A plea from the cemetery

By Kofi Akordor

I watched Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama respond to questions from a respectable audience as part of their campaign to win the Democratic presidential nomination which is due in August 2008. Each candidate addressed issues of national interest, ranging from recession, health to the war in Iraq. They both tried to convince the American public why they felt qualified to occupy the White House next January. In all these, they were polite, civil and straight to the point. At the end of it all, Mrs Clinton and Obama went into a warm embrace which will be the envy of their spouses, amidst a thunderous ovation from the audience.
Then my mind turned to the home front and I knew why we are like this and they are like that. The picture became clearer — why we are marking time or drifting backwards while others are always marching forward — our understanding of politics.
Elsewhere, politics is a dream to offer service and change things for the better, while here it is an opportunity to run down perceived opponents or enemies and amass wealth at the expense of the progress of the state. That is why, when others are seriously addressing issues of how to tackle unemployment, provide health care for the people and bridge the yawning gap between the poor and the rich, we here dwell on trivialities and reduce the exercise to who is stronger or more handsome, who is taller or shorter or who is older and richer than the other.
Senator Obama is barely 42, with mixed parentage. His father is Kenyan and his mother an American. Even if he does not get the presidential nomination at the end of August, he has already entered the record books for being the first African-American to have stirred such massive excitement in American politics.
The truth is that Obama is the most sensational name in America today because of what he stands for — change and racial equality. He is a bridge between the younger generation and the old, a man who represents a new America which is not only seen as strong and a bully but an America which must play its father-figure role more responsibly and humanely.
Obama did not rise to this level in so short a time just playing on the emotions of the people, throwing words about irresponsibly and making promises he knew deep down his heart that he was incapable of fulfilling. For him to have received endorsements from public and renowned figures such as Senator Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential candidate, and Oprah Winfrey, the popular talk show hostess, means that Obama did not reach here by accident.
An enlightened and discerning public will not expect anything less from those who offer themselves to take care of their destiny and so you do not toy with them when you mount the political platform to address them.
Here at home, we do politics the crab style, with each candidate trying to bring down the other through fair or foul means. Serious issues are lost in the melee and gullible members of the public who should demand responsible politicking from those aspiring to lead them join the fray and add to the drama. At the end of the day, the country remains rudderless and its numerous problems remain unsolved.
Simply put, our politics is very dirty and primitive. We think we are more impressive when we heap insults on our opponents and tell lies about them. There is something called psychological warfare when we try to weaken our opponents with certain types of information which will deflate their ego and plant doubts of their own strengths in their minds. It is a good battle strategy to hammer on the weaknesses of the opponent while being silent on his strengths. But, in all things, there must be decorum and in trying to gain ground we do not tell outright lies or dwell on matters that have little or no relevance to the issues at stake.
Sometimes, in our desperation, we lose control and begin to see campaign for political office as a battle for survival in which anything is allowed. This is seen even within the same party during campaigns for executive offices and presidential and parliamentary nominations.
I quite remember during the recent election to pick the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) presidential candidate, all the aspirants, especially the two front-runners, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Mr Alan Kyerematen, received a lot of bashing from the supporters of the various candidates. All of them had their fair share of the insults and lies.
I was, therefore, surprised that those aspirants who just yesterday were saying Nana Akufo-Addo was not fit to lead the NPP to victory in the presidential election could suddenly see him as the best person with the strongest credentials that could defend the flag of the party and give credible and effective leadership to this country.
So Nana Akufo-Addo is no longer trying to establish a Kyebi dynasty in the party; he is no longer arrogant and his English accent is now tolerable and even an asset to the presidency. The question is, why should 16 people line up against one person if they knew he was the most suitable person under the circumstances to lead the party? Or why should it take their defeat at the polls to come to that realisation? How do we retract all those scandalous and slanderous words said about Nana Akufo-Addo during the campaign?
Some may argue that the sudden turn around by those now supporting Nana Akufo-Addo is a sign of unity in the party. That may be so, but to some of us that smacks of opportunism or downright hypocrisy. Soon, there will be posts to be shared and contracts to be awarded so everyone is suddenly one another’s keeper.
America is big enough with a lot of rich people to have over a million people vying for the presidency. But the big race is for only a few, for obvious reasons. The White House is not a theatre for concerts and beauty contests.
As for the internal bickering of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), sometimes igniting into violence, the less said about it, the better.
Apart from internal discipline and harmony which are important in building stable political parties, the parties owe it as an obligation to the electorate to address national issues in a fair and objective manner, devoid of insults, lies and mudslinging.
It is interesting that suddenly people are more interested in the health status of presidential candidates than the myriad of problems confronting this nation of ours.
The physical and mental health of every citizen is important. It even becomes very important to know the health status of someone who is aspiring for public office. It is not for nothing that employers demand to know the health status of new employees. This is because the state of mind and physical condition of the employee has a close relationship with his job performance.
Granted that we want our next President to be physically strong and mentally alert. But should the subject be turned into a kind of national joke? There have been several instances when people woke up hale and hearty, took breakfast with their families, shared lunch with friends but never returned home for dinner. That is the bitter truth of life — that we have very little control over sickness and death, no matter how hard we try.
It is, therefore, unfortunate when some people begin to sound as if they have entered into some kind of pact with sickness and its more dreadful and remorseless partners and can, therefore, afford to play games with these two.
First, we were told that Prof John Evans Atta Mills, the NDC presidential candidate, was in coma. Then, on Friday, February 1, 2008, news went round that the man was dead. And this story was on the Internet. Before that display of recklessness on the part of politicians and their collaborators in the media, several stories had gone round that Prof. Mills was too sick to run for the office of the President.
May be out of frustration and to play the game to the letter, news started filtering in that Nana Akufo-Addo, the NPP presidential candidate, was being treated for HIV/AIDS. Who can claim absolute health and who can claim immortality? Can we not start to focus on serious national development challenges confronting us and stop this cheap and primitive game?
Fifty years after our political independence, a lot of our children do not have decent classrooms conducive for teaching and learning. Many more squat on the bare floor for their lessons. Others simply do not have any educational facility at all. So right from the word go, their fate and that of their children have been defined as hewers of wood and drawers of water.
Our health facilities, where they exist, are a far cry from the conditions they are supposed to be. If you doubt it, go to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, the nation’s biggest and best hospital, to visit a relative who is an accident victim. The Korle-Bu situation will give you a fair picture of what to expect as you descend the health facility ladder until you get to the point where there is nothing for people in the rural areas.
Our school dormitories are choked to the extent that there is very little difference between them and police or prison cells. Our roads are still not the best and potable water is a luxury for many communities.
Fifty years on, our independent status is seen only in terms of the national pledge, the national flag and the anthem. We are importing everything, from toothpicks to discarded junk. When we reflect and cast our eyes over the horizon and see the strides those who were in the same trench with us at independence have made, we will begin to realise that we have greater issues to confront than who is sick and who is not.
We are importing vehicles from Malaysia, China, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea and Iran, all the so-called Third World countries, and we think this is less worrying than to dwell on one person’s health status? Almost all the traffic lights in Accra, our national capital, are not working and we do not find it strange and disturbing?
We should be more interested in knowing how come people who could not afford to buy wheelbarrows could buy a fleet of vehicles months after entering political office. We should be more interested in knowing why so much is spent on projects which are neither completed nor executed well. The issue of corruption in high places is real and that should engage our attention at all times.
We should begin to hold our politicians and other public officials more accountable. We should be engaging them in fruitful debates. Given the resources Nature has bestowed on us, this country should not be like this, 50 years after the colonialists left. That is the challenge confronting us and those who offer themselves to serve us must assure us that they are capable and equal to the task. That is a better battle the media can wage on behalf of the people of this country, not whether a presidential candidate’s dentures have fallen or not.
Prof Mills has said it already — those who want him dead should wait for his death before proclaiming it to the world. That was the man talking from South Africa at the time the news was on air that he was dead. Maybe it was his ghost talking to us from the cemetery. But it is a humble plea that should be seriously addressed by all those who want to see this country move from the begging syndrome to become a confident and proud developing one.