It Is Standard Practice Everywhere

Mr. Kwesi Pratt, Jr., the editor-publisher of the Insight newspaper, so-called, is not the only Ghanaian citizen who has decried what has been widely perceived to be the biased appointment of our national security heads and other high-ranking officials of our national security agencies or apparatuses (See “Kwesi Pratt Decries Biased Appointment of Security Heads by Government” PeaceFM.com / Ghanaweb.com 10/25/20). The present Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been doing absolutely nothing new or out of egregiously kilter from its predecessors in the manner in which the heads of our nation’s security establishment are appointed.

If anything at all, Nana Akufo-Addo has been more studiously focused on the appointment of our national security heads on the justifiable basis of ethnic and cultural diversity and merit, even as increasingly the key operatives of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) have demonstrated time and time again that they are dead-set against the peace, security and stability of Ghana and more focused on the raw grab for power with the morbid and depraved intent of blindly looting the resources of the country and divvying up the same among themselves and their mistresses and concubines.

It is also naïve on the part of Mr. Pratt to suppose that any form of absolute neutrality could, somehow, form the basis of how the selection and appointment of our national security heads was done. No such “robotic” neutrality, as is being quixotically espoused by the paid National Democratic Congress’ shill and sympathizer is practiced anywhere in the civilized democratic world. You see, the appointment of national security heads ought to necessarily be based on the profiling and culling of senior national security personnel who best suit the agenda and objectives of the government in power, not on the basis of the whim or fantasy of any citizen who, like Mr. Pratt, is not the least bit neutral or objective in his/her political orientation. The Insight editor-publisher woefully lacks the moral heft and credibility to lecture the Akufo-Addo Administration of who to choose as Inspector-General of the Ghana Police Service (GPS), or the Director of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

For instance, Mr. Pratt has publicly and categorically asserted that there is absolutely no way in which or by which the self-proclaimed Convention People’s Party (CPP) ideologue – he has been publicly denounced by the top-echelon leadership of the rump-CPP as a charlatan who conveniently uses the name of the party for vainglorious self-preening – could be prevailed upon to cast his ballot for the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party, irrespective of how sterling the performance of the Akufo-Addo Administration may be perceived to be by members of the global Ghanaian community. In other words, the loquacious nephew of the late Mr. Kojo Botsio has absolutely no remarkable sense of objectivity or neutrality, when it comes to discussing critical political issues in the country. So, you guessed right, Dear Reader, that Mr. Pratt ought to be the last Ghanaian citizen to casually presume to lecture Nana Akufo-Addo on the best or the most ethically sound way or method by which the appointment of our national security heads is to be predicated.

It is also beyond question that every government has a bounden moral and social responsibility of selecting the sort of national security personnel whose character and performance profile best suits its agenda, and not simply and facilely on the basis of just who happens to be on the topmost rung of the promotion or professional ranking ladder which, by the way, is almost invariably politically determined. Which, in effect, also means that inevitably some governments may be than others at effecting this process. What the latter observation also means is that most departing or exiting governments, especially in Ghana, even as we all witnessed in the wake of the 2016 crushing defeat of President John Dramani Mahama, tend to sandbag their successors by jampacking the top echelons of our civil service and our national security apparatus with personnel who may not necessarily be the best fit for their jobs and, especially, for the political and national development agenda of the incoming governments.

Oftentimes, it is a spoils system that inordinately favors the good and the devoted boys and girls of the departing paymasters. Even if Parliament were handed the job of “neutralizing” or “objectivizing” the way or process by which our topmost national security personnel were appointed, the process would still leave much to be desired. You see, Mr. Pratt, we live in the realm of the incurably fallible and human. Which is also not necessarily to assert or imply that the current process cannot be significantly and healthily improved.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

October 25, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]