The Hit List

By Kofi Akordor
The culture of political campaigning is almost the same everywhere. It is the time politicians make a lot of promises most of which are never fulfilled or were not meant to be fulfilled. It is also a period when various allegations are levelled against opponents to weaken them and reduce their chances of winning the elections.
It is almost an acceptable norm that governments in power are particularly criticised for bad performance and everything that goes with that – corruption, unemployment, nepotism, incompetence, maladministration and many others are amplified to the highest decibel.
It is also a normal practice for governments seeking re-election to extol their virtues if even the positive changes they are hammering on were restricted to the fortunes of top government officials, their relatives, friends and a few party loyalists.
There is also the fear theory. This is to create a scenario of fear and insecurity the electorate should expect under a particular administration. This theory is fuelled by threats of victimisation, loss of jobs and prestige, project denials, national chaos and instability and in extreme and desperate situations, death, should the electorate vote in a particular way That is the game of politics.
By some strange coincidence, Ghana shares electoral calendar with the United States of America. They both elect their presidents in the same year, except that the US holds its presidential elections in November, a month earlier than Ghana.
All the ingredients found in the political game featured in the US elections, from the primaries to pick the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates to the national to elect the next president of the US. There were the smears, mudslinging, trading of accusations and the throwing of the searchlight on George W. Bush’s administration which did not score high marks among most Americans.
They also had their fair share of the fear theory. Already waging two useless and senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans could not imagine how their world will be if they should vote for John MaCain, who had very little to separate him from the outgoing President George W. Bush.
Americans, of course, see politics as a serious business and not a battlefield to slaughter one another. The contestants made their promises but not in vain, knowing very well that the electorates are very sophisticated and will, therefore, hold them to their word at the appropriate time. They also do not just listen to promises; they question the capacity and capability of the person making the promise and how reliable that person was to fulfil them.
When the Americans finally settled on Barrack Obama, they might have done so for good reasons. They have a collapsed economy to rebuild. The global credit crunch took a heavy toll on the world’s biggest economy. America’s image as the world’s sole superpower had received a severe dent and its war-mongering posture had been condemned world-wide.
Many Americans may not want to see their children sent to war in Iran or North Korea and with George W. Bush’s war in Iraq and Afghanistan as a guide, chose Barrack Obama, a man who spoke against those wars. At least he represents a new image for America. He is relatively young and brilliant. He comes from a modest family and is of a mixed race (Black and White) and, therefore, fresh on the market.
At the time Barrack Obama was campaigning for the White House, we were also having our political campaigns here. We did everything the Americans did. But in all cases, we went into the extreme. We threw mud at each other freely. We were insulting and we said things about our opponents we knew very well were lies.
The government was loudest, saying very good things about itself, sometimes as if there was nothing good about this country until it came to power. We saw nothing good about previous administrations and we could not give credit for the good things we came to inherit.
The promises were in abundance and they were coming from all angles. Here, unlike America, we make promises with the hope that with time, the electorates will forget them. Thank God, there is a gradual awakening and governments cannot run away with empty promises.
There was also the fear or scare commodity. In 2000, it was widely rumoured that the National Democratic Congress (NDC), which was then in power was so enamoured with power that it might cause havoc if it should lose the elections. It, therefore, became a campaign strategy that in order to maintain the peace and stability of the nation, the then NDC presidential candidate, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, should be given the nod.
Of course, when people are fed up with a system, they are prepared to make sacrifices to effect a change. So the change came, notwithstanding threats of chaos and violence.
In 2008, the scaremongering came, albeit in a more vicious form. It started when Pastor Mensa Otabil, a popular motivational speaker and evangelist, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, another popular evangelist, Mrs Justice Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu, the judge who convicted Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, the former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) on June 18, 2008, and a few others, who claimed they had received death threats through text messages sent to them. And the message was that they would be eliminated should the NDC win the elections and come to power.
The issue even became more intriguing when the victims of the so-called threats claimed the messages were sent from an e-mail address bearing the name of former President J.J. Rawlings. Can you believe that anyone planning such a horrendous enterprise will not only leave a trail but virtually make a public announcement informing his would-be victims of his criminal intentions?
Those behind what I see as a gigantic scam chose Mrs Mensah-Bonsu because of the role she played in Tsatsu Tsikata’s conviction and which can make her a target of aggrieved supporters of Tsikata. The popular evangelists were chosen because they command large followings and their withdrawal of support for the NDC in solidarity with their leaders will constitute a big reduction in that party’s votes.
Soon the number on what became known as the Hit List started to swell to include more pastors and evangelists who have large following in the country, musicians, especially those who openly associated with Nana Akufo-Addo’s campaign, almost all the ministers in former President Kufuor’s government and New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentarians, media people, including those who spend all their time talking on the radio and television or writing scandalous things in the newspapers.
The list continued to grow and those who joined included people in business, intellectuals and other professional groups. Soon, it became fashionable for any person to wake up and declare publicly that he or she had received death threats via text message or phone call.
The scam operators became so unscientific or is it unreasonable that they continued to add more names, including those who could be described as nonentities until it became obvious that the hatchet men who are going to do the elimination will need expert advice from Rwanda, where the Hutu warriors succeeded in massacring over 900,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a 90-day killing orgy in 1994.
The fear theory failed because the longer the list, the more the deceit was exposed and the more the potency of the expected fear the hit list was to invoke among the people diluted.
Well, just as it happened in 2000, Ghanaians went to the polls for the second time on December 28, 2008 and it was like majority of them preferred to die than remain with a system they were tired and fed up with.
The change did come. All the pastors who claimed they had received death threats are going about freely doing their pastoral work and evangelising to those who care to listen to them. The media people are still talking and writing, some with greater vigour. The musicians are still pumping their sweet and inspirational songs into our system.
The business people, including some of the endangered species, have started sending congratulatory messages to President Mills. Some have even met the President in person at the Castle.
On Inauguration Day, almost all those on the hit list including the clergy, were at the Independence Square to witness the swearing-in of Professor John Evans Atta Mills as President of the Republic. Any lessons?
When we reflect over the events of December, 2008, we ponder to ask; where did the Hit List originate? Why did those so-called Men of God fail us miserably by not denouncing that dubious list which most of them knew very well could not be true? At what point did we lose our sanity to come up with a hit list that defies all logic? Should we be so hungry for political power that we can paint a heinous picture of our opponents as sadists, beasts, megalomaniacs and murderers and thereby create such panic and fear among the citizenry?
Those who underrate the power of the human mind and natural intelligence have a lot to learn from the story of the hit list. There are very simple and effective ways of drawing sympathy and convincing people to your side. You only have to look for them. You do not need to put the fear of the Lord in them to win their support. Thank God, we are alive, hit list or no hit list.


fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com