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
Friday, March 27, 2009
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.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
AND, GADDAFI SHIFTED
And Gaddafi Shifted
Asare Otchere-Darko , 04/07/2007 - The Statesman
It was billed as a grand debate between the Instantists (Radicals) and the Gradualists over what kind of Union Government Africa must have. The radicals, led by Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi of Libya and Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, amplified the rhetoric of Union Government now!
The Gradualists, led by Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and, though with the subtlety expected from the chair, Ghana’s John Agyekum Kufuor, were calling for a gradual approach but within the shortest practicable time.
In the end, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia articulated the very point of view of the Gradualists, only giving it a new name: Practicalist.
Making his 25-minute erudite submission Monday, he urged African leaders to tone down on the rhetoric and concentrate more on strengthening the institutions of integration, such as the AU Commission.
Yesterday, the Libyan leader did just that but with a well-researched presentation, illustrated with the support of Power Point.
He surprised everyone, including the other radical states, like Guinea, Benin and Senegal, by calling for the institutions necessary for a united Africa to be strengthened.
But, Gaddafi could not resist a poke in the ribs of President Mbeki (who chose not to speak), when he questioned why South Africa’s political capital should still carry the colonial name Pretoria, 10 years after the country attained freedom from apartheid.
He warned the gathering of heads of state and governments against leaving Accra to become objects of ridicule. Calling for a practical but speedy integration process, the Libyan leader questioned the value of sovereignty when most African countries are saddled with conditionalities at bilateral and multilateral negotiation tables.
By the close of Monday’s session, it seemed as if the 9th Ordinary Session of the AU was going to end with a split, pushing the continent’s integration process on a two-tier track, with those ready for a fast-track process taking the lead.
But, this all changed by the time the Libyan leader ended his one and half hour speech Tuesday. He said, “We came to Accra united and we must leave Accra united.”
That, notwithstanding, Niger’s President had refused to come because his country was accusing Libya of illegal incursions in its territory. Blaise Compare of Burkina Faso refused to read his speech himself in apparent protest against Gaddafi. But, in the end, it was vintage Gaddafi. The man who got America to change its view of him, managed to pull a pleasant surprise on his doubters at the Accra summit with his practical appreciation of the challenges before the unification agenda of Africa.
The shift by Gaddafi paved the way for a compromise, which one senior AU diplomat described to The Statesman as “practical but radical.” She explained that, the communiqué, which was yet to be prepared before going to press, was expected to be practical in its appreciation of the challenges and radical in its approach to resolving the challenges in pushing for integration.
Senegal had showed how ready its people were, from farmers to soldiers, and even cited its constitution which makes allowances for the ceding of sovereignty to a continental government. Wade, was in the end, left holding the Instantist flag, with other small countries like Benin and Guinea.
Earlier, Uganda’s Museveni, whose speech started seemingly in favour of the radical approach, ended advocating for the Regional Economic Communities to be strengthened and streamlined.
But, he mentioned as some of the challenges, the vast diversity on the continent, saying integration works better where there is “similarities and compatibilities.”
But, in response, the Ethiopian Prime Minister gave two practical examples. He cited the European Union, which has made so much progress, especially on the common market front, even though there are several languages. Zenawi compared that to the 22-member Arab League.
Though the League, which has been around since March 22, 1945 is of nations with shared religion, cultures, and language, they have not been able to make any significant progress on the areas stated in their charter, he argued.
Zenawi urged his fellow leaders to cut down on the rhetoric and focus more on what makes unity work. His view was that the best approach was for Africans to concentrate on forming a common market by integrating the continent’s economies.
With the AU headquarters at his capital, Addis Ababa, he was in a position to say how weak the Commission was. He asked the leaders to not only audit the performance of the Commission but also seek to give it more powers to perform its mandate with teeth to bite.
Gaddafi, for instance, condemned the current situation where 53 ministers of state meet to negotiate with other countries or economic blocs. He called for one foreign minister, one defence minister, and similar arrangements on health, environment and trade.
Gaddafi took his time to go through the Constitutive Act of the Union and pointed how the body has failed in implementing the objectives stated. He gave particular attention to Article 10, which deals with the Executive Council. It reads: “
1. The Executive Council shall be composed of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs or such other Ministers or Authorities as are designated by the Governments of Member States.
“2. Council shall meet at least twice a year in ordinary session. It shall also meet in an extra-ordinary session at the request of any Member State and upon approval by two-thirds of all Member States.”
The Libyan leader proposed for one permanent minister or commissioner, modelled on the lines of the EU, to represent the interests of the continent when it comes to negotiations with the WTO, etc.
He also called for Africa to present a united front to push for a permanent seat on the United Nations’ Security Council, representing the AU. He also criticised the arrangement for a UN-AU joint force for Darfur. He wants to see Africa undertaking such exercises on its own.
The current make up of the commissioners is under criticism. One diplomat told The Statesman: “They look lifeless. Some even appear to be there on the ticket of affirmative action rather than ability to act.”
The man who has ruled Libya since 1969, reminded his colleagues that, with the exception of Omar Bongo, he could be said to have been around the longest.
He recalled the role Libya, under his leadership played in the liberation struggle of countries such as South Africa, Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe. Libya served as training ground for freedom fighters at the risk of being branded breeding ground for terrorists by the West.
He said he was the only leader who had travelled across the continent by road and was therefore very conversant with the continent’s abject poverty, which he said could not be tackled by the countries as individual entities.
At 8pm last night, the secretariat was drafting the communiqué for approval by the AU leadership.
Posted by Hakima on 07/04 at 01:30 PM
Asare Otchere-Darko , 04/07/2007 - The Statesman
It was billed as a grand debate between the Instantists (Radicals) and the Gradualists over what kind of Union Government Africa must have. The radicals, led by Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi of Libya and Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, amplified the rhetoric of Union Government now!
The Gradualists, led by Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and, though with the subtlety expected from the chair, Ghana’s John Agyekum Kufuor, were calling for a gradual approach but within the shortest practicable time.
In the end, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia articulated the very point of view of the Gradualists, only giving it a new name: Practicalist.
Making his 25-minute erudite submission Monday, he urged African leaders to tone down on the rhetoric and concentrate more on strengthening the institutions of integration, such as the AU Commission.
Yesterday, the Libyan leader did just that but with a well-researched presentation, illustrated with the support of Power Point.
He surprised everyone, including the other radical states, like Guinea, Benin and Senegal, by calling for the institutions necessary for a united Africa to be strengthened.
But, Gaddafi could not resist a poke in the ribs of President Mbeki (who chose not to speak), when he questioned why South Africa’s political capital should still carry the colonial name Pretoria, 10 years after the country attained freedom from apartheid.
He warned the gathering of heads of state and governments against leaving Accra to become objects of ridicule. Calling for a practical but speedy integration process, the Libyan leader questioned the value of sovereignty when most African countries are saddled with conditionalities at bilateral and multilateral negotiation tables.
By the close of Monday’s session, it seemed as if the 9th Ordinary Session of the AU was going to end with a split, pushing the continent’s integration process on a two-tier track, with those ready for a fast-track process taking the lead.
But, this all changed by the time the Libyan leader ended his one and half hour speech Tuesday. He said, “We came to Accra united and we must leave Accra united.”
That, notwithstanding, Niger’s President had refused to come because his country was accusing Libya of illegal incursions in its territory. Blaise Compare of Burkina Faso refused to read his speech himself in apparent protest against Gaddafi. But, in the end, it was vintage Gaddafi. The man who got America to change its view of him, managed to pull a pleasant surprise on his doubters at the Accra summit with his practical appreciation of the challenges before the unification agenda of Africa.
The shift by Gaddafi paved the way for a compromise, which one senior AU diplomat described to The Statesman as “practical but radical.” She explained that, the communiqué, which was yet to be prepared before going to press, was expected to be practical in its appreciation of the challenges and radical in its approach to resolving the challenges in pushing for integration.
Senegal had showed how ready its people were, from farmers to soldiers, and even cited its constitution which makes allowances for the ceding of sovereignty to a continental government. Wade, was in the end, left holding the Instantist flag, with other small countries like Benin and Guinea.
Earlier, Uganda’s Museveni, whose speech started seemingly in favour of the radical approach, ended advocating for the Regional Economic Communities to be strengthened and streamlined.
But, he mentioned as some of the challenges, the vast diversity on the continent, saying integration works better where there is “similarities and compatibilities.”
But, in response, the Ethiopian Prime Minister gave two practical examples. He cited the European Union, which has made so much progress, especially on the common market front, even though there are several languages. Zenawi compared that to the 22-member Arab League.
Though the League, which has been around since March 22, 1945 is of nations with shared religion, cultures, and language, they have not been able to make any significant progress on the areas stated in their charter, he argued.
Zenawi urged his fellow leaders to cut down on the rhetoric and focus more on what makes unity work. His view was that the best approach was for Africans to concentrate on forming a common market by integrating the continent’s economies.
With the AU headquarters at his capital, Addis Ababa, he was in a position to say how weak the Commission was. He asked the leaders to not only audit the performance of the Commission but also seek to give it more powers to perform its mandate with teeth to bite.
Gaddafi, for instance, condemned the current situation where 53 ministers of state meet to negotiate with other countries or economic blocs. He called for one foreign minister, one defence minister, and similar arrangements on health, environment and trade.
Gaddafi took his time to go through the Constitutive Act of the Union and pointed how the body has failed in implementing the objectives stated. He gave particular attention to Article 10, which deals with the Executive Council. It reads: “
1. The Executive Council shall be composed of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs or such other Ministers or Authorities as are designated by the Governments of Member States.
“2. Council shall meet at least twice a year in ordinary session. It shall also meet in an extra-ordinary session at the request of any Member State and upon approval by two-thirds of all Member States.”
The Libyan leader proposed for one permanent minister or commissioner, modelled on the lines of the EU, to represent the interests of the continent when it comes to negotiations with the WTO, etc.
He also called for Africa to present a united front to push for a permanent seat on the United Nations’ Security Council, representing the AU. He also criticised the arrangement for a UN-AU joint force for Darfur. He wants to see Africa undertaking such exercises on its own.
The current make up of the commissioners is under criticism. One diplomat told The Statesman: “They look lifeless. Some even appear to be there on the ticket of affirmative action rather than ability to act.”
The man who has ruled Libya since 1969, reminded his colleagues that, with the exception of Omar Bongo, he could be said to have been around the longest.
He recalled the role Libya, under his leadership played in the liberation struggle of countries such as South Africa, Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe. Libya served as training ground for freedom fighters at the risk of being branded breeding ground for terrorists by the West.
He said he was the only leader who had travelled across the continent by road and was therefore very conversant with the continent’s abject poverty, which he said could not be tackled by the countries as individual entities.
At 8pm last night, the secretariat was drafting the communiqué for approval by the AU leadership.
Posted by Hakima on 07/04 at 01:30 PM
PRAYER CAMPS, CRIPPLES AND TRIVIALS
PRAYER CAMPS, CRIPPLES AND TRIVIALS
You certainly wouldn’t want to be in Abu Mohammed’s crutches at the moment. The former NDC Vice Chairman for the then Abuakwa constituency and, since February 20, government appointee at the East Akyem Municipal Assembly, has recently attracted the kind of notoriety which may end up crippling his liberty. He’s been left caught between protecting his party’s integrity and protecting himself from prosecution.
It started with the parliamentary vetting session when Atta Akyea, the MP for Abuakwa South, questioned Fiifi Kwettey, nominee for Deputy Finance Minister and NDC Propaganda Secretary, about his campaign propaganda that Abu lost the use of his limbs as a result of Akufo-Addo’s violence. Subsequently Abu Mohammed was happy to accuse the MP for Abuakwa South of being a liar and insisted he was ‘crippled’ and made impotent as a result of an alleged December 8, 1996, beating he received “from Akufo-Addo’s thugs”.
Yet on his insurance claim he has official records (from both police and doctors) showing that his injured leg was the result of a road accident in 2005. Whether the insurance firm is yet to pay him or has already paid him, a criminal case can be made against the policyholder (or claimant) for making a fraudulent claim as it is on the record from Abu’s own mouth that he was ‘crippled’ not by the 2005 accident on which he based his insurance claims but by a 1996 incident which has only now come to light. On the basis of his own public utterances, Abu is now criminally liable for making a false insurance claim.
So the choice is straightforward, if not simple: Abu must choose between the political offence of saying his party lied to defame the 2008 NPP Presidential Candidate or the criminal offence of a fraudulent insurance claim. The latter carries the threat of some five years prison sentence.
***
Ghana Int. Prayer Camp
A front page story in the Friday, Nov 30, 2007 edition of the Public Agenda newspaper read as follows: the paper “has gathered that opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has established a prayer camp at the Osu Kuku Hill campaign office of Professor John Evans Atta Mills, where some prayer warriors converge to pray for the party's victory. The pastors and prayer warriors who meet every Friday not only pray for NDC victory in 2008, they spend a lot of time praying against some government policies in a bid to reclaim power.
“This reporter last Friday went to a nearby house to monitor the prayer session and heard the NDC's prayer warriors praying and shouting, ‘fire, fire, fire burn them, fire destroy them, fire confuse them, amid Amen, Amen, Amen’.”
The journalists, apparently, had been invited as a PR stunt to show voters how godly the NDC campaign was. What the reporters did not say, however, was to which group the prayer warriors were referring, in their holy request, when they screamed: “Fire! Fire! Fire burn them! Fire destroy them! Fire confuse them!”
It was reported last week that President Mills on Thursday reacted to criticisms that he has turned the Castle, the seat of government, into a ‘prayer camp’ saying, "I have no apologies and regrets to offer." To my mind this was a rather clever, deliberate attempt to befriend the 14-million strong Christian community. Prof Mills is cunningly positioning himself on the side of the Christian community and doing what one Nazi leader summed up as creating a common enemy when there is none, then exaggerating the threat of that enemy in days of actual difficulties and causing a diversion by mobilising the people ‘under siege’ to help you fight that enemy on the battlefield of escapism.
Yes, there are occasional comments in the mass media about T B Joshua’s visits to the Castle and other prayer sessions there. But these comments, whilst hinting at valid questions as to the relationship between our President and his religious advisers, stop short of criticism. And this is no surprise since those who criticise are in the opposition and so for them to criticise an apparently ‘Christian venture’ is to draw unwarranted allegations that the opposition is unchristian.
Prof Mills has calculated that the vast Christian community would find his ‘clean’ image attractive. But even ignoring the violent (and rather unchristian) chants of ‘Fire burn them! Fire destroy them! Fire confuse them!’, what is the substance to this piggy-backing on the coattails of Christianity? No observer would deny that the NDC made spiritualism (Pastors, Mallams, Antoa Nyama, and other ‘Ways & Means’) a vital part of their campaign structure. There was a team in charge of Christian prayers, Juju consultations, Moslem prayers, etc. Are we really expected to believe that Prof Mills was not aware of the ‘dark’ spirits that were consulted? The Mallams from Mali who reportedly moved to Accra for the campaign? And does he see no conflict between this and his holier-than-thou posture? I don’t doubt the sincerity of his Christian conviction. What I find worrying, however, is the apparent fact that he sees no inherent conflict between the two forces.
On the other hand, Akufo-Addo consciously did not make a fetish of his prayer warriors – in fact I can say for sure that he actively discouraged any attempts to consult jujus with a conviction and dismissiveness which some at the time found frustrating, instead stating: “My Christian spirit is against it.” The irony of life!
Fundamentally, we – and Prof Mills – should remember that on January 7 the Chief Justice swore in a political leader and not a spiritual leader.
Though our founding fathers were religious, it was not for nothing that Ghana was made a secular state with freedom of worship. Christianity (or religion) certainly has a major role to play in our development, just as the thoughts and ideas of the likes of Socrates, Aristophanes, Hume, Voltaire, Copernicus and Darwin and other religious schismatics and nonbelievers have contributed to the kind of West-inspired civilisation we are striving to emulate.
But Prof Mills cannot and should not attempt to hide administrative shortcomings behind the alter of religiosity. In any case, Prof Mills’ apparent determination to place God first in the affairs of his administration would not be manifested through an unrealistic wish that the whole of Ghana would be turned into a prayer camp. He should instead begin by making the lieutenants in his administration act in ways a reasonable Christian or Moslem may consider godly. Prof Mills should only be taken seriously on this matter if he is first able to get his followers to adhere to a vital Christian principle such as tolerance.
Two decades ago Andres Serrano put a plastic crucifix in a glass of urine, photographed it and called it art. This uretic gesture cost the US taxpayer over $15,000, when it was bought by the National Endowment for the Arts. Neither the Pope nor any other Christian leader pronounced a Fatwa on Serrano’s head. Yet the NDC are now calling for Atta Akyea to be removed from the vetting committee simply because he asks probing questions which make their nominees uncomfortable.
There is good measure in pushing for our economic development to be sustained by a value system. Social scientists make a compelling argument that religious habits are part of the complex mix that determines a country's economic health. Max Weber made that argument for capitalism some time back. He drew a link between the Protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism. So too Ghana can and should find a workable balance between the contribution of religious values and the relationship of freedom to economic development.
In recent times, researchers have found a stronger link between religion and development. This is despite the secularisation thesis that the more a country develops the more secular it gets – supported by the fact that churches are being turned into warehouses in the West and the other way round in Ghana. The United States is a very religious nation, yet its development has benefited from that culture. It is also argued that over the last 30 years, many East Asian countries, including Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, have experienced both rapid economic growth and the spread of Christianity.
Recently in the Journal of Monetary Economics, researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Sassari in Rome, published a paper that did not compare countries but looked at the relationship between religious beliefs and the attitudes shown to foster economic growth. “On average,” they wrote, “religious beliefs are associated with good economic attitudes, where good is defined as conducive to higher per capita income.”
Authors Robert Barro and Rachel McCleary in ‘Religion and Economic Growth’, found evidence, after analysing 59 countries, that the fear of hell is more potent for economic growth than the prospect of heaven. Their statistical analysis allows them to argue that these estimates reflect causal influences from religion to economic growth and not the reverse.
Barro and McCleary suggest that higher rates of religious beliefs stimulate growth because they help to sustain aspects of individual behaviour that enhance productivity. However, they believe that higher church attendance depresses growth because it signifies a greater use of resources by the religion sector. However, that suppression of growth is tempered by the extent to which church attendance leads to greater religious beliefs, which in turn encourages economic growth.
It is important that we ground our development agenda in the freedom of reason and individualism. We must, as a people, boldly defend and uphold the individual's right to his own life, his own liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness. For a nation’s life, liberty and happiness depends on that of its citizens.
The fundamental question that springs to mind is: How has Ghanaians’ religious nature impacted on the country’s development? And how would the Mills presidency’s claimed fetish about prayer camps help us quickly decamp from poverty to prosperity?
So my remaining question to President Mills is this: if we turn the whole of Ghana into a prayer camp, who shall feed us? Our donor partners?
You certainly wouldn’t want to be in Abu Mohammed’s crutches at the moment. The former NDC Vice Chairman for the then Abuakwa constituency and, since February 20, government appointee at the East Akyem Municipal Assembly, has recently attracted the kind of notoriety which may end up crippling his liberty. He’s been left caught between protecting his party’s integrity and protecting himself from prosecution.
It started with the parliamentary vetting session when Atta Akyea, the MP for Abuakwa South, questioned Fiifi Kwettey, nominee for Deputy Finance Minister and NDC Propaganda Secretary, about his campaign propaganda that Abu lost the use of his limbs as a result of Akufo-Addo’s violence. Subsequently Abu Mohammed was happy to accuse the MP for Abuakwa South of being a liar and insisted he was ‘crippled’ and made impotent as a result of an alleged December 8, 1996, beating he received “from Akufo-Addo’s thugs”.
Yet on his insurance claim he has official records (from both police and doctors) showing that his injured leg was the result of a road accident in 2005. Whether the insurance firm is yet to pay him or has already paid him, a criminal case can be made against the policyholder (or claimant) for making a fraudulent claim as it is on the record from Abu’s own mouth that he was ‘crippled’ not by the 2005 accident on which he based his insurance claims but by a 1996 incident which has only now come to light. On the basis of his own public utterances, Abu is now criminally liable for making a false insurance claim.
So the choice is straightforward, if not simple: Abu must choose between the political offence of saying his party lied to defame the 2008 NPP Presidential Candidate or the criminal offence of a fraudulent insurance claim. The latter carries the threat of some five years prison sentence.
***
Ghana Int. Prayer Camp
A front page story in the Friday, Nov 30, 2007 edition of the Public Agenda newspaper read as follows: the paper “has gathered that opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has established a prayer camp at the Osu Kuku Hill campaign office of Professor John Evans Atta Mills, where some prayer warriors converge to pray for the party's victory. The pastors and prayer warriors who meet every Friday not only pray for NDC victory in 2008, they spend a lot of time praying against some government policies in a bid to reclaim power.
“This reporter last Friday went to a nearby house to monitor the prayer session and heard the NDC's prayer warriors praying and shouting, ‘fire, fire, fire burn them, fire destroy them, fire confuse them, amid Amen, Amen, Amen’.”
The journalists, apparently, had been invited as a PR stunt to show voters how godly the NDC campaign was. What the reporters did not say, however, was to which group the prayer warriors were referring, in their holy request, when they screamed: “Fire! Fire! Fire burn them! Fire destroy them! Fire confuse them!”
It was reported last week that President Mills on Thursday reacted to criticisms that he has turned the Castle, the seat of government, into a ‘prayer camp’ saying, "I have no apologies and regrets to offer." To my mind this was a rather clever, deliberate attempt to befriend the 14-million strong Christian community. Prof Mills is cunningly positioning himself on the side of the Christian community and doing what one Nazi leader summed up as creating a common enemy when there is none, then exaggerating the threat of that enemy in days of actual difficulties and causing a diversion by mobilising the people ‘under siege’ to help you fight that enemy on the battlefield of escapism.
Yes, there are occasional comments in the mass media about T B Joshua’s visits to the Castle and other prayer sessions there. But these comments, whilst hinting at valid questions as to the relationship between our President and his religious advisers, stop short of criticism. And this is no surprise since those who criticise are in the opposition and so for them to criticise an apparently ‘Christian venture’ is to draw unwarranted allegations that the opposition is unchristian.
Prof Mills has calculated that the vast Christian community would find his ‘clean’ image attractive. But even ignoring the violent (and rather unchristian) chants of ‘Fire burn them! Fire destroy them! Fire confuse them!’, what is the substance to this piggy-backing on the coattails of Christianity? No observer would deny that the NDC made spiritualism (Pastors, Mallams, Antoa Nyama, and other ‘Ways & Means’) a vital part of their campaign structure. There was a team in charge of Christian prayers, Juju consultations, Moslem prayers, etc. Are we really expected to believe that Prof Mills was not aware of the ‘dark’ spirits that were consulted? The Mallams from Mali who reportedly moved to Accra for the campaign? And does he see no conflict between this and his holier-than-thou posture? I don’t doubt the sincerity of his Christian conviction. What I find worrying, however, is the apparent fact that he sees no inherent conflict between the two forces.
On the other hand, Akufo-Addo consciously did not make a fetish of his prayer warriors – in fact I can say for sure that he actively discouraged any attempts to consult jujus with a conviction and dismissiveness which some at the time found frustrating, instead stating: “My Christian spirit is against it.” The irony of life!
Fundamentally, we – and Prof Mills – should remember that on January 7 the Chief Justice swore in a political leader and not a spiritual leader.
Though our founding fathers were religious, it was not for nothing that Ghana was made a secular state with freedom of worship. Christianity (or religion) certainly has a major role to play in our development, just as the thoughts and ideas of the likes of Socrates, Aristophanes, Hume, Voltaire, Copernicus and Darwin and other religious schismatics and nonbelievers have contributed to the kind of West-inspired civilisation we are striving to emulate.
But Prof Mills cannot and should not attempt to hide administrative shortcomings behind the alter of religiosity. In any case, Prof Mills’ apparent determination to place God first in the affairs of his administration would not be manifested through an unrealistic wish that the whole of Ghana would be turned into a prayer camp. He should instead begin by making the lieutenants in his administration act in ways a reasonable Christian or Moslem may consider godly. Prof Mills should only be taken seriously on this matter if he is first able to get his followers to adhere to a vital Christian principle such as tolerance.
Two decades ago Andres Serrano put a plastic crucifix in a glass of urine, photographed it and called it art. This uretic gesture cost the US taxpayer over $15,000, when it was bought by the National Endowment for the Arts. Neither the Pope nor any other Christian leader pronounced a Fatwa on Serrano’s head. Yet the NDC are now calling for Atta Akyea to be removed from the vetting committee simply because he asks probing questions which make their nominees uncomfortable.
There is good measure in pushing for our economic development to be sustained by a value system. Social scientists make a compelling argument that religious habits are part of the complex mix that determines a country's economic health. Max Weber made that argument for capitalism some time back. He drew a link between the Protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism. So too Ghana can and should find a workable balance between the contribution of religious values and the relationship of freedom to economic development.
In recent times, researchers have found a stronger link between religion and development. This is despite the secularisation thesis that the more a country develops the more secular it gets – supported by the fact that churches are being turned into warehouses in the West and the other way round in Ghana. The United States is a very religious nation, yet its development has benefited from that culture. It is also argued that over the last 30 years, many East Asian countries, including Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, have experienced both rapid economic growth and the spread of Christianity.
Recently in the Journal of Monetary Economics, researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Sassari in Rome, published a paper that did not compare countries but looked at the relationship between religious beliefs and the attitudes shown to foster economic growth. “On average,” they wrote, “religious beliefs are associated with good economic attitudes, where good is defined as conducive to higher per capita income.”
Authors Robert Barro and Rachel McCleary in ‘Religion and Economic Growth’, found evidence, after analysing 59 countries, that the fear of hell is more potent for economic growth than the prospect of heaven. Their statistical analysis allows them to argue that these estimates reflect causal influences from religion to economic growth and not the reverse.
Barro and McCleary suggest that higher rates of religious beliefs stimulate growth because they help to sustain aspects of individual behaviour that enhance productivity. However, they believe that higher church attendance depresses growth because it signifies a greater use of resources by the religion sector. However, that suppression of growth is tempered by the extent to which church attendance leads to greater religious beliefs, which in turn encourages economic growth.
It is important that we ground our development agenda in the freedom of reason and individualism. We must, as a people, boldly defend and uphold the individual's right to his own life, his own liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness. For a nation’s life, liberty and happiness depends on that of its citizens.
The fundamental question that springs to mind is: How has Ghanaians’ religious nature impacted on the country’s development? And how would the Mills presidency’s claimed fetish about prayer camps help us quickly decamp from poverty to prosperity?
So my remaining question to President Mills is this: if we turn the whole of Ghana into a prayer camp, who shall feed us? Our donor partners?
A NATION WITH ISSUES, DEALING WITH A PRESIDENT’S INSECURITY
A NATION WITH ISSUES, DEALING WITH A PRESIDENT’S INSECURITY
ASARE OTCHERE-DARKO
President Mills’ statement on Tuesday to the Ghana Journalists Association that there is but one President brought one thought to mind: methinks he protesteth too much! His language was drafted and designed to reassure Ghanaians and satisfy the hawks around him that they have a President who will provide the strong, decisive leadership we so dearly need to steer us through these troubled times ahead. Was that really necessary?
The very fact that he felt the need to make such a statement raises warning flags, hinting at a deep-seated insecurity incompatible with effective leadership. Even his body language at the time appeared borrowed. Would Nkrumah have ever felt the need to tell us that there was but one President? Would Rawlings? Would Kufuor? When you think of great world leaders like Churchill, Thatcher or Roosevelt, can you imagine them bleating plaintively “Let no one mistake my respect for peaceful existence for weakness, timidity” as Mills’ did on Tuesday?
They say actions speak louder than words. In that case, one is left with a degree of sympathy for the man who, just mere months into his tenure as President, has to resort to telling us rather than showing us that he is master of our country, his government and his party. But who can blame him?
Having waited so long to be President, Prof Mills’ must be immensely disappointed to not have had the honeymoon he undoubtedly hoped for. But more than this, it is a worrying sign that Mills’ has already expended his political capital so early on in his tenure – a sign which bodes ill for the rest of his time in office. A leader depends on the goodwill and popularity which supposedly conveyed him to the top office in the land, but this tends to dissipate as his term goes on – hence the moniker of a political ‘honeymoon’ witnessed the world over and which Obama has recently been enjoying in the US.
So for this capital to already be thin on the ground so soon into Mills’ Presidency gives all Ghanaians hoping for strong, authoritative leadership cause for concern. And for a man clearly so consumed with ‘other’ Presidents, reflecting on Kufuor’s popularity in 2001 must be a bitter pill to swallow.
And yet the actions of past Presidents and Presidential candidates in 2009 have given him little reason for such insecurity. Nobody challenged the legitimacy of his election within the 21 days allowed by the constitution for such petitions. Kufuor has been virtually silent on the performance of his successor in office. And Nana Akufo-Addo has told the national media that he is giving Mills some time to settle in. Nevertheless, our President persists in fighting phantoms when there are very real monsters facing Ghanaians in the form of criminals, poverty and anxiety about our economic future.
Of course there is one past President whose shadow disturbs Prof Mills more than most. Perhaps the reinvigorated presence of a certain President past – J.J. Rawlings – is haunting Prof Mills more than he’d care to admit, and proving the real source of Mills’ insecurity. With Rawlings having attempted to steal the spotlight from his former protégée and openly criticised Mills’ decision to retain DCEs and the continuation of some NPP appointees in office, no wonder President Mills is left feeling that this particular ghost is not going to be satisfied with being relegated to times past, but instead envisages both a present and a future for himself. What about Mrs Rawlings going on a ‘thank you’ tour?
Unfortunately this particular ghost is not going to be vanquished quite so easily, and certainly not whilst Mills’ remains consumed by reassuring himself and us of his clout and authority. For whilst we are invited to speculate on where real power lies in our new government, Mills will not get the reassurance and comfort he so plainly desires.
The only remedy for such insecurity about one’s powerlessness is to stop navel gazing, take control and start taking action. Of course here lies the catch-22: without the confidence of those around you as well as self-belief, steering a decisive political path becomes a herculean task strewn with obstacles.
Though, the Mills statement was, in the words of Harruna Attah, a ‘who the cap fit’ kind, it is not difficult to see that his comments were directed towards the Opposition. His spokesperson and communications director were both quick to explain shortly after the Castle ‘teeth-baring’ that the President was referring to Nana Akufo-Addo’s rousing welcome-back-home reception at the airport on Sunday (Mar 15) and the Minority Members in Parliament who, on the following day, gave notice, ‘we would advise ourselves’ if the President persisted in not taking decisive action against the ‘harassment’ of NPP activists and sympathisers. But, why should the Akufo-Addo welcome and Minority concerns cause such a major presidential panic?
Nonetheless, for the sake of Ghana – and of course for Prof Mills’ own peace of mind – we can only hope that our President finds a way to show us and not just tell us that he both holds and (more importantly) deserves the title of leader of our nation.
THE AUTHOR IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE DANQUAH INSTITUTE
ASARE OTCHERE-DARKO
President Mills’ statement on Tuesday to the Ghana Journalists Association that there is but one President brought one thought to mind: methinks he protesteth too much! His language was drafted and designed to reassure Ghanaians and satisfy the hawks around him that they have a President who will provide the strong, decisive leadership we so dearly need to steer us through these troubled times ahead. Was that really necessary?
The very fact that he felt the need to make such a statement raises warning flags, hinting at a deep-seated insecurity incompatible with effective leadership. Even his body language at the time appeared borrowed. Would Nkrumah have ever felt the need to tell us that there was but one President? Would Rawlings? Would Kufuor? When you think of great world leaders like Churchill, Thatcher or Roosevelt, can you imagine them bleating plaintively “Let no one mistake my respect for peaceful existence for weakness, timidity” as Mills’ did on Tuesday?
They say actions speak louder than words. In that case, one is left with a degree of sympathy for the man who, just mere months into his tenure as President, has to resort to telling us rather than showing us that he is master of our country, his government and his party. But who can blame him?
Having waited so long to be President, Prof Mills’ must be immensely disappointed to not have had the honeymoon he undoubtedly hoped for. But more than this, it is a worrying sign that Mills’ has already expended his political capital so early on in his tenure – a sign which bodes ill for the rest of his time in office. A leader depends on the goodwill and popularity which supposedly conveyed him to the top office in the land, but this tends to dissipate as his term goes on – hence the moniker of a political ‘honeymoon’ witnessed the world over and which Obama has recently been enjoying in the US.
So for this capital to already be thin on the ground so soon into Mills’ Presidency gives all Ghanaians hoping for strong, authoritative leadership cause for concern. And for a man clearly so consumed with ‘other’ Presidents, reflecting on Kufuor’s popularity in 2001 must be a bitter pill to swallow.
And yet the actions of past Presidents and Presidential candidates in 2009 have given him little reason for such insecurity. Nobody challenged the legitimacy of his election within the 21 days allowed by the constitution for such petitions. Kufuor has been virtually silent on the performance of his successor in office. And Nana Akufo-Addo has told the national media that he is giving Mills some time to settle in. Nevertheless, our President persists in fighting phantoms when there are very real monsters facing Ghanaians in the form of criminals, poverty and anxiety about our economic future.
Of course there is one past President whose shadow disturbs Prof Mills more than most. Perhaps the reinvigorated presence of a certain President past – J.J. Rawlings – is haunting Prof Mills more than he’d care to admit, and proving the real source of Mills’ insecurity. With Rawlings having attempted to steal the spotlight from his former protégée and openly criticised Mills’ decision to retain DCEs and the continuation of some NPP appointees in office, no wonder President Mills is left feeling that this particular ghost is not going to be satisfied with being relegated to times past, but instead envisages both a present and a future for himself. What about Mrs Rawlings going on a ‘thank you’ tour?
Unfortunately this particular ghost is not going to be vanquished quite so easily, and certainly not whilst Mills’ remains consumed by reassuring himself and us of his clout and authority. For whilst we are invited to speculate on where real power lies in our new government, Mills will not get the reassurance and comfort he so plainly desires.
The only remedy for such insecurity about one’s powerlessness is to stop navel gazing, take control and start taking action. Of course here lies the catch-22: without the confidence of those around you as well as self-belief, steering a decisive political path becomes a herculean task strewn with obstacles.
Though, the Mills statement was, in the words of Harruna Attah, a ‘who the cap fit’ kind, it is not difficult to see that his comments were directed towards the Opposition. His spokesperson and communications director were both quick to explain shortly after the Castle ‘teeth-baring’ that the President was referring to Nana Akufo-Addo’s rousing welcome-back-home reception at the airport on Sunday (Mar 15) and the Minority Members in Parliament who, on the following day, gave notice, ‘we would advise ourselves’ if the President persisted in not taking decisive action against the ‘harassment’ of NPP activists and sympathisers. But, why should the Akufo-Addo welcome and Minority concerns cause such a major presidential panic?
Nonetheless, for the sake of Ghana – and of course for Prof Mills’ own peace of mind – we can only hope that our President finds a way to show us and not just tell us that he both holds and (more importantly) deserves the title of leader of our nation.
THE AUTHOR IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE DANQUAH INSTITUTE
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