How Bawumia Changed The Face Of Ghana’s Politics

All hell broke loose when he announced that he was going to speak on the economy on 7^th April, 2022. A vice president’s speech on the economy, seven years ago, wouldn’t have amassed such euphoria and desperation from the people. It wouldn’t have been, in the same way, drained the attention of the opposition party as it did a few days ago. In history, Bawumia reminds us of Goebbels, how he made the word, Propaganda to become an exhaustive tool in politics during the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945. He reminds us of Donald Trump in how he weaponized Immigration policy, as a national scandal, to change the face of American politics in 2016. He also reminds us of the aftermath of 9/11; on how America brought Islamic terrorism to the center stage of global politics. In our case, Bawumia’s effect has jettisoned politics of profanity, insults, and hollow propaganda and has installed an economic milestone to be measured as an index of government performance.

This achievement, in a political-jungled nation like Ghana, could only be done by a political outsider. And Bawumia should be given the credit. As eloquent and intelligent as he is, he wouldn’t have to prey too much on clarity and substance in economic management, if he was to be a typical career politician like his boss. Either he was too confident in his intellectual vigor, or he failed to read his alibi in a typical Ghanaian way of doing politics. Whichever way he felt during the campaign, his pristine legacy has now been caught in the political dungeons, and is lurking behind the curtains of economic policy.

However, policy-making is not run like an academic seminar, and the spirit of statesmanship does not completely lie in personal convictions. Political parties too are not interested in rallying their base with substance, it is persuasion and propaganda that define their ordeals. Campaign rhetoric is not a precedent for ideological premises, to begin with when chanced into government nor can serve as a benchmark for decision-making. Anyone who fails to separate mass politics from intellectual capital in government is bound to dissolve within the aberrations of political factions; he will be forced to shut all his intellectual faculties and be made to think about the next election. Such people are either scapegoated for the failures of the sitting government or would be made to gather the ashes of faction-prone upheavals. Only because they will have no option but to be too loyal to those who paved the way for their political spree. Bawumia, is suffering from these bruising nuances and at the same time, failing to understand how bureaucratic night fights can render intellectual oracles like him useless in governance.

The opposition party knew the upcoming indispensability of Bawumia in the NPP government, and so his intellectual demise, was somehow a heyday for their political survival. Hence, let no Ghanaian be happy for the failures of Bawumuia, a win for politicians is simply a loss for the people. Even if he was successful, they could still open the potholes wide enough for them to become full gutters of political demonization. The other way round could have been the same.

Bawumia isn’t a typical politician, his ideals are neither on the center-left nor the center-right. His type of ideologue doesn’t run through the facets of the disingenuous liberal conservatism. In his pure embodiment, Bawumia is Bawumia. Amid the uproar and resentment during Mahama’s administration, while his colleagues were going around throwing bandwagons and demonization, he appeared in the public space with a smile and vibrancy that drew Mahama’s government into the cult of pure economic analysis. Nobody could have exposed a sitting government in such a lucrative manner as he did. And that is why he has become the central idea of all economic analysis in the country.

Lectures and seminars weren’t conventional tools in campaign strategies for political parties here. They were done within party offices and think tanks. Bawumia has descended to embody economic discussions with graphs and charts, beaconing the ideal way of doing economics with politics. Let’s not be obsessed with only his failures, else we will lose the treasure in our political progress, or even fail to recognize it. If political-faction mechanisms have been able to tame a political outsider like Bawumia, then Ghana must be suffering from both economic nostalgia and blockades of intellectualism dangerous to nation-building. Or aren’t we surprised that somebody like Bawumia, with all his pristine past in economics has been rendered useless in governance within his "fundamental lacking" views of this economy? A man who came with no insults and destructive words. Attacked his opponent with facts and figures. Educated Ghanaians on the basis of economics in government with brightening integrity that was impressive has been booted to political vindictiveness.

The so-called elite liberal conservatives couldn’t have had enough of him. Only that they were not interested in the wholesale proper governance he envisioned with them. In his 7^th April speech, he spoke as a politician, not as an economist. And politicians too can speak for five hours without saying anything. Their answers to questions can run for full-page, if one is to scrutinize, he wouldn’t get a single answer. And this is no news. Those who had known him and read his works must have been asking too many questions; how can Bawumia be reduced to these political laughingstocks? Disappointing everyone who had confidence in him. But integrity sometimes can be exchanged for legacy, Bawumia has paid this price while hoping to vindicate his competence.

It is true in our time that those who have golden ideas have been sidelined. They stay in their shells, with fear that they might in a way, be subjected to political screws. As an intellectual, Bawumia wasn’t fortunate to skip these catastrophes.

Since the oracles of his intellectual accolades haven’t been burnt in pure political vindictiveness and only his scapegoating spree has dissolved our confidence in him, let’s hope that he might once again perform another turnaround in our politics. What has happened to him can happen to any intellectual of our time. Even his own boss once had the people’s confidence, now he stands on the wrong side of history. If we are to judge him from several perspectives, I think he could be vindicated, perhaps faultless, but he is having a whopping three years to convince Ghanaians why we are here; this I think, he isn’t lucky.

From now onwards, as we are witnessing, Ghana is going to have analytically based discussions on economics, and economic folks like consultants, lecturers, and financial analysts are going to be useful. Their thoughts and ideas would be high in demand in the media space. As we crave to bork Bawumia out of the political scene, let’s not misuse and abuse the economic flavors he has added to our politics. And let’s not forget that he is now the benchmark intellectual for these economic enterprises. Political fate is like destiny, either it will come to pass without your consciousness or you’ll mistakenly bypass it for another course. Here, Bawumia stands within this ambivalence. Either he will by himself, fail to recognize this legacy by craving for another one, or the legacy will bear his name without his consent.

Let’s not pay attention to those who are inciting us to insult. Let’s stay calm and build fruitful political discourse for the next generation. The politicians who don’t have the skill to engage in pure analytical discourse will struggle to adjust to this progress. Bawumia’s precedence is another win for our politics

You can reach the writer at opoku.andreues@gmail.com

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