The People’s Manifesto - Beyond Elections

Last month the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) shared findings of their research on the “Matters of concern to the Ghanaian Voter” (MoC). Three issues topped the rankings: Education, Employment and Health; in that order. The least were Information Communication and Technology (ICT), Sports and Environment and Climate Change (ECc). The last MoC in 2016 identified these same top three but in a different order. Thus, Education, Employment and Health is what may be guiding the electoral choice of 2020 in the exercise of our voting franchise. What is perhaps puzzling is why ICT and ECc, two most critical themes running global development today, are least appreciated by the king makers of Africa’s touch bearer, Ghana.

Let’s vote upon meritocracy

It is expected that what the candidates have done in the past and promise to do in the future would inform the outcome of voting. But this is mere expectation. The reality may be that many would vote with the least reference to meritocracy. We should keep in mind a key consequence of democracy is that every people deserve their leaders; not just because they directly chose them but, more importantly, because they indirectly form them. The Candidates we have today, whether we are confident of their ability or not, are what we have produced as a people over the years. We are responsible for who they are. So, as we go to the polls, let us choose leaders who best reflect our aspirations; and after the elections let us get to work to make them accountable every day. If we sow “monitocracy”, ethnicity, bigotry mixed with the least level-headedness and objectivity, we will reap, and would have to eat, its fruits; including the mediocracy that comes along with mingling smart and silly reasons.

The campaign adverts are telling us a lot about what the respective political parties have done and what they intend to do; for which reason they would want to be our preferable choice. What they are not used to telling us much about is the opportunity cost of what they did, and intend to do, with our resources. How much did it cost to do all they claim to have done, and where did they get the more of the money to do it; from our own resources or from debts that have mortgaged our future? What is our debt to GDP ratio and its implication or opportunities for our future? Why are we still primary producers, inundated with an agrarian cum service economy buried in unpredictable informality, by and large? Why should we vote for who?

We need more than a vision

Visionary leadership is not our actual challenge: We started off as an independent country with great vision and significant resources. Our difficulty was, and remains, how to marshal our diversity into unified prosperity. In the very beginning of our independent nationhood, we had a smart leader who outwitted those who brought him in, by appealing to the masses and detaining dissension. He had a case because the other smart side was promoting elitism and crafting aristocracy. Today, we revel in mourning another we are stealthily immortalising as the father of our fourth republic, not only because he braced the odds to established a Constitution we have not judged as needing revision after more than a quarter of a century; but also he constructed a 20-year development plan (Vision 2020) second to none in our Republic’s history. Incidentally and curiously, the implementation period of Vision 2020 elapsed with the demise of its creator in a way that we all feel the throes of an unaccomplished destiny for both the man and his vision. If Nkrumah never dies, then Papa J lives on; and so do J.B Danquah and Dr. Hilla Limann.

If egotism does not have a better side of our today’s leaders, then true selflessness and wisdom would persuade them to genuinely work together after the elections; given both strands of political ideology are based on inseparable human realities. If no one should be morally obliged to choose between his hands because both left and right (I say left first because letter “L” is before letter “R” in the alphabets of the English language, we all have chosen as the official language) hands are indispensable to the complete and efficient human body, then ideological fixation in politics is inhuman. This is one of several inhuman contexts we have evolved which have made political contentions the cut-throat contest we witness every fourth year, this year. Neither the right nor left wings of political ideology are independent sufficient to wholesome development. they merely call for coordinated collaboration.

Let’s learn to drop the Egotism

Egotism is a moral, hence spiritual issue. That’s why our religious leaders are a core to our fundamental problems and solutions. They have to help us constructively discriminate between closely associated personal experiences which, though often coupled, are distinct in both character and consequence. For instance, self-love and selfishness are realities we need to understand and manage well. If leaders properly love themselves objectively, they would love citizens properly and would not be so greedy as to not just be corrupt but justify corruption with superficial interventions. Another instance is the temptation to control and the need to collaborate; and the skill to avert dissimulation through efficient coordination. Humans are often tempted to seek undue advantage through control because of our God-given ability to be fruitful multiply replenish and subdue the earth. But we seem to misunderstand the divine mandate to have dominion as meaning using selfish means to achieve an authorised end. Our religious leaders should teach and train us how to have dominion without dominating and de-nominating one another. We should separate the spiritual leaders from the religious entrepreneurs so we can make strides in our moral and spiritual growth as a people.

We need a practical way to prioritise development above politics

Perhaps we have to revisit in-depth consideration of a governance structure managed by a prime minister who drives a bi-partisan national development agenda but presided by a President who approves and supervises delivery who then appoints a prime minister nominated by certified independent civil society oganisations. The quest is to find a way in which politics, and for that matter partisan politics, would not so polarise us that we need a chunk of our meagre resources (including time and effort in a globalised world that waits for no man) to re-patch after every electoral season; and seriously facing ever-increasing threat of poor re-patching that could lead to the demise of one of our human hands. If NPP wins this elections, NDC may become a weaker opposition; and if NDC wins, we may have a significant reversal of many ongoing actions that have strong political underpinnings. We do we turn; doesn’t it seem too late in the present case of 2020? This is where the actual power of the people is required. There are many who have reason to be hopeless because of the many disappointments our political leaders have produced. But every people deserve their leaders, because we have formed them as a community does its members. Yet be advised: don’t be discouraged, don’t be genuinely hopeless. Manage the reality of pessimism with a depth of true faith, if little, in what God can and will do if we let him.

Given that we are fast becoming a more discerning electorate and wiser citizenry, in the next election season God-will December 2024, we would have decided whom to vote for long before the hyper electioneering campaigns commenced. Below are some specific things we could refer as pointers to where our thumbs would point on the ballot sheet of 2024:

Vote for the Party that would have done more, in relation to whether it’s in power or in opposition,

1. to depoliticise our airwaves:
2. to eliminate child labour and establish an economy above the threshold of basic decent work
3. To reinforce morality and spirituality

Very soon we will be in 2024, God willing.