke apart. Efforts to mend the break up are still continuing with the re-establishment of the East African Community.
In addition during the 1920s the then independent Republic of South Africa collaborated with the colonial powers to create a common monetary area. The Common Monetary Area embraced South Africa, former British colonies Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland and the then German colony, Namibia.
But, the most successful single currency was in fact thought of in 1946 and brought to being in 1948 - the CFA. The exchange rate between the 'CFA francs' of the West African Monetary Union and the Central African Monetary Area have allowed capital to move freely between the two regions through the "African Financial Community." Sadly, even with the CFA zones, each currency is only legal tender in its own region, despite the currencies being jointly managed by the French Treasury as integral parts of a single monetary union.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria has articulated two particular 'virtues' of regional economic integration. Integration, he points out, makes huge investments for specific projects possible, "reinforcing the attractiveness of our economies and reducing the risks." Also, integration can make the costs of infrastructural development cheaper.
The general view is that none of the states in post-colonial Africa is economically, socially, culturally and politically standing steady, holding its own and making the sort of progress one could describe seriously as developmental. So we must integrate. Yet, despite the dismantling of tariffs and other trade barriers, commerce between West African countries, for instance, has not increased significantly.
And, this is where Akufo-Addo's second thematic area comes in. We must make a more committed effort at transforming our economies from exporters of primary commodities to the developed countries, and importers of finished products from outside the continent.
Thus, you may allow the concept of free movement of people, goods and services to work, but its impact can only be massively felt when African economies develop a strong capacity to produce more manufactured goods and at a standard that could be traded to neighbouring countries.
Nana Akufo-Addo was right in observing that Ghanaians and Nigerians care about each other very much, and for reasons that carry each of us beyond the concerns of daily domestic preoccupations.
Our respective histories can be said to epitomise the whole of the African experience over the last two centuries if not longer: historically we have remained separate states with different languages and cultures; and yet we have been forced together in a class of colonial entities since the Berlin Partition of Africa in 1885.
After independence, the progress of both countries has laboured under serial military dictatorships, bad governance practices, bad economic management policies, poor implementation procedures and the suppression of individual freedoms.
Today Nigeria, like Ghana, enjoys a renewal of determination, busy as it is to consolidate its constitutional democracy. The two countries are walking in parallel along respective paths of progress, facing different particular challenges but with a shared sense of realistic confidence never seen before.
On this journey, we often use the positive lilt in each other's stride to re-affirm our commitments to our latest respective ventures in nation-building - because conceptually in many ways Nigeria and Ghana are standing side by side, our populations walking on both the sunny and shady side of the same roads.
In subscribing diligently, explicitly and conscientiously to those values of democracy, rule of law, human rights, free movements of people, goods and services, we can begin to build up the power of Africa as an economic and peaceful, self disciplined and cooperative community, a force of reason and initiative to be reckoned with and emulated in the global arena.
Let us raise West Africa in the global arena on the shoulders of Ghana and Nigeria, for in so doing, we shall overcome our common challengers and agents of indifference, of potential exploitation of our people!
31/03/2008
"When we think of West Africa and of Africa before we reflect upon our own countries, we are not just being pan-Africanists, we are being true nationalists."
The wise words of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo when he addressed an association of Nigerian lawyers in Abuja last Wednesday.
The view of the former Ghanaian Foreign Minister and probable next President is that anything that strengthens the viability of West Africa as a coherent, orderly and robust region will strengthen the domestic capacities and prosperity within each of our countries for our local populations and varied constituents.
On Thursday, March 13, when he outlined his vision for Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo mentioned four main thematic areas: (i) continued consolidation of democracy (ii) transformation of the Ghanaian economy (iii) modernisation of society (iv) and Ghana's full participation in both the regional and continental integration project. The processes of globalisation have certainly created the conditions which have made the Pan-African project real today.
The common view is that Kwame Nkrumah was a Pan-African visionary. He was pushing for African unity at a pace that his contemporaries could not fathom.
Today, the saying is that Nkrumah has been vindicated. Qanawu begs to differ. A visionary is not a man who seeks to achieve the improbable at the wrong time and fails. The fact that the very thing he sought to achieve is now being seen as probable defeats the generous tag that has been hitherto accorded him.
In SKB Asante's 2007 J B Danquah Memorial Lectures, he reminded us of an episode. Danquah confronted Nkrumah when Danquah met the Working Committee of the UGCC on 29 December 1947 for confirmation of Nkrumah�s appointment as general secretary of the UGCC. Dr Danquah said, "This is a Gold Coast national movement" and not a "West African movement; to bring all these people together is not an easy thing. We want to concentrate on making the Gold Coast a nation to serve as the base for launching the liberation of the rest of West Africa. Are you prepared to accept our policy."
This did not make Danquah less a Pan-Africanist or integrationist. Unlike Nkrumah, Danquah had the foresight to see the wider objective of West African unity as being better fulfilled by making Ghana work.
In West Africa, regional integration must be pushed to the top as the guiding inspiration, shaping our various current projects of nation-building. There is at least one obvious historical antecedent for this trend: in the early parts of the twentieth century, the quest for regional integration was inextricably linked to the nationalist drives for independence. In 1953 when Kwame Nkrumah declared the unification of West Africa as his "basic personal philosophy," he was speaking in the context of a foundation that was laid down decades before.
It was West Africa that provided the continent's original venue for the outdooring of Pan-Africanist consciousness. Another great figurehead in our shared heritage of ideas is the Liberian Edward Wilmot Blyden, often regarded as the ideological uncle, if not the very father, of West African unity. Since his death in 1912, the concept of African unity has always being linked to the continent's nationalist movements.
Blyden's heir, the Ghanaian Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford, had no problem in weaving the concept of a 'United West Africa' into his advocacy for Ghana's earliest expressions of nationalism. In 1926, Joseph Boakye Danquah was a powerful opinion leader as the publisher of the major newspaper for the West African Students Union in London.
He was of the view that West Africa was in pole position to be the torch bearer for the future progress and prosperity of Africa. But, like the practical visionary that he was, his approach was a systematic one that was both ambitious and realistic.
Danquah saw West Africa as bearing the greatest burden of responsibility for the future of Africa for the simple and practical reason that far more politically astute consciousness and intellectual power was based here than could be found in either Eastern or Southern Africa during his generation.
In December 2 of that year 1926, Dr. Danquah wrote, and I quote, "you cannot make a nation of Africa [except] by securing unity in West Africa..." Danquah saw regionalism as a more effective, practical way of achieving unity for the continent and that the strength of that regionalism would lie on the viability of its parts. Hence, his focus on Ghana as a launching pad.
"[B]y securing unity in West Africa, and by securing African rights in the Western portion, you thereby raise the general standard of African welfare and lay down an ideal of life which the African in East and South will strive to realise," Danquah said. SKB Asante observes, "Like Casely Hayford, Danquah argued that if Africans were to survive, West Africa must become a nation and that it might unite under the sentiment of national progress."
The time has never been this ripe since our post-independence leaders dreamed of African unity. Between January 1956 and the end of 1985 there were sixty successful coups in Africa, that is, an average of two every year. In 1966, the year that Ghana's First Republic made its exit, there were eight military coup d'etat in Africa.
Today, democracy, however currently flawed in some jurisdictions, is increasingly the norm. Akufo-Addo is among a new crop of leaders who believe that the integration project which generation after generation of Africans have long cherished should no longer remain an elusive goal.
And, when he warned against 'half-hearted' commitment to this, he was calling for bountiful political will that we know never actually existed. A typical example was the long delay to implement the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action, which envisioned the regional blocs as the most effective way of achieving integration.
Also, some current leaders may still not be viewing their nationalistic actions in the context of the collective; what Akufo-Addo describes as thinking West African should be synonymous to thinking Nigerian, Ghanaian or Ivorian.
So for example, when he tells Nigerians to imagine what their $2 billion annual salt budget can do for Ghana, he is wondering why they rely on far away Brazil for a product that Ghana can supply to Nigeria in abundance if only, first, Ghana can sort out its salt industry and, second, it can get Nigeria to look nowhere else.
Experts have recognised two obstacles preventing Africa from entering the phase of self-reliant development: irrational fragmentation from a casual tearing up of the continent into incoherent real estates of the Africans and dependence on donors to finance African development.
The expectation is for African economies to grow from 7% to 10% annually to make that necessary leap. We are not there yet. Ghana is yet to breach the 7% historical mark.
In the twentieth century, 1958 to be precise, Nkrumah said, "in the last century ... the Europeans discovered Africa: in the next century the Africans will discover Africa." That century, ladies and gentlemen, is now.
Henry Sylvester Williams was the creator of the Pan-African Movement in 1900, it was W.E.B. Du Bois whose consistent activity kept it alive and developing to the point where in 1945 it could become the launch-pad for the African Independence Movement.
Until the 1990s, most African countries were under military or one-party rule. Those were the days when our leaders could make grand promises at regional or continental summits and get away with it when they do nothing to implement them.
Civil society organisations are in a much stronger position to demand that their leaders keep their promises. Africans today understand better than ever before that our small economies can only improve and compete if we allow free movements of people, goods, services, culture, arts, skills and knowledge through our borders. We appreciate better the factors that suffocated the integration dream.
When Akufo-Addo went to Lagos/Abuja last week, he had to change cedis to American dollars before changing it into naira. So what is stopping us from allowing a direct exchange of our currencies? As one expert put it, "[t]he existing state currencies that are not exchanged directly with each other, and whose exchange rate is mediated with the dollar, the franc and the Euro, should give way to direct exchanges based on a fair settlement of the appropriate par value."
The irony is that it was only during colonial times that we managed a system of common currency across borders. The British created the West African pound. They also created but a not-so-successful East African Currency Board in 1919 and issued a common currency unit, the East African Shilling, as legal tender in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda. After independence in the 1960s, the common currency area broke apart. Efforts to mend the break up are still continuing with the re-establishment of the East African Community.
In addition during the 1920s the then independent Republic of South Africa collaborated with the colonial powers to create a common monetary area. The Common Monetary Area embraced South Africa, former British colonies Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland and the then German colony, Namibia.
But, the most successful single currency was in fact thought of in 1946 and brought to being in 1948 - the CFA. The exchange rate between the 'CFA francs' of the West African Monetary Union and the Central African Monetary Area have allowed capital to move freely between the two regions through the "African Financial Community." Sadly, even with the CFA zones, each currency is only legal tender in its own region, despite the currencies being jointly managed by the French Treasury as integral parts of a single monetary union.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria has articulated two particular 'virtues' of regional economic integration. Integration, he points out, makes huge investments for specific projects possible, "reinforcing the attractiveness of our economies and reducing the risks." Also, integration can make the costs of infrastructural development cheaper.
The general view is that none of the states in post-colonial Africa is economically, socially, culturally and politically standing steady, holding its own and making the sort of progress one could describe seriously as developmental. So we must integrate. Yet, despite the dismantling of tariffs and other trade barriers, commerce between West African countries, for instance, has not increased significantly.
And, this is where Akufo-Addo's second thematic area comes in. We must make a more committed effort at transforming our economies from exporters of primary commodities to the developed countries, and importers of finished products from outside the continent.
Thus, you may allow the concept of free movement of people, goods and services to work, but its impact can only be massively felt when African economies develop a strong capacity to produce more manufactured goods and at a standard that could be traded to neighbouring countries.
Nana Akufo-Addo was right in observing that Ghanaians and Nigerians care about each other very much, and for reasons that carry each of us beyond the concerns of daily domestic preoccupations.
Our respective histories can be said to epitomise the whole of the African experience over the last two centuries if not longer: historically we have remained separate states with different languages and cultures; and yet we have been forced together in a class of colonial entities since the Berlin Partition of Africa in 1885.
After independence, the progress of both countries has laboured under serial military dictatorships, bad governance practices, bad economic management policies, poor implementation procedures and the suppression of individual freedoms.
Today Nigeria, like Ghana, enjoys a renewal of determination, busy as it is to consolidate its constitutional democracy. The two countries are walking in parallel along respective paths of progress, facing different particular challenges but with a shared sense of realistic confidence never seen before.
On this journey, we often use the positive lilt in each other's stride to re-affirm our commitments to our latest respective ventures in nation-building - because conceptually in many ways Nigeria and Ghana are standing side by side, our populations walking on both the sunny and shady side of the same roads.
In subscribing diligently, explicitly and conscientiously to those values of democracy, rule of law, human rights, free movements of people, goods and services, we can begin to build up the power of Africa as an economic and peaceful, self disciplined and cooperative community, a force of reason and initiative to be reckoned with and emulated in the global arena.
Let us raise West Africa in the global arena on the shoulders of Ghana and Nigeria, for in so doing, we shall overcome our common challengers and agents of indifference, of potential exploitation of our people!
J B Danquah - a Pan Africanist?
J B Danquah - a Pan Africanist?
07/04/2008
Nana Amma Obenewaa takes issue with Qanawu Gabby's article last week (re: West African unity, re-awakening that ancient dream) in which he raised issues about the conventional wisdom of Nkrumah as a Pan-African visionary.
Your quote "A visionary is not a man who seeks to achieve the improbable at the wrong time and fails. The fact that the very thing he sought to achieve is now being seen as probable defeats the generous tag that has been hitherto accorded him."
My Response:
Dearest Mr. Asare Otchere-Darko,
It is heretical, beyond imaginable proportion, to draw a parallel between Kwame Nkrumah and Nana Akufo-Addo. When will some of our nation's journalists learn to appreciate the importance of context when writing a historical account? I would like to advise the author to invest his time in practicing law, and not step into the hostile terrain of Pan-Africanism; a liberating concept which was forcefully pushed by Nkrumah, and will forever remain relevant in postcolonial Africa's quest for true emancipation.
It saddens me to see the Asare Otchere-Darkos show little understanding of, and appreciation for, continental unity. I get goose pimples when certain individuals try to belittle the enormous contributions of Kwame Nkrumah, a visionary, whose foresight is yet to be matched any living African leader. Not even can the Mandelas, of today, come any where close to Nkrumah's revolutionary ideas and zest for a free African continent.
Even in death, Nkrumah continues to guide our nation's political trajectory. He is the wind on which our nation's bruised wings fly. His name brings respect not only to Ghanaians, and Africans, it is also a door-opener to our diminutive leaders whose concept of inter-state relations, and global politics, is still primitive.
How can a nation that can barely feed its population allow its leader to talk on ways to minimise nuclear proliferation when the leader does not even understand the operable mechanics of nuclear technology? To subtract Nkrumah from our nation's political history is akin to s shelving modernity on the baseless contention that it has no value in twenty-first century politics and human development.
To suggest that Joseph Boakye Danquah was a Pan-Africanist is laughable to say the least. Not only was J.B. Danquah a conscientious objector of Ghana's independence, he was an avid defender of social reengineering. In your effort to redeem the image of J.B. Danquah as a traitor, you closeted Danquah's clandestine role in liaising with certain hostile foreign agencies to destabilise his own country simply because our populist leader, Kwame Nkrumah, sidelined the nation's chiefs, whom he saw as an impediment to national unity and development. Kwame was right. Wasn't he?
In today's Ghanaian politics, we are seeing the re-traditionalisation of the political centre; a serious precedent that could potentially proliferate inter-ethnic conflicts at the micro-level to the peril of our nation's collective security. In post-2000 Ghanaian democratic politics, the sanctity of our Republic is challenged by the ceding of state powers, and privileges, to certain favoured chiefs who are allies in the government's campaign to reassert ethnocentricity. Does the author consider the preceding to Pan-Africanism?
Mr. Author, the concept of Pan-Africanism transcends the African continent. It is a Trans-Atlantic initiative which was meant to link our forcibly removed siblings, across the Atlantic Ocean , with the homeland. It was, and still is, an aspiration to reconnect Africa with soul of our enslaved siblings with ours. Nkrumah did exactly that by bringing Du Bois, George Padmore and Stokley Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure) to Ghana where the served the Black cause.
While I have nothing personal against Nana Akufo-Addo Danquah, I am yet to see any evidence that puts him in the Pan-Africanist orbit. What kind of a Pan-Africanist would sojourn to a chief's palace to pay his respect immediately after he was chosen as his party's presidential nominee? It is an established fact that the Danquah-Busia traditionalists place premium on indigenous "odikro" politics and not national politics.
Our nation's system of democracy is flawed. Whether you like it, or not, we have allowed ourselves to be fooled by an opportunistic leadership that says one thing and does the opposite. As a nation, we have been drawn in a culture that uses the deceptions of democracy to silence us from challenging the folly at the levels of leadership.
Ghana has failed to preserve the Pan-Africanist spirit. As a neocolonial state, we have foisted on ourselves a leadership, and policymakers, many of whom have no intellectual investment in shaping our destiny, let alone produce innovative ideas on ways to address national, and continental, problems.
Where is the spirit of Pan-Africanism when the Minister for Interior labeled called for the deportation of Liberian refugees because some women exposed their breasts to register their displeasure with the Ghanaian government? Since when did the flapping of a woman's breast, in public, become a national security issue? I wish I have the technological asset to watch what Mr. Bartels does with his wife's breast. Maybe, he wraps then in an anti-explosive sheet to avoid an earth-shattering blast. We are not a serious nation. Are we?
Where was Pan-Africanism when Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia invoked the Aliens Compliance Act to deport our African brothers and sisters? Where was Pan-Africanism when Dr. Busia, in his infinite wisdom, asked his fellow African leaders to dialogue with the repressive White minority government of South Africa when the state made the killing of Blacks its official policy?
If the author's intention was sell to the voting public the non-exiting credentials of Nana Akufo-Addo Danquah, then he has horribly failed to draw some of us into the secessionist fold. Declaratory policies, which are trademarks of Ghanaian politics, do not solve problems. For Ghana to move forward, we need a leader who is problem-solving oriented. We do not need tourist-president who contracts out his responsibilities and travel out the country for sightseeing. A Pan-Africanist leader is not afraid to stand in from of his peers to speak against the injustices in West Darfur. He is not afraid to lash out at Western hypocrisy and their intentions to see Africa spiral out of control.
In on of his most fearless speeches, Nkrumah scolded Western leaders for instigating and supervising the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. This is a true hallmark of a Pan-Africanist.
As a visionary, he condemned the United Nations Security Council, elitist club, fro playing with the destiny of poor nation-states and their citizens. In the 1960s, Nkrumah foresaw the need for the African continent to form a continental army to douse the flames in conflict-stricken African countries.
The achievements of this great leader cannot the listed here. To therefore compare him with Danquah, or Nana Akufo-Addo, is like comparing Rottweiler to a Chihuahua. The two are not the same in stature. I look forward to defending Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe on when, and how, Danquah became a Pan-Africanist. Hope all is well. Good day and cheers.
07/04/2008
Nana Amma Obenewaa takes issue with Qanawu Gabby's article last week (re: West African unity, re-awakening that ancient dream) in which he raised issues about the conventional wisdom of Nkrumah as a Pan-African visionary.
Your quote "A visionary is not a man who seeks to achieve the improbable at the wrong time and fails. The fact that the very thing he sought to achieve is now being seen as probable defeats the generous tag that has been hitherto accorded him."
My Response:
Dearest Mr. Asare Otchere-Darko,
It is heretical, beyond imaginable proportion, to draw a parallel between Kwame Nkrumah and Nana Akufo-Addo. When will some of our nation's journalists learn to appreciate the importance of context when writing a historical account? I would like to advise the author to invest his time in practicing law, and not step into the hostile terrain of Pan-Africanism; a liberating concept which was forcefully pushed by Nkrumah, and will forever remain relevant in postcolonial Africa's quest for true emancipation.
It saddens me to see the Asare Otchere-Darkos show little understanding of, and appreciation for, continental unity. I get goose pimples when certain individuals try to belittle the enormous contributions of Kwame Nkrumah, a visionary, whose foresight is yet to be matched any living African leader. Not even can the Mandelas, of today, come any where close to Nkrumah's revolutionary ideas and zest for a free African continent.
Even in death, Nkrumah continues to guide our nation's political trajectory. He is the wind on which our nation's bruised wings fly. His name brings respect not only to Ghanaians, and Africans, it is also a door-opener to our diminutive leaders whose concept of inter-state relations, and global politics, is still primitive.
How can a nation that can barely feed its population allow its leader to talk on ways to minimise nuclear proliferation when the leader does not even understand the operable mechanics of nuclear technology? To subtract Nkrumah from our nation's political history is akin to s shelving modernity on the baseless contention that it has no value in twenty-first century politics and human development.
To suggest that Joseph Boakye Danquah was a Pan-Africanist is laughable to say the least. Not only was J.B. Danquah a conscientious objector of Ghana's independence, he was an avid defender of social reengineering. In your effort to redeem the image of J.B. Danquah as a traitor, you closeted Danquah's clandestine role in liaising with certain hostile foreign agencies to destabilise his own country simply because our populist leader, Kwame Nkrumah, sidelined the nation's chiefs, whom he saw as an impediment to national unity and development. Kwame was right. Wasn't he?
In today's Ghanaian politics, we are seeing the re-traditionalisation of the political centre; a serious precedent that could potentially proliferate inter-ethnic conflicts at the micro-level to the peril of our nation's collective security. In post-2000 Ghanaian democratic politics, the sanctity of our Republic is challenged by the ceding of state powers, and privileges, to certain favoured chiefs who are allies in the government's campaign to reassert ethnocentricity. Does the author consider the preceding to Pan-Africanism?
Mr. Author, the concept of Pan-Africanism transcends the African continent. It is a Trans-Atlantic initiative which was meant to link our forcibly removed siblings, across the Atlantic Ocean , with the homeland. It was, and still is, an aspiration to reconnect Africa with soul of our enslaved siblings with ours. Nkrumah did exactly that by bringing Du Bois, George Padmore and Stokley Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure) to Ghana where the served the Black cause.
While I have nothing personal against Nana Akufo-Addo Danquah, I am yet to see any evidence that puts him in the Pan-Africanist orbit. What kind of a Pan-Africanist would sojourn to a chief's palace to pay his respect immediately after he was chosen as his party's presidential nominee? It is an established fact that the Danquah-Busia traditionalists place premium on indigenous "odikro" politics and not national politics.
Our nation's system of democracy is flawed. Whether you like it, or not, we have allowed ourselves to be fooled by an opportunistic leadership that says one thing and does the opposite. As a nation, we have been drawn in a culture that uses the deceptions of democracy to silence us from challenging the folly at the levels of leadership.
Ghana has failed to preserve the Pan-Africanist spirit. As a neocolonial state, we have foisted on ourselves a leadership, and policymakers, many of whom have no intellectual investment in shaping our destiny, let alone produce innovative ideas on ways to address national, and continental, problems.
Where is the spirit of Pan-Africanism when the Minister for Interior labeled called for the deportation of Liberian refugees because some women exposed their breasts to register their displeasure with the Ghanaian government? Since when did the flapping of a woman's breast, in public, become a national security issue? I wish I have the technological asset to watch what Mr. Bartels does with his wife's breast. Maybe, he wraps then in an anti-explosive sheet to avoid an earth-shattering blast. We are not a serious nation. Are we?
Where was Pan-Africanism when Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia invoked the Aliens Compliance Act to deport our African brothers and sisters? Where was Pan-Africanism when Dr. Busia, in his infinite wisdom, asked his fellow African leaders to dialogue with the repressive White minority government of South Africa when the state made the killing of Blacks its official policy?
If the author's intention was sell to the voting public the non-exiting credentials of Nana Akufo-Addo Danquah, then he has horribly failed to draw some of us into the secessionist fold. Declaratory policies, which are trademarks of Ghanaian politics, do not solve problems. For Ghana to move forward, we need a leader who is problem-solving oriented. We do not need tourist-president who contracts out his responsibilities and travel out the country for sightseeing. A Pan-Africanist leader is not afraid to stand in from of his peers to speak against the injustices in West Darfur. He is not afraid to lash out at Western hypocrisy and their intentions to see Africa spiral out of control.
In on of his most fearless speeches, Nkrumah scolded Western leaders for instigating and supervising the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. This is a true hallmark of a Pan-Africanist.
As a visionary, he condemned the United Nations Security Council, elitist club, fro playing with the destiny of poor nation-states and their citizens. In the 1960s, Nkrumah foresaw the need for the African continent to form a continental army to douse the flames in conflict-stricken African countries.
The achievements of this great leader cannot the listed here. To therefore compare him with Danquah, or Nana Akufo-Addo, is like comparing Rottweiler to a Chihuahua. The two are not the same in stature. I look forward to defending Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe on when, and how, Danquah became a Pan-Africanist. Hope all is well. Good day and cheers.
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