our roads (feat)
Our roads, our graveyard
By Kofi Akordor
IT had always been an exciting experience when family members accompanied a relative who was travelling to the lorry station to board a vehicle to his/her destination. The children among the relatives did not fail to remind the person embarking on the journey not to forget to buy them something special upon his/her return. With great enthusiasm and joy, relatives waved the departing family member who also waved back, all with high expectations that they would soon meet again.
The welcome party was conducted in similar manner and family members gathered around the traveller to listen to his/her tales of the journey. The children were showered with gifts, which included food items, candies and toys while the adults might be lucky with items like shoes, trinkets and pieces of cloth, especially if the just-returned was a trader and had gone on a business trip in a neighbouring country.
Those days are receding fast. The great expectation that welcomes news of a trip is gradually giving way to fear and apprehension, especially if the route is known for its numerous accidents. These days, it is common knowledge that even before you reach home, the relative you had just seen off might have been dead, torn into pieces through an accident. Sometimes, a husband may call informing his wife to start preparing some fufu and palm-nut soup containing all the meat and fish that can easily qualify that soup as zoo nkwan.
Can you find the right words to describe the state of the woman if she was told a few minutes later that the husband will not taste that specially prepared soup again, because he had perished in an accident a few kilometres from home? Can you imagine the mental turmoil of children who were driven to school in the morning by their father when told that they would not see their father again because of something called accident? What about business partners who spent the whole day with the man on some projects, ending with the assurance to continue with the uncompleted job next time?
Travelling has become so dangerous and unpredictable that until you hear from a friend or a relative at the end, you cannot tell what is happening. It appears the more the auto makers improve upon their vehicles and the more governments invest in good roads, the more accidents we record on the roads. What could be the cause of this phenomenon that defies logic?
There are many factors that account for road accidents. The common ones include: The nature of the road, the condition of the vehicle, the disposition and competence of the driver and the role of other road users. Other road users may include drivers of other vehicles and pedestrians. It has, however, been established that of all the factors, the human element contributes to a greater percentage of road accidents. It is obvious that even if a road is not good, it is up to the driver to exercise caution. It is for the driver to observe all traffic regulations and to be alert for any carelessness on the part of other road users.
It is for the driver as a human being to do certain basic checks on his/her vehicle before setting off on a journey. Unfortunately, apart from negligence, the human error can be influenced by anger, excitement, tiredness, drunkenness, sickness, recklessness, carelessness and incompetence.
In all cases, a lot of bad situations could be avoided if only all the players will do a little bit of serious and honest work. If at the point of issuing a driving licence, the officer at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) office will do a diligent work, an unqualified mentally unstable person will not be certified to drive on the roads. If the inspector at the DVLA will do an honest work, a vehicle that is not roadworthy will not find its way on the roads. If the police officer who is to countercheck the work of the DVLA officer will perform his duties well, the vehicle that escaped the eagle eyes of the DVLA officer, or which was fraudulently passed by the DVLA officer, would have been removed from the road.
Granted that everything was well at the DVLA offices and the driver duly qualified for his licence and his vehicle met the full roadworthiness test, then the comportment of the driver on the road becomes the determining factor.
The truth is that 50 years after independence, most of our drivers, especially those who drive commercial vehicles, are with little or no formal education. Their appreciation of road conditions are, therefore, suspect. Most cannot read road signs and their understanding of certain situations on the road is very limited.
Sometimes one would expect that where literacy is limited, at least the natural sense that every human being is endowed with will prevail. But most of the time, that is not so. So they speed when they know their vehicle is not in good condition, or the road is rough, full of potholes. They overtake when they see a column of vehicles ahead or when they are in a curve.
When alcohol is involved, then the difference between the poor illiterate driver and the professor is not too clear. The only difference is that one may know his or her limit, while the other may not know when to knock off. But the fact that most fatal accidents involve commercial drivers is tempting enough for one to conclude that there is some kind of correlation between education and driver behaviour.
The Valentine weekend was a very bad one for many families because of some fatal accidents recorded. The most horrific one was the accident at Kadia near Diare on the Tamale-Bolgatanga road on Sunday, February 15, 2009. That accident claimed 35 lives.
Another accident that occurred earlier on Saturday, February 14, 2009 on the Walewale-Kumasi road claimed 28 lives. In both cases, there was evidence of human error.
The first accident involved four vehicles — a Benz bus, a Neoplan bus, a Blue Bird bus and an articulated truck. The driver of the Benz bus attempted to overtake the Neoplan and came head-on with the articulated truck in the process. In the confusion, the four vehicles got entangled resulting in the death of the 35 passengers.
In the second, one of the vehicles, a Benz bus, veered off its lane and crashed into a DAF bus. According to an official of the National Road Safety Commission, the driver of the Benz bus might have dosed off. So this was an accident that could have been avoided if the driver had responded appropriately when the signs of fatigue manifested themselves. That confirms the human error that was identified in the two accidents.
In any case, the accident rate in the country is alarming and it does not show any sign of improving. Hardly a day passes without an accident involving deaths being reported in any part of the country.
Incidentally, most of the fatal accidents are recorded on roads that could not be described as bad. That takes us back to the human element. It seems we have undervalued driving, reducing it to a mere mechanical function. That is why anybody who can go through the motion of moving a vehicle and manipulating the steering wheel is a driver.
The carnage on the roads demands that something serious is done about safety of road transportation in the country. According to the National Road Safety Commission, accidents rank ninth in cause of deaths in the country and cost the nation approximately US$165 million annually, which is about 1.6 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The cost relates to medical cost, damage to property, administrative cost and lost in productivity.
The greatest cost, however, lies in the emotional and psychological pain accidents inflict on children, parents, relatives and friends.
Road safety campaigns are good, but very often the message does not reach the main target group, that is commercial drivers, because of communication gap.
As stated earlier, most of these drivers lack formal education and, therefore, pay very little attention to educational programmes on the radio, television and in the newspapers.
We, therefore, need to start from the beginning — the point of certifying people as qualified to drive. The DVLA itself has made it clear that it intends to make basic formal education as a minimum requirement. It has also decided to make formal training in driving schools as a requirement for obtaining a driving licence. These are good declarations and we wait to see how the DVLA can effect its own policies. Members of the public are sceptical about the DVLA’s ability to carry out this agenda, because some staff of the DVLA, as it is well known, have a hand in most of the unqualified drivers who are plying the roads.
The next is to be serious with the vehicle testing regime. There are people who will confess that their vehicles were never seen by officials of the DVLA who passed them for roadworthy after paying an illegal fee. That means we need to weed out corruption from the transportation sector if we are to get close to improving road transportation in the country.
Personnel of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service cannot escape mention. We know they are seriously handicapped in terms of human resources and logistics to do better on the roads than they are doing now. Notwithstanding their limitations, it is common knowledge that very often they turn a blind eye to infractions by drivers once the right ‘documents’ are presented.
We as drivers must know that a vehicle is a good servant but a bad master. That is why once we sit behind the steering wheel, we must realise that lives are at stake and, therefore, we must exercise due caution and diligence on the road.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A tale of courtesy calls
By Kofi Akordor
Every season has its peculiarities. Election 2008, with its suspense, fear and anxiety, is over. So soon, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, who just yesterday had been pronounced dead while in far away South Africa, the man who was sighted in a prayer camp in Nigeria looking for God's intervention in his presidential bid, the man some of whose own political party members declared could not go through a vigorous and rigorous political campaign because of his so-called failing health, the man whose victory was to spell the death of some people on a hit list, has suddenly become the centre of attraction.
Since his inauguration on January 7, 2009, the length of the queue on his corridors is not seeing any sign of reduction, with all manner of individuals and groups making a daily journey to the Castle to congratulate the President and the Vice-President on their new positions as the two most powerful men in the country and to wish them well in their new endeavours.
Every new arrival at the Castle means a new set of demands and expectations that the President should factor in his policies and programmes. The visitors vary from business people, trade unionists, religious bodies, traditional rulers to foreign diplomats. Everyone wants to be seen and recognised.
The visits are necessary because this is the right time to express one's allegiance to the new ‘king’ and to erase any doubts about one's loyalty, especially as it could be recognised that during the electioneering many things were said and done by people who behaved as if they could predict the future. The visits also serve as a morale booster for the President who has suddenly, against all odds, found himself as the leader of over 22 million Ghanaians whose fate he holds in his simple hands.
Even customary practice provides for courtesy calls, especially when there are very important matters that need to be heard by the chief himself.
But should there not be a limit?
There is no record of a national survey to seek the opinion of Ghanaians on their impression about these courtesy calls on our heads of state but if the opinions of a few persons sought by the Daily Graphic on the subject (Daily Graphic: Monday, February 9, 2009) can serve as a barometer, then the State Protocol people have to do a serious appraisal and conduct these courtesy calls in a more business-like and serious manner.
Receiving guests and listening to them are part of the functions of the presidency and we cannot run away from that. But there is need for selectivity based on importance and alternatives, otherwise our President will spend the whole day receiving courtesy calls, with little or no time left for any serious work.
According to an official of the State Protocol, what was read or seen by the public was just a tip of the iceberg because there were many other calls which did not come to public knowledge. He explained further that the new President received, on the average, visits from five groups daily between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. That is virtually the end of the active part of the day.
This is a new government which is working to consolidate its grip on the machinery of state authority and the President needs more time and concentration to 'hit the ground running', as President Mills himself put it. There are handing-over notes to study, new ministerial appointments to make, preparation of the 2009 budget for presentation to Parliament and numerous state duties to perform to stabilise the affairs of state. These cannot be done if the President and his lieutenants have to spend the whole day receiving guests who only go to congratulate the President and wish him well.
These courtesy calls are not going to be restricted to the early days of the presidency. As has become the pattern, they are going to run through his tenure, and that is why it is proper that they are made to conform to certain standards so that the President is not seen to be selective in the choice of those to receive and those not to.
There are enough government institutions in the system that can handle most of the things brought to the doorstep of the President. For instance, it should be possible for the district chief executives and regional ministers to receive messages announcing the death of certain chiefs, instead of delegations travelling all the way to the Castle in Accra to take the President off his duties for hours because of a simple message.
The ministries can also take a lot of the burden off the shoulders of the presidency if the State Protocol will arrange that as much as possible only certain delegations can visit the Castle.
The tendency for people or groups to believe that their cases can only receive serious attention when they present them to the President directly may have been informed by experience. It is time to give the concept of decentralisation true meaning by ceding some executive powers to the districts and regions so that people can feel confident to deal with their immediate authorities, instead of going as far as to the top of the executive ladder.
By all means one should not expect the President to detach himself from the people by locking himself up in the dungeons of the Castle poring over documents day in day out. He needs to have a feel of the people occasionally and listen to them directly. But this should be regulated so that the exercise of visiting the Castle to meet the President does not lose its lustre and significance.
We have, over the years, entangled ourselves with the culture of meetings, workshops and seminars, leaving very little time for thinking and acting. The presidency should be saved from those trappings and the first step is to curtail the courtesy calls
Every season has its peculiarities. Election 2008, with its suspense, fear and anxiety, is over. So soon, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, who just yesterday had been pronounced dead while in far away South Africa, the man who was sighted in a prayer camp in Nigeria looking for God's intervention in his presidential bid, the man some of whose own political party members declared could not go through a vigorous and rigorous political campaign because of his so-called failing health, the man whose victory was to spell the death of some people on a hit list, has suddenly become the centre of attraction.
Since his inauguration on January 7, 2009, the length of the queue on his corridors is not seeing any sign of reduction, with all manner of individuals and groups making a daily journey to the Castle to congratulate the President and the Vice-President on their new positions as the two most powerful men in the country and to wish them well in their new endeavours.
Every new arrival at the Castle means a new set of demands and expectations that the President should factor in his policies and programmes. The visitors vary from business people, trade unionists, religious bodies, traditional rulers to foreign diplomats. Everyone wants to be seen and recognised.
The visits are necessary because this is the right time to express one's allegiance to the new ‘king’ and to erase any doubts about one's loyalty, especially as it could be recognised that during the electioneering many things were said and done by people who behaved as if they could predict the future. The visits also serve as a morale booster for the President who has suddenly, against all odds, found himself as the leader of over 22 million Ghanaians whose fate he holds in his simple hands.
Even customary practice provides for courtesy calls, especially when there are very important matters that need to be heard by the chief himself.
But should there not be a limit?
There is no record of a national survey to seek the opinion of Ghanaians on their impression about these courtesy calls on our heads of state but if the opinions of a few persons sought by the Daily Graphic on the subject (Daily Graphic: Monday, February 9, 2009) can serve as a barometer, then the State Protocol people have to do a serious appraisal and conduct these courtesy calls in a more business-like and serious manner.
Receiving guests and listening to them are part of the functions of the presidency and we cannot run away from that. But there is need for selectivity based on importance and alternatives, otherwise our President will spend the whole day receiving courtesy calls, with little or no time left for any serious work.
According to an official of the State Protocol, what was read or seen by the public was just a tip of the iceberg because there were many other calls which did not come to public knowledge. He explained further that the new President received, on the average, visits from five groups daily between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. That is virtually the end of the active part of the day.
This is a new government which is working to consolidate its grip on the machinery of state authority and the President needs more time and concentration to 'hit the ground running', as President Mills himself put it. There are handing-over notes to study, new ministerial appointments to make, preparation of the 2009 budget for presentation to Parliament and numerous state duties to perform to stabilise the affairs of state. These cannot be done if the President and his lieutenants have to spend the whole day receiving guests who only go to congratulate the President and wish him well.
These courtesy calls are not going to be restricted to the early days of the presidency. As has become the pattern, they are going to run through his tenure, and that is why it is proper that they are made to conform to certain standards so that the President is not seen to be selective in the choice of those to receive and those not to.
There are enough government institutions in the system that can handle most of the things brought to the doorstep of the President. For instance, it should be possible for the district chief executives and regional ministers to receive messages announcing the death of certain chiefs, instead of delegations travelling all the way to the Castle in Accra to take the President off his duties for hours because of a simple message.
The ministries can also take a lot of the burden off the shoulders of the presidency if the State Protocol will arrange that as much as possible only certain delegations can visit the Castle.
The tendency for people or groups to believe that their cases can only receive serious attention when they present them to the President directly may have been informed by experience. It is time to give the concept of decentralisation true meaning by ceding some executive powers to the districts and regions so that people can feel confident to deal with their immediate authorities, instead of going as far as to the top of the executive ladder.
By all means one should not expect the President to detach himself from the people by locking himself up in the dungeons of the Castle poring over documents day in day out. He needs to have a feel of the people occasionally and listen to them directly. But this should be regulated so that the exercise of visiting the Castle to meet the President does not lose its lustre and significance.
We have, over the years, entangled ourselves with the culture of meetings, workshops and seminars, leaving very little time for thinking and acting. The presidency should be saved from those trappings and the first step is to curtail the courtesy calls
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Debates that lead no where
By Kofi Akordor
Some time ago someone wanted to draw the whole nation into a bout of fruitless debate. His argument was that Accra was no longer suitable as the national capital because of several problems, including congestion, poor amenities such as accommodation, good roads and poor sanitation. His solution was that the capital should be relocated at a place called Kintampo, which is in the Brong Ahafo Region, a place, according to him, which is more centrally situated.
It is true that Accra is congested, ill-planned and gradually being swallowed up by garbage. But relocating the capital may not offer the best solution. It may only amount to creating another jungle in the middle belt with time, since Accra’s woes will eventually visit the new capital if the culture of discipline, good planning and sanitation practices remains an illusion in our wildest dreams.
Thankfully, that debate fizzled out, even though echoes of it kept reverberating at respectable intervals. That is why I know it will take centre stage sooner than later, since, as a people, we prefer solving problems by creating more problems, instead of confronting the real issues head on.
There was a group which continued to advocate the changing of the name of the national football team, the Black Stars, because, according to that group, the misfortunes of the team were directly linked to the name. When the senior national team was the monarch of football on the continent in the 1960s and 70s, it was bearing the name the Black Stars. It was a name every Ghanaian was proud of because the Black Stars were the team to beat on the continent. When our football started to slide, some thought the solution lay in a change of name, instead addressing the real issues.
Debates will never end and we are currently confronted with another big one, that is, the one on the presidential pension awards. This is a continent where people enter political office empty-handed and return home heavily-laden. But, since there are still honest and honourable persons around, we, as a people, have to do the right thing by ensuring a comfortable retirement for our public officers.
It is just reasonable that a former president is given three vehicles — two for his personal use and one for his household. Any time any of our former presidents is traveling outside, it is only fair that officials at State Protocol are informed and the right thing is done. In the same way, should any of the former presidents receive foreign guests, State Protocol will be called in to handle accommodation, feeding, movement and all the necessary arrangements so that as a nation we do not lose face.
Medical care and personal security are basic things that should be enjoyed by every former head of state who remains a state asset that must be protected. Their pension should be reviewed periodically as pertains to other public pensioners. In order to avoid these facilities and services being provided at the whim and caprices of some politician filled with over-bloated ego and self-esteem, they should be documented and captured in our Constitution.
We have enough honourable and noble men and women in this country to have done this exercise for us without creating the problems that have generated another bout of debate in the country. It is strange that some people could still find justification for giving a former president six brand new vehicles, with one to be heavily armoured.
It is strange because even the palace the president is going to occupy during his tenure was built with borrowed funds. It means as a sovereign nation we are incapable of building a palace for our own president.
It is strange because after 50 years of independence, a lot of our children still squat on the bare floor to take their lessons. A lot of them stare into empty space the whole day because there are no teachers to take them through their daily lessons.
It is ridiculous because a lot of our hospitals, including the major ones, are partly transit camps and partly graveyards because they lack basic facilities and equipment that can save lives at critical times. Granted that the committee members are oblivious of the real conditions of our people in the country, they could have taken themselves out of their comfortable homes and visit a few places in the Accra-Tema metropolitan area and they would have realised that we are engulfed in a massive pool of poverty and misery. May be they have not suffered any frustration before, otherwise they would have understood the discomfort of drivers in Accra who have to battle it out at traffic intersections where traffic lights do not work on a regular basis.
If Accra is not good, then where is the paradise the former presidents have created on this small part of planet Earth to have deserved such a parting gift?
By the way, what is the toil that these people have gone through to attract all these concerns? Is it because they do not pay for anything, not even for sachet water while in office? Is it because they have access to every state property, including vintage land to dispose of as they please to themselves and their friends, relatives and cronies? Is it because they award contracts that are never executed but for which the state has paid huge sums of money? Or is it because when they are passing, the rest of us must give way and allow them and their wailing sirens to pass first? Somebody should tell me what are those sacrifices made that must be compensated for so lavishly.
By the way, which of our presidents or former presidents were dragged from the comfort of their homes and forced to slave for our comfort? Not too long ago, this nation witnessed 17 people from one party alone falling over one another to become the president of this country. Not even the hefty registration fee of GH¢25,000 could discourage them. Were they driven by the motivation to address the sufferings of the vast majority of the people or personal glory and aggrandisement?
We saw how money was splashed all over the place during Election 2008 and no one dares, not even the Electoral Commission, which is empowered by the Political Parties Law, to question the sources of those funds for the campaign.
So why should our former presidents and ministers be sent home like martyrs in that pomp and filthy pageantry?
If a fraction of the time used to think about the comfort of a few people could be used to think about the numerous frustrated and jobless youth of this country; if we could use a little of that time to worry about the congestion, desperation and pain in our health facilities; if we could spare a little thought about an educational system which is not bringing anything good out of our children; if we could think of how to remove the stigma of a beggar nation from this country, we would have done something generations will remember us about.
For now, we have only succeeded in making those who played a big role in our impoverishment, who contributed to the pillage and rape of this country and who amassed filthy wealth in the process to go home smiling all the way, while the rest of us place our hope on the shoulders of a new set of politicians.
The question is, where is the sacrifice?
Some time ago someone wanted to draw the whole nation into a bout of fruitless debate. His argument was that Accra was no longer suitable as the national capital because of several problems, including congestion, poor amenities such as accommodation, good roads and poor sanitation. His solution was that the capital should be relocated at a place called Kintampo, which is in the Brong Ahafo Region, a place, according to him, which is more centrally situated.
It is true that Accra is congested, ill-planned and gradually being swallowed up by garbage. But relocating the capital may not offer the best solution. It may only amount to creating another jungle in the middle belt with time, since Accra’s woes will eventually visit the new capital if the culture of discipline, good planning and sanitation practices remains an illusion in our wildest dreams.
Thankfully, that debate fizzled out, even though echoes of it kept reverberating at respectable intervals. That is why I know it will take centre stage sooner than later, since, as a people, we prefer solving problems by creating more problems, instead of confronting the real issues head on.
There was a group which continued to advocate the changing of the name of the national football team, the Black Stars, because, according to that group, the misfortunes of the team were directly linked to the name. When the senior national team was the monarch of football on the continent in the 1960s and 70s, it was bearing the name the Black Stars. It was a name every Ghanaian was proud of because the Black Stars were the team to beat on the continent. When our football started to slide, some thought the solution lay in a change of name, instead addressing the real issues.
Debates will never end and we are currently confronted with another big one, that is, the one on the presidential pension awards. This is a continent where people enter political office empty-handed and return home heavily-laden. But, since there are still honest and honourable persons around, we, as a people, have to do the right thing by ensuring a comfortable retirement for our public officers.
It is just reasonable that a former president is given three vehicles — two for his personal use and one for his household. Any time any of our former presidents is traveling outside, it is only fair that officials at State Protocol are informed and the right thing is done. In the same way, should any of the former presidents receive foreign guests, State Protocol will be called in to handle accommodation, feeding, movement and all the necessary arrangements so that as a nation we do not lose face.
Medical care and personal security are basic things that should be enjoyed by every former head of state who remains a state asset that must be protected. Their pension should be reviewed periodically as pertains to other public pensioners. In order to avoid these facilities and services being provided at the whim and caprices of some politician filled with over-bloated ego and self-esteem, they should be documented and captured in our Constitution.
We have enough honourable and noble men and women in this country to have done this exercise for us without creating the problems that have generated another bout of debate in the country. It is strange that some people could still find justification for giving a former president six brand new vehicles, with one to be heavily armoured.
It is strange because even the palace the president is going to occupy during his tenure was built with borrowed funds. It means as a sovereign nation we are incapable of building a palace for our own president.
It is strange because after 50 years of independence, a lot of our children still squat on the bare floor to take their lessons. A lot of them stare into empty space the whole day because there are no teachers to take them through their daily lessons.
It is ridiculous because a lot of our hospitals, including the major ones, are partly transit camps and partly graveyards because they lack basic facilities and equipment that can save lives at critical times. Granted that the committee members are oblivious of the real conditions of our people in the country, they could have taken themselves out of their comfortable homes and visit a few places in the Accra-Tema metropolitan area and they would have realised that we are engulfed in a massive pool of poverty and misery. May be they have not suffered any frustration before, otherwise they would have understood the discomfort of drivers in Accra who have to battle it out at traffic intersections where traffic lights do not work on a regular basis.
If Accra is not good, then where is the paradise the former presidents have created on this small part of planet Earth to have deserved such a parting gift?
By the way, what is the toil that these people have gone through to attract all these concerns? Is it because they do not pay for anything, not even for sachet water while in office? Is it because they have access to every state property, including vintage land to dispose of as they please to themselves and their friends, relatives and cronies? Is it because they award contracts that are never executed but for which the state has paid huge sums of money? Or is it because when they are passing, the rest of us must give way and allow them and their wailing sirens to pass first? Somebody should tell me what are those sacrifices made that must be compensated for so lavishly.
By the way, which of our presidents or former presidents were dragged from the comfort of their homes and forced to slave for our comfort? Not too long ago, this nation witnessed 17 people from one party alone falling over one another to become the president of this country. Not even the hefty registration fee of GH¢25,000 could discourage them. Were they driven by the motivation to address the sufferings of the vast majority of the people or personal glory and aggrandisement?
We saw how money was splashed all over the place during Election 2008 and no one dares, not even the Electoral Commission, which is empowered by the Political Parties Law, to question the sources of those funds for the campaign.
So why should our former presidents and ministers be sent home like martyrs in that pomp and filthy pageantry?
If a fraction of the time used to think about the comfort of a few people could be used to think about the numerous frustrated and jobless youth of this country; if we could use a little of that time to worry about the congestion, desperation and pain in our health facilities; if we could spare a little thought about an educational system which is not bringing anything good out of our children; if we could think of how to remove the stigma of a beggar nation from this country, we would have done something generations will remember us about.
For now, we have only succeeded in making those who played a big role in our impoverishment, who contributed to the pillage and rape of this country and who amassed filthy wealth in the process to go home smiling all the way, while the rest of us place our hope on the shoulders of a new set of politicians.
The question is, where is the sacrifice?
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Honour in defeat
February 4,2009
By Kofi Akordor
The agony of defeat needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated. But in all things, it is a very miserable one. So excruciating is the pain that to soothe it, people always resort to explanations that end up accusing others.
After a typical football match, the defeated team will leave the stadium cursing the match officials for biased officiating. Some will blame the quality of the pitch. Others will put the defeat on the shoulders of hostile spectators or the weather.
What defeated teams never do is to take close look at themselves, for that reason they will never give credit to their opponents for superior display of skills and their ability to exploit chances to advantage.
They will not admit that they played below form, took things for granted and played to the cheers of the crowd most of the time instead of scoring the vital goals that will give them victory.
For such teams, they are more likely to make defeat bedfellows, since they will never make self-assessment and work on their weaknesses and formulate better strategies to confront their opponents in future assignments.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is still nursing its wounds and trying hard to locate where to place the blame. The defeat in Election 2008 was a painful one, it must be admitted, but the search for scapegoats is becoming too much.
At the national level, supporters are blaming the national executive and the campaign team for not doing enough, when enough means what? The NPP Election 2008 campaign cannot find its equal in the country’s political history in terms of resources ploughed into the field, the intensity and extensiveness of the campaign and the exploitation of incumbency to the fullest.
Apart from the rallies that witnessed tens of thousands of people attending, there were the live concert shows, beach jams and radio and television adverts that supplemented adverts in almost all the newspapers.
The billboards in various sizes are still where they were, dominating the highways, city streets and roundabouts with Nana Akufo-Addo’s presidential face with its infectious smile beckoning every Ghanaian to give him the nod so that he can move this country forward. “The best man for Ghana”, is a bold statement, pairing a catchy slogan: “One Touch” on all the billboards, banners and posters.
The musicians, both secular and gospel, and the concert party people were not left out of the bandwagon. It was like the whole country was on a journey to a dreamland, where milk and honey were flowing in copious abundance.
There was no doubt about the results of the December 7, 2008 election. In the estimation and minds of many, it was going to be a day when Ghanaians would finally endorse Nana Akufo-Addo officially and complete the coronation process started at the NPP congress of December, 2007 held at the University of Ghana, to elect a presidential candidate for the party.
The presidential candidate went as far as touring some West African countries campaigning in international arena to espouse his foreign policy, more like a head of state interacting with his counterparts in the sub-region. He also addressed Ghanaians in some foreign lands in the US and Europe to sell himself and his party for Election 2008. So what more was expected from Nana Akufo-Addo and his campaign team?
At the regional level, constituency executives are venting their spleen on the regional executive, while at the constituency level; it is the ward chairmen and polling station chairmen who betrayed the party.
Perhaps, the party needs to take a closer look at its campaign message. Campaigning on the wings of continuity comes with its problems. For all you know, the saying that, “All that glitters is not gold”, has some relevance here. All that were being touted as major achievements of Kufuor’s government that the NPP was so proud of continuing, did not register with the majority of the people. It could also be that while looking at its achievements, and making a lot of noise about them, the NPP failed to take cognisance of its deficiencies captured in the mood of the people.
The apparent over confident posture of the presidential candidate, and the perception that he had not experienced suffering before and that he was in for the presidency for the sake of the rest of us poor people might not have endeared him to many people.
He was heard several times saying at every opportunity that he had not credited yor ke gari before and that he is a successful and famous lawyer. In an environment choked with very, very poor people, one does not score high marks boasting about wealth that may not necessarily have for its origins, hard work, honesty and selflessness. It is good politicians take note of some of these things in our next endeavours in the political arena. Sometimes it pays to be humble.
Notwithstanding their complaints and reservations, the rather antagonistic stance the party adopted towards the people of the Volta Region cannot be downplayed because of the dangerous forebodings it has for the unity and cohesion of this country.
The national executive, apparently to address the concerns of the rank and file, saw a good scapegoat among the people of the Volta Region. Their solace is that but for the people of the Volta Region, who were at their animalistic best, the NPP would have won the election.
It was only in the Volta Region that NPP’s hundreds of thousands of supporters were prevented from voting. It was only in the Volta Region that their polling station agents were intimidated, harassed, beaten and, in what turned out to be the most outrageous of all claims, murdered.
It is strange how the NPP should anchor their hope of victory in Election 2008 on the support they expected from the Volta Region. And here a few truths, albeit harsh, need to be confronted. This is a region that for eight years did not seem to be part of this unitary country called Ghana. For its record in the military and the police service, Volta Region was the only region in Ghana for eight years that did not have any officer qualified enough to hold any command position in the security services.
Those who care may kindly tell readers how many officers from that region in the military commanded any of the services or units of the Ghana Armed Forces or held any command position in the Ghana Police Service over the last eight years.
They should tell us how many of them headed any of the state public institutions or even served on their boards.
The absence of people from the Volta Region in former Kufuor’s cabinet was explained that Members of Parliament from the region were not on the Majority side. What about the positions of deputy ministers? What about the hundreds, if not thousands, of qualified and competent professionals the Volta Region has produced? Could their talents not have been exploited to the glory of this country?
A few of them were in the news though. That was when they were being escorted to serve prison sentences or when they were lucky to be granted presidential pardon. As a final act to seal their isolation, the people of the Volta Region were only those who suffered the pain and disgrace of having their border with their Togolese brothers and sisters closed at short notice before the December 7, 2008 election contrary to the assurances by the government to the diplomatic community that Ghana’s borders would remain open during the election.
To alienate a whole people like this, and expect them to support your bid for the highest office of the land, to say the least, is to credit them with no natural intelligence. That should not be and it is the naked truth people must be ready to face if they expect better things in future.
People may take things for granted, but when it matters most, the people of the Volta Region will prove that they are not blind to see. This country must be seen to belong to all and it should not be deemed as an act of charity or benevolence if a few crumbs should be thrown at some people while others are feeding fat on the nation’s resources.
By Kofi Akordor
The agony of defeat needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated. But in all things, it is a very miserable one. So excruciating is the pain that to soothe it, people always resort to explanations that end up accusing others.
After a typical football match, the defeated team will leave the stadium cursing the match officials for biased officiating. Some will blame the quality of the pitch. Others will put the defeat on the shoulders of hostile spectators or the weather.
What defeated teams never do is to take close look at themselves, for that reason they will never give credit to their opponents for superior display of skills and their ability to exploit chances to advantage.
They will not admit that they played below form, took things for granted and played to the cheers of the crowd most of the time instead of scoring the vital goals that will give them victory.
For such teams, they are more likely to make defeat bedfellows, since they will never make self-assessment and work on their weaknesses and formulate better strategies to confront their opponents in future assignments.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is still nursing its wounds and trying hard to locate where to place the blame. The defeat in Election 2008 was a painful one, it must be admitted, but the search for scapegoats is becoming too much.
At the national level, supporters are blaming the national executive and the campaign team for not doing enough, when enough means what? The NPP Election 2008 campaign cannot find its equal in the country’s political history in terms of resources ploughed into the field, the intensity and extensiveness of the campaign and the exploitation of incumbency to the fullest.
Apart from the rallies that witnessed tens of thousands of people attending, there were the live concert shows, beach jams and radio and television adverts that supplemented adverts in almost all the newspapers.
The billboards in various sizes are still where they were, dominating the highways, city streets and roundabouts with Nana Akufo-Addo’s presidential face with its infectious smile beckoning every Ghanaian to give him the nod so that he can move this country forward. “The best man for Ghana”, is a bold statement, pairing a catchy slogan: “One Touch” on all the billboards, banners and posters.
The musicians, both secular and gospel, and the concert party people were not left out of the bandwagon. It was like the whole country was on a journey to a dreamland, where milk and honey were flowing in copious abundance.
There was no doubt about the results of the December 7, 2008 election. In the estimation and minds of many, it was going to be a day when Ghanaians would finally endorse Nana Akufo-Addo officially and complete the coronation process started at the NPP congress of December, 2007 held at the University of Ghana, to elect a presidential candidate for the party.
The presidential candidate went as far as touring some West African countries campaigning in international arena to espouse his foreign policy, more like a head of state interacting with his counterparts in the sub-region. He also addressed Ghanaians in some foreign lands in the US and Europe to sell himself and his party for Election 2008. So what more was expected from Nana Akufo-Addo and his campaign team?
At the regional level, constituency executives are venting their spleen on the regional executive, while at the constituency level; it is the ward chairmen and polling station chairmen who betrayed the party.
Perhaps, the party needs to take a closer look at its campaign message. Campaigning on the wings of continuity comes with its problems. For all you know, the saying that, “All that glitters is not gold”, has some relevance here. All that were being touted as major achievements of Kufuor’s government that the NPP was so proud of continuing, did not register with the majority of the people. It could also be that while looking at its achievements, and making a lot of noise about them, the NPP failed to take cognisance of its deficiencies captured in the mood of the people.
The apparent over confident posture of the presidential candidate, and the perception that he had not experienced suffering before and that he was in for the presidency for the sake of the rest of us poor people might not have endeared him to many people.
He was heard several times saying at every opportunity that he had not credited yor ke gari before and that he is a successful and famous lawyer. In an environment choked with very, very poor people, one does not score high marks boasting about wealth that may not necessarily have for its origins, hard work, honesty and selflessness. It is good politicians take note of some of these things in our next endeavours in the political arena. Sometimes it pays to be humble.
Notwithstanding their complaints and reservations, the rather antagonistic stance the party adopted towards the people of the Volta Region cannot be downplayed because of the dangerous forebodings it has for the unity and cohesion of this country.
The national executive, apparently to address the concerns of the rank and file, saw a good scapegoat among the people of the Volta Region. Their solace is that but for the people of the Volta Region, who were at their animalistic best, the NPP would have won the election.
It was only in the Volta Region that NPP’s hundreds of thousands of supporters were prevented from voting. It was only in the Volta Region that their polling station agents were intimidated, harassed, beaten and, in what turned out to be the most outrageous of all claims, murdered.
It is strange how the NPP should anchor their hope of victory in Election 2008 on the support they expected from the Volta Region. And here a few truths, albeit harsh, need to be confronted. This is a region that for eight years did not seem to be part of this unitary country called Ghana. For its record in the military and the police service, Volta Region was the only region in Ghana for eight years that did not have any officer qualified enough to hold any command position in the security services.
Those who care may kindly tell readers how many officers from that region in the military commanded any of the services or units of the Ghana Armed Forces or held any command position in the Ghana Police Service over the last eight years.
They should tell us how many of them headed any of the state public institutions or even served on their boards.
The absence of people from the Volta Region in former Kufuor’s cabinet was explained that Members of Parliament from the region were not on the Majority side. What about the positions of deputy ministers? What about the hundreds, if not thousands, of qualified and competent professionals the Volta Region has produced? Could their talents not have been exploited to the glory of this country?
A few of them were in the news though. That was when they were being escorted to serve prison sentences or when they were lucky to be granted presidential pardon. As a final act to seal their isolation, the people of the Volta Region were only those who suffered the pain and disgrace of having their border with their Togolese brothers and sisters closed at short notice before the December 7, 2008 election contrary to the assurances by the government to the diplomatic community that Ghana’s borders would remain open during the election.
To alienate a whole people like this, and expect them to support your bid for the highest office of the land, to say the least, is to credit them with no natural intelligence. That should not be and it is the naked truth people must be ready to face if they expect better things in future.
People may take things for granted, but when it matters most, the people of the Volta Region will prove that they are not blind to see. This country must be seen to belong to all and it should not be deemed as an act of charity or benevolence if a few crumbs should be thrown at some people while others are feeding fat on the nation’s resources.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
First Step in consensus building
read by SSB
January 27,2009
By Kofi Akordor
Our transition in 2001 was quite chaotic. But it could be pardoned. We were just picking our first steps in multiparty democracy after many years of military and civilian dictatorship.
It was also the first time a ruling party lost at the polls and was transferring power to a party coming out of opposition. Considering the fact that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had been in opposition for decades, that is if its roots could be traced to the Progress Party (PP), which was pushed out of government by soldiers on January 13, 1972, it could be understood, the frenzy with which the Kufuor Administration zoomed into power and captured the reins of government, giving little breathing space to the outgoing National Democratic Congress (NDC), then under President Jerry John Rawlings.
Those days, many things were done wrongly including the invasion of the residence of the then Vice-President John Evans Atta Mills, who contested and lost the presidency against Mr J.A. Kufuor. The scars of those acrimonious days remained with us throughout the administration of former President Kufuor and contributed a great deal to the tension which engulfed this nation, before, during and after the struggle for political supremacy in Election 2008. The transitional hiccups of 2000 drew a wedge between the then former President Rawlings and the then President Kufuor, which several prominent and distinguished personalities tried fruitlessly to remove.
If in 2000 we made mistakes because we were infants in the game of multiparty democracy and because people were overzealous to capture political power, we cannot get the same pardon the way we organised and celebrated our 50 years of nationhood. As if it was an afterthought, this nation made mockery of its Golden Jubilee and reduced it to a feast savoured by a few who made personal fortunes out of what should have been a national historic event.
Malaysia, which shares the same birth year with us but is younger by a few months, announced her 50th anniversary five years in advance, and notified the world about her intention to climax the celebration of its 50 years of excellence in 2007. The different ways the two countries celebrated their golden jubilee were a whole story about how they conducted themselves during the first 50 years of their national life.
Malaysia came out of backwardness and advanced into modernity and industrialisation, while Ghana continued to pride itself as a major exporter of raw cocoa beans. So when it came to celebrating the event, Ghana planned its own haphazardly, imported anniversary cloth and other souvenir items from China, while Malaysia did a meticulous planning and showcased its achievements over the 50 years and gave a hint where it wanted to be in the next 50 years.
Even as we struggled to lift up our celebration that was nothing to write home about, there was evidence to suggest people placed in responsible positions to see to a successful celebration, even though it was planned belatedly, were busy lining their pockets with state funds and acquiring properties in the name of Ghana@50.
Painfully, we could not, as a nation, point at any monument to remind us of Ghana@50 when we celebrate Ghana@100. We did not feel any shame, when we announced that we spent US$4 million to renovate the Independence Square constructed at independence and then known as the Black Star Square. Other projects envisaged including the Jubilee toilets, schools, recreational parks and many other things are nowhere to be found, even though their costs have been captured in the Jubilee Budget. That is the story of Ghana, which at the least opportunity will not fail to remind the world that it was the first country south of the Sahara to gain political independence from colonial rule.
We have come a long way between 2001 and 2009, so when the time came for another transition ritual the people of this nation were expecting something better, at least not the repetition of the mistakes of 2001.
The first glimmer of hope came when the new Parliament went through the motion of electing the Speaker and the two Deputy Speakers without any hitch. We have come of age, many applauded, and the expectation was that as the days rolled by more of such consensus building would emerge to prove us as a maturing democratic people.
Then the cracks started to emerge. Former President Kufuor in his last day in office decided to take credit for increasing the salary of public servants by between 16 and 32 per cent and left the burden of payment on the shoulders of President Mills, who is yet to confer with his economic team to know how much is in the national kitty. Will it appear as if President Mills is insensitive to the plight of workers and has, therefore, refused to pay public servants what the departed Kufuor administration had announced?
Thankfully, many saw the announced salary increase more of treachery than an act of genuine concern and have, therefore, rubbished it. Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo, a senior member of the New Patriotic Party and one-time Minister of Finance and Economic Planning in the Kufuor Administration, did not find it difficult to condemn the increase as unfair and misplaced.
There were also last-minute appointments in the Foreign Service, which every well-informed person knows is a very strategic unit within the government bureaucracy. In the same last-minute effort, promotions, transfers and appointments were made in the police service and the military. Why should someone exiting from government make appointments in the security apparatus? It would help to recall here, some of the excesses of the new administration including seizure of vehicles suspected to be government vehicles being cladenstinely registered by individuals.
Government must continue to function even as a baton change is effected and things must be done in a way that does not create room for suspicion or where people could be pushed into a corner that would compel them to do things that could be misinterpreted. That is why it should be possible for an outgoing government to incorporate in its handover notes, outstanding issues such as salary increases for public servants and make recommendations where necessary for appointments, promotions and transfers for the new administration to apply its good judgement to take the appropriate decisions.
When outgoing governments leave such doubtful decisions in their trail, they put the incoming administration on the alert and they also begin to take panic measures such as dismissal of officers, who should be at post to brief the incoming ones.
The seeds of bitterness, rancour and suspicion are then planted and the cycle continues. We must be able to come out of our pettiness and do the right thing. We cannot continue to excuse our mistakes and misdeeds with the claim that ours is a young democracy. We do not need to trek 200 years to do what enlightened societies are doing today. We have all to learn from those who have treaded the same path we have chosen for ourselves.
Most of us were privileged to see via the international media what happened on Inauguration Day in Washington DC, on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 when Barack Obama took the oath of office as the 44th President of the United States of America. That was the culmination of events that began on November 5, 2008, when he was declared winner of the US presidential elections.
The transition was not at the pleasure of any individual or political party and when the Inauguration Day came, it was a national affair. All previous Presidents and Vice Presidents were present with their spouses. All those who matter in American politics including Senators and Members of the House of Representatives were there.
After Obama’s oath, it was a beauty when he escorted the immediate former President, George W. Bush, to Executive One, the official helicopter of the presidency, to be flown to Andrews Air Force Base and then to his home state of Texas.
From then on, President Obama was in full control. We can do the same here, and it should not take us a whole generation to learn from the American example and put some sanity into our political lives. The first step is for us to learn to be accommodating and to realise that public office is held at the behest of the people and not a personal property that should be guarded and protected even at the expense of human lives.
That is why the spirit which guided Parliament to elect the Speaker and the two deputy Speakers without any confrontation should be the preferred one to lead us to national consensus building on important matters of state.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
January 27,2009
By Kofi Akordor
Our transition in 2001 was quite chaotic. But it could be pardoned. We were just picking our first steps in multiparty democracy after many years of military and civilian dictatorship.
It was also the first time a ruling party lost at the polls and was transferring power to a party coming out of opposition. Considering the fact that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had been in opposition for decades, that is if its roots could be traced to the Progress Party (PP), which was pushed out of government by soldiers on January 13, 1972, it could be understood, the frenzy with which the Kufuor Administration zoomed into power and captured the reins of government, giving little breathing space to the outgoing National Democratic Congress (NDC), then under President Jerry John Rawlings.
Those days, many things were done wrongly including the invasion of the residence of the then Vice-President John Evans Atta Mills, who contested and lost the presidency against Mr J.A. Kufuor. The scars of those acrimonious days remained with us throughout the administration of former President Kufuor and contributed a great deal to the tension which engulfed this nation, before, during and after the struggle for political supremacy in Election 2008. The transitional hiccups of 2000 drew a wedge between the then former President Rawlings and the then President Kufuor, which several prominent and distinguished personalities tried fruitlessly to remove.
If in 2000 we made mistakes because we were infants in the game of multiparty democracy and because people were overzealous to capture political power, we cannot get the same pardon the way we organised and celebrated our 50 years of nationhood. As if it was an afterthought, this nation made mockery of its Golden Jubilee and reduced it to a feast savoured by a few who made personal fortunes out of what should have been a national historic event.
Malaysia, which shares the same birth year with us but is younger by a few months, announced her 50th anniversary five years in advance, and notified the world about her intention to climax the celebration of its 50 years of excellence in 2007. The different ways the two countries celebrated their golden jubilee were a whole story about how they conducted themselves during the first 50 years of their national life.
Malaysia came out of backwardness and advanced into modernity and industrialisation, while Ghana continued to pride itself as a major exporter of raw cocoa beans. So when it came to celebrating the event, Ghana planned its own haphazardly, imported anniversary cloth and other souvenir items from China, while Malaysia did a meticulous planning and showcased its achievements over the 50 years and gave a hint where it wanted to be in the next 50 years.
Even as we struggled to lift up our celebration that was nothing to write home about, there was evidence to suggest people placed in responsible positions to see to a successful celebration, even though it was planned belatedly, were busy lining their pockets with state funds and acquiring properties in the name of Ghana@50.
Painfully, we could not, as a nation, point at any monument to remind us of Ghana@50 when we celebrate Ghana@100. We did not feel any shame, when we announced that we spent US$4 million to renovate the Independence Square constructed at independence and then known as the Black Star Square. Other projects envisaged including the Jubilee toilets, schools, recreational parks and many other things are nowhere to be found, even though their costs have been captured in the Jubilee Budget. That is the story of Ghana, which at the least opportunity will not fail to remind the world that it was the first country south of the Sahara to gain political independence from colonial rule.
We have come a long way between 2001 and 2009, so when the time came for another transition ritual the people of this nation were expecting something better, at least not the repetition of the mistakes of 2001.
The first glimmer of hope came when the new Parliament went through the motion of electing the Speaker and the two Deputy Speakers without any hitch. We have come of age, many applauded, and the expectation was that as the days rolled by more of such consensus building would emerge to prove us as a maturing democratic people.
Then the cracks started to emerge. Former President Kufuor in his last day in office decided to take credit for increasing the salary of public servants by between 16 and 32 per cent and left the burden of payment on the shoulders of President Mills, who is yet to confer with his economic team to know how much is in the national kitty. Will it appear as if President Mills is insensitive to the plight of workers and has, therefore, refused to pay public servants what the departed Kufuor administration had announced?
Thankfully, many saw the announced salary increase more of treachery than an act of genuine concern and have, therefore, rubbished it. Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo, a senior member of the New Patriotic Party and one-time Minister of Finance and Economic Planning in the Kufuor Administration, did not find it difficult to condemn the increase as unfair and misplaced.
There were also last-minute appointments in the Foreign Service, which every well-informed person knows is a very strategic unit within the government bureaucracy. In the same last-minute effort, promotions, transfers and appointments were made in the police service and the military. Why should someone exiting from government make appointments in the security apparatus? It would help to recall here, some of the excesses of the new administration including seizure of vehicles suspected to be government vehicles being cladenstinely registered by individuals.
Government must continue to function even as a baton change is effected and things must be done in a way that does not create room for suspicion or where people could be pushed into a corner that would compel them to do things that could be misinterpreted. That is why it should be possible for an outgoing government to incorporate in its handover notes, outstanding issues such as salary increases for public servants and make recommendations where necessary for appointments, promotions and transfers for the new administration to apply its good judgement to take the appropriate decisions.
When outgoing governments leave such doubtful decisions in their trail, they put the incoming administration on the alert and they also begin to take panic measures such as dismissal of officers, who should be at post to brief the incoming ones.
The seeds of bitterness, rancour and suspicion are then planted and the cycle continues. We must be able to come out of our pettiness and do the right thing. We cannot continue to excuse our mistakes and misdeeds with the claim that ours is a young democracy. We do not need to trek 200 years to do what enlightened societies are doing today. We have all to learn from those who have treaded the same path we have chosen for ourselves.
Most of us were privileged to see via the international media what happened on Inauguration Day in Washington DC, on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 when Barack Obama took the oath of office as the 44th President of the United States of America. That was the culmination of events that began on November 5, 2008, when he was declared winner of the US presidential elections.
The transition was not at the pleasure of any individual or political party and when the Inauguration Day came, it was a national affair. All previous Presidents and Vice Presidents were present with their spouses. All those who matter in American politics including Senators and Members of the House of Representatives were there.
After Obama’s oath, it was a beauty when he escorted the immediate former President, George W. Bush, to Executive One, the official helicopter of the presidency, to be flown to Andrews Air Force Base and then to his home state of Texas.
From then on, President Obama was in full control. We can do the same here, and it should not take us a whole generation to learn from the American example and put some sanity into our political lives. The first step is for us to learn to be accommodating and to realise that public office is held at the behest of the people and not a personal property that should be guarded and protected even at the expense of human lives.
That is why the spirit which guided Parliament to elect the Speaker and the two deputy Speakers without any confrontation should be the preferred one to lead us to national consensus building on important matters of state.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Friday, January 23, 2009
The final lap
Dec 2,2008
By Kofi Akordor
The final lap in any distance event in athletics is the most crucial. That is what determines victory or defeat. Usually, at the starter’s gun, some, as part of their strategy, sprint into the lead and maintain the momentum to victory at the finishing line. Not always does that strategy work to plan, because some, in their determination to keep the lead, over-exert themselves and burn their reserve energies, ending the race far behind.
For others, it is a slow start and a gradual build-up as the race progresses and with a last minute burst powered by conserved energy, victory is attained. Like the fast start strategy, the slow start is not necessarily the best at all times. Sometimes, quite against your expectation, the more you expect the other competitors to tire and burn out, the more they gallop and before you are aware, you have ended up where you began — last.
When it started, the race for the presidency and parliament looked too long to end soon, but so soon, we are close to the finishing line and whatever strategy the various candidates adopted, December 7 is just five days away and we all await to see those who will cross the finishing line with smiles on their faces, in Usain Bolt fashion, or those with contorted faces out of wasteful exhaustion.
In a world where polls are conducted on no serious scientific basis, it will be fallacious and self-deluding for any of the contesting parties or candidates to pin their hopes on any of the so-called opinion polls.
As should be expected, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), as the party in power, took off in whirlwind fashion and thereafter became the target of the other parties. Even the primaries to choose the flag bearer of the NPP was a spectacular exercise in itself, coming close to be like a process to elect the President of the Republic. When the chips were down and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo got the nod at the 2007 December Congress held at the University of Ghana, Legon, the party heavyweights quickly put the past, with all its acrimonies behind, and joined forces with Nana Akufo Addo, for the ultimate — the Presidency.
If resources and publicity alone could win elections, then I dare say the NPP had a great advantage that will be difficult to overturn. But as the saying goes, the race is not for the swift nor the sure, and so it will be foolhardiness to drop guard out of complacency and expect miracles to happen.
A party in power has its advantages of incumbency, including limitless resources, both in cash and kind, a powerful propaganda and publicity machinery, using both the print and electronic media. The NPP played its cards well in this regard. It battled the baggage of incumbency also. A governing party’s weaknesses, real or perceived, are hammered at at will. After all, the only way to oust a ruling in power is to say a lot about its failures, trying to rally round the masses on the general economic and social weaknesses in the system, which are always in abundance in a third world country like Ghana. The NPP was not spared its fair share of the whipping.
The NPP, however, found an escape valve. That is, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), had been in power before and so it was easy for the NPP to play the comparison game to soothe some of the pains of criticism.
That brings us to the campaign machinery of the NDC, which started slowly with Professor John Evans Atta-Mills’s door-to-door ‘I-Care’ strategy. The selection of a relatively younger John Dramani Mahama as his running mate brought some fire into the Atta-Mills’ campaign.
The firebrand of the party, in the person of its founder and former President J.J. Rawlings, was on course as usual, pulling huge crowds wherever he went even if some of his pronouncements sound controversial. The performance of the NDC, in all, had not been bad and this had heavily diluted any lead the NPP had at the start of the race. In fact, on December 7, the result can tilt either way, even though the ruling party has a slight edge.
Apart from the two leading parties, the party that made the most dramatic entry in the race was the rejuvenated Convention People’s Party (CPP), under the flagbearership of Dr Paa Kwasi Nduom, popularly known as the ‘Edwumawura’. There is no doubt that the CPP is going to eat into the fortunes of both the NPP and the NDC and should the polls move into a runoff, the CPP may hold the trump card.
The other presidential candidates, namely Dr Edward Mahama of the People’s National Convention (PNC); Mr Emmanuel Ansah-Antwi of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP); Mr T.N. Ward-Brew of the Democratic People’s Party (DPP); Mr Kwabena Adjei of the Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD) and Mr Kwasi Amoafo Yeboah (Independent), are at best spicing the democratic gravy. They may only become a force to reckon with in the event of a runoff when their support could tilt the fortunes of eitherof the two major parties.
The campaigning itself has been very vigorous, sometimes acrimonious and on a few occasions bloody. The Electoral Commission (EC) has been battered from several angles by the various political parties, sometimes with some justification, . In some cases too, people were just seeing objects where there were no shadows.
It was easy to feel some desperation in the campaign messages of the parties, especially the NPP and the NDC, and it was not too difficult to understand why. The NDC has tasted power before and clearly understood the vast difference between being in power and outside it. The NPP is still enjoying fruits of political power and, therefore, could imagine what it would be like to return to the wilderness of opposition. All the parties have made so many promises that one wonders whether in four years time, there will be anything like poverty, disease, squalor, hunger and deprivation in this country.
All the actors, while preaching peaceful and transparent elections, sometimes go to the extreme trying to allay fears of members of the public. Just recently, a top police officer dropped guard when he told a listening public that the police would not hesitate to shoot to maim anyone trying to tamper with a ballot box. Even armed robbers are not to be shot unless under circumstances when the police are compelled to do so to defend themselves. So why shoot somebody who will be foolish enough to go and carry a whole ballot box to where only God knows?
Even though we have gone through the exercise of voting to elect our political leaders over the years without any serious breach of the peace, knowing ourselves very well, as a breed of people whose behaviour cannot be predicted, we are always suspicious of everything, thereby heightening tension unnecessarily. That also kept our religious leaders busy fasting and praying for peaceful elections.
Some latter-day prophets and prophetesses also are not to be left in the interesting game. They have already seen in their dreams (or were they hallucinations?) the winner of the presidential seat even before the first ballot could be cast.
It is the wish of every Ghanaian that our next election is conducted in a free, transparent and trouble-free environment. Wherever the verdict goes, we shall all be smiling while we read this column next week.
By Kofi Akordor
The final lap in any distance event in athletics is the most crucial. That is what determines victory or defeat. Usually, at the starter’s gun, some, as part of their strategy, sprint into the lead and maintain the momentum to victory at the finishing line. Not always does that strategy work to plan, because some, in their determination to keep the lead, over-exert themselves and burn their reserve energies, ending the race far behind.
For others, it is a slow start and a gradual build-up as the race progresses and with a last minute burst powered by conserved energy, victory is attained. Like the fast start strategy, the slow start is not necessarily the best at all times. Sometimes, quite against your expectation, the more you expect the other competitors to tire and burn out, the more they gallop and before you are aware, you have ended up where you began — last.
When it started, the race for the presidency and parliament looked too long to end soon, but so soon, we are close to the finishing line and whatever strategy the various candidates adopted, December 7 is just five days away and we all await to see those who will cross the finishing line with smiles on their faces, in Usain Bolt fashion, or those with contorted faces out of wasteful exhaustion.
In a world where polls are conducted on no serious scientific basis, it will be fallacious and self-deluding for any of the contesting parties or candidates to pin their hopes on any of the so-called opinion polls.
As should be expected, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), as the party in power, took off in whirlwind fashion and thereafter became the target of the other parties. Even the primaries to choose the flag bearer of the NPP was a spectacular exercise in itself, coming close to be like a process to elect the President of the Republic. When the chips were down and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo got the nod at the 2007 December Congress held at the University of Ghana, Legon, the party heavyweights quickly put the past, with all its acrimonies behind, and joined forces with Nana Akufo Addo, for the ultimate — the Presidency.
If resources and publicity alone could win elections, then I dare say the NPP had a great advantage that will be difficult to overturn. But as the saying goes, the race is not for the swift nor the sure, and so it will be foolhardiness to drop guard out of complacency and expect miracles to happen.
A party in power has its advantages of incumbency, including limitless resources, both in cash and kind, a powerful propaganda and publicity machinery, using both the print and electronic media. The NPP played its cards well in this regard. It battled the baggage of incumbency also. A governing party’s weaknesses, real or perceived, are hammered at at will. After all, the only way to oust a ruling in power is to say a lot about its failures, trying to rally round the masses on the general economic and social weaknesses in the system, which are always in abundance in a third world country like Ghana. The NPP was not spared its fair share of the whipping.
The NPP, however, found an escape valve. That is, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), had been in power before and so it was easy for the NPP to play the comparison game to soothe some of the pains of criticism.
That brings us to the campaign machinery of the NDC, which started slowly with Professor John Evans Atta-Mills’s door-to-door ‘I-Care’ strategy. The selection of a relatively younger John Dramani Mahama as his running mate brought some fire into the Atta-Mills’ campaign.
The firebrand of the party, in the person of its founder and former President J.J. Rawlings, was on course as usual, pulling huge crowds wherever he went even if some of his pronouncements sound controversial. The performance of the NDC, in all, had not been bad and this had heavily diluted any lead the NPP had at the start of the race. In fact, on December 7, the result can tilt either way, even though the ruling party has a slight edge.
Apart from the two leading parties, the party that made the most dramatic entry in the race was the rejuvenated Convention People’s Party (CPP), under the flagbearership of Dr Paa Kwasi Nduom, popularly known as the ‘Edwumawura’. There is no doubt that the CPP is going to eat into the fortunes of both the NPP and the NDC and should the polls move into a runoff, the CPP may hold the trump card.
The other presidential candidates, namely Dr Edward Mahama of the People’s National Convention (PNC); Mr Emmanuel Ansah-Antwi of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP); Mr T.N. Ward-Brew of the Democratic People’s Party (DPP); Mr Kwabena Adjei of the Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD) and Mr Kwasi Amoafo Yeboah (Independent), are at best spicing the democratic gravy. They may only become a force to reckon with in the event of a runoff when their support could tilt the fortunes of eitherof the two major parties.
The campaigning itself has been very vigorous, sometimes acrimonious and on a few occasions bloody. The Electoral Commission (EC) has been battered from several angles by the various political parties, sometimes with some justification, . In some cases too, people were just seeing objects where there were no shadows.
It was easy to feel some desperation in the campaign messages of the parties, especially the NPP and the NDC, and it was not too difficult to understand why. The NDC has tasted power before and clearly understood the vast difference between being in power and outside it. The NPP is still enjoying fruits of political power and, therefore, could imagine what it would be like to return to the wilderness of opposition. All the parties have made so many promises that one wonders whether in four years time, there will be anything like poverty, disease, squalor, hunger and deprivation in this country.
All the actors, while preaching peaceful and transparent elections, sometimes go to the extreme trying to allay fears of members of the public. Just recently, a top police officer dropped guard when he told a listening public that the police would not hesitate to shoot to maim anyone trying to tamper with a ballot box. Even armed robbers are not to be shot unless under circumstances when the police are compelled to do so to defend themselves. So why shoot somebody who will be foolish enough to go and carry a whole ballot box to where only God knows?
Even though we have gone through the exercise of voting to elect our political leaders over the years without any serious breach of the peace, knowing ourselves very well, as a breed of people whose behaviour cannot be predicted, we are always suspicious of everything, thereby heightening tension unnecessarily. That also kept our religious leaders busy fasting and praying for peaceful elections.
Some latter-day prophets and prophetesses also are not to be left in the interesting game. They have already seen in their dreams (or were they hallucinations?) the winner of the presidential seat even before the first ballot could be cast.
It is the wish of every Ghanaian that our next election is conducted in a free, transparent and trouble-free environment. Wherever the verdict goes, we shall all be smiling while we read this column next week.
The day we missed Armageddon
December 9,2008
By Kofi Akordor
SOME of the allegations and rumours were not only wild, but so weird that one could wonder if they originated from human minds. There were rumours that there was to be a massive invasion of the country by foreigners to indulge in the country’s electoral process.
The government, apparently to prevent this, ordered the closure of the country’s borders. This action, if it was to give confidence to Ghanaians and to assure them that the sanctity of the electoral process cannot be compromised only added to the mounting tension and to heighten suspicion that there was a gigantic design to use state machinery in favour of one of the two candidates in the presidential run-off.
It was getting close to a precipice and there were stories of people relocating to their home towns before the ‘end time’. When polling day finally arrived, the atmosphere was so polluted that people started seeing evil in the eyes of others.
At Ashaiman, near Tema in the Greater Accra Region, rumours that some people were holing up in a hotel near a polling station with stuffed ballot boxes caused panic. When the police went into action, there were neither ballot boxes nor those who were supposed to be keeping them.
Again in Tema, a party executive was whisked away under heavy police escort because of rumours he was plotting to snatch ballot boxes away. This time, the police acted pre-emptively, but could there be any truth in that allegation? We might have just succeeded in creating more trouble for ourselves.
In the midst of all these, the Electoral Commission (EC), the National Election Security Task Force, the National Security Co-ordinator and the government kept on assuring Ghanaians that everything was under control and that there was no cause for alarm. As usual, the Ghanaian’s level of patience and tolerance was on full exhibition.
As I survey the unfolding turmoil on our political landscape, my mind went back to November, when over 300 million Americans went to the polls to elect a new person to replace President George W. Bush.
In a matter of hours, the elections were over and in less than 24 hours, Americans came to the realisation that Barrack Obama, the 47-year-old Senator from Illinois was going to be their next President and in effect, the most powerful leader in the whole wide world.
Sweet and simple, isn’t it? Senator John McCain, his challenger conceded defeat and congratulated him. President Bush congratulated him and offered to co-operate with him to ensure a smooth transition and handing over.
As you read this, President-elect Obama has virtually finished picking his working team, and it is a mix of Americans from all persuasions including Republicans. That is why Robert Gates remains the Defence Secretary. Victory for Obama was not a licence to plunder or share with friends and relatives.
It was an opportunity to put his vision into action and every material available in the US is there for his pick and utilisation to transform his dream into reality. That was why everything returned to normal, a day after the elections.
We go to the polls here as if we are at war and sometimes we are not able to hide our intentions and why we are desperate for political power. That is why we get polarised instead of focusing on national issues and determining who is best suited to give us the leadership we need for national development.
The apprehension and tension which engulfed the country were grounded on the history of the continent.
On December 27, 2007, Kenyans went to the polls. Everything went on smoothly until the declaration of the results. Then a peaceful country went into turmoil. The carnage that followed left at least 1,500 people dead, according official figures. But the extent of the mayhem was such that it was likely more people could not be accounted for.
Kenyans went to the polls to elect political leaders and not warriors. But should this otherwise national exercise which is a constitutional responsibility be exploited by power-hungry politicians to bring war among the people and divide them?
The case of Zimbabwe is now well-documented just as what happened in Cote d’Ivoire. We have not reached the other side of the river yet. However, we hope at the end of day, we will wake up firmly believing that we have elected a new President for the Republic.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
By Kofi Akordor
SOME of the allegations and rumours were not only wild, but so weird that one could wonder if they originated from human minds. There were rumours that there was to be a massive invasion of the country by foreigners to indulge in the country’s electoral process.
The government, apparently to prevent this, ordered the closure of the country’s borders. This action, if it was to give confidence to Ghanaians and to assure them that the sanctity of the electoral process cannot be compromised only added to the mounting tension and to heighten suspicion that there was a gigantic design to use state machinery in favour of one of the two candidates in the presidential run-off.
It was getting close to a precipice and there were stories of people relocating to their home towns before the ‘end time’. When polling day finally arrived, the atmosphere was so polluted that people started seeing evil in the eyes of others.
At Ashaiman, near Tema in the Greater Accra Region, rumours that some people were holing up in a hotel near a polling station with stuffed ballot boxes caused panic. When the police went into action, there were neither ballot boxes nor those who were supposed to be keeping them.
Again in Tema, a party executive was whisked away under heavy police escort because of rumours he was plotting to snatch ballot boxes away. This time, the police acted pre-emptively, but could there be any truth in that allegation? We might have just succeeded in creating more trouble for ourselves.
In the midst of all these, the Electoral Commission (EC), the National Election Security Task Force, the National Security Co-ordinator and the government kept on assuring Ghanaians that everything was under control and that there was no cause for alarm. As usual, the Ghanaian’s level of patience and tolerance was on full exhibition.
As I survey the unfolding turmoil on our political landscape, my mind went back to November, when over 300 million Americans went to the polls to elect a new person to replace President George W. Bush.
In a matter of hours, the elections were over and in less than 24 hours, Americans came to the realisation that Barrack Obama, the 47-year-old Senator from Illinois was going to be their next President and in effect, the most powerful leader in the whole wide world.
Sweet and simple, isn’t it? Senator John McCain, his challenger conceded defeat and congratulated him. President Bush congratulated him and offered to co-operate with him to ensure a smooth transition and handing over.
As you read this, President-elect Obama has virtually finished picking his working team, and it is a mix of Americans from all persuasions including Republicans. That is why Robert Gates remains the Defence Secretary. Victory for Obama was not a licence to plunder or share with friends and relatives.
It was an opportunity to put his vision into action and every material available in the US is there for his pick and utilisation to transform his dream into reality. That was why everything returned to normal, a day after the elections.
We go to the polls here as if we are at war and sometimes we are not able to hide our intentions and why we are desperate for political power. That is why we get polarised instead of focusing on national issues and determining who is best suited to give us the leadership we need for national development.
The apprehension and tension which engulfed the country were grounded on the history of the continent.
On December 27, 2007, Kenyans went to the polls. Everything went on smoothly until the declaration of the results. Then a peaceful country went into turmoil. The carnage that followed left at least 1,500 people dead, according official figures. But the extent of the mayhem was such that it was likely more people could not be accounted for.
Kenyans went to the polls to elect political leaders and not warriors. But should this otherwise national exercise which is a constitutional responsibility be exploited by power-hungry politicians to bring war among the people and divide them?
The case of Zimbabwe is now well-documented just as what happened in Cote d’Ivoire. We have not reached the other side of the river yet. However, we hope at the end of day, we will wake up firmly believing that we have elected a new President for the Republic.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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