It seems #FixTheCountry has become a personality cult, watch it

When I open my radio and hear #FixTheCountry, the name that follows is Oliver Barker-Vormawor. I log into Facebook and everything #FixTheCountry is also about Oliver Barker-Vormawor, even the official page doesn't seem to have much content except about Oliver Barker-Vormawor. Is the movement becoming a personality cult or has it become already?

It is indeed a worrying trend for something that started out as a leaderless organisation. Could the notion of leaderlessness only a ruse? Right now, per what I see and observe from a distance (and the distance is admittedly long), it seems to me clear that Oliver Barker-Vormawor is #FixTheCountry and #FixTheCountry is Oliver Barker-Vormawor. Nothing seems to happen without him. On his personal Facebook profile, he garners more traction than the official page and much of it is praise-singing with people calling him the "JJ of our time" and others saying he is their "savior". I don't know but I pick signals that he enjoys this and has perhaps cultivated it himself. And I speak as someone who has followed FixTheCountry from the get-go.

He called himself "Osagyefo" meaning "The liberator" and has even adopted the necessary regalia to go with it. He talked a lot about how much of his personal money he spent on #FixTheCountry, obviously trying to get people to sympathise with him for his "sacrifices". Haven't others in the organisation equally spent money or some other personal resources? In monitoring Facebook, I see posts that appear first on his personal page before being posted word for word on the official #FixTheCountry page and its Twitter. Perhaps well intended and no malice, also likely that maybe this was an attempt to merge his personality with the organisation?

It also seems, things have changed from conveners, and all the talk now is about "a convener" or even "the convener", who is the one and only Oliver Barker-Vormawor. The others seem to be only in his shadows. He calls the shots. I saw a Facebook comment from him where he talked boastfully about vetoing a decision taken by his colleagues. Veto power in a leaderless movement? But of course, without him, the other conveners seem incapable of doing anything. He raises all the funds, appears on all platforms, writes press releases and social media communication, from where I see, he decides the policies of #FixTheCountry and the others just follow.

One of the benefits of advanced age is that you are able to see the shadows of coming events because you have seen them before. As someone who support the youth to save this country from my generation, I worry that a promising youth movement may become a personality cult, the dangers of which are clear. I will mention only but a few;

1. The cult personality becomes more powerful than the organization such that everything he says and does cannot be challenged. This means even if he does anything wrong, he is not corrected. The others either fear him and so cannot speak or they think he wouldn't listen anyway and so watch him to do whatever he likes. That's obviously a recipe for failure.

2. The organisation only works when the cult personality wants it and in his absence, the organisation dies. Nothing works unless he agrees with it.

3. A cult personality when they acquire as much power are able to appropriate the benefit for themselves. There is usually the feeling that they have sacrificed a lot for the organization and are therefore justified to take any benefits for themselves. They use the fact that they can control the organization to negotiate with bidders, thereby entirely changing the course of the organization.

4. The organisation can easily be killed by the state. When the cult personality is neutralised, the organization dies. This is why successful movements in history have always insisted on leaderless structures so that no one individual can be targeted in order to kill the movement.

"Cultisation" of organisations is and has been a dangerous trend for a long time. History should be a good guide. It is important for those of us in the final stages of our lives to advise the youth to 'watch it'. The country's future is in their hands and we won't be there to bear the consequences.

By Somuah Lartey