Ghana Beyond Aid: Akufo-Addo Never Lied

Prior to the 2016 general election, Ghanaians were told the then NPP flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, had spent over 30 years preparing for the Highest Office of the Land. Perhaps, they were sneakily projecting him as Jesus Christ, who had also spent 30 years preparing for his earthly mandate. Possible. Even he, the now President, had said on several platforms that occupying the Presidency of Ghana had been his childhood ambition. Take note: ambition, not dream. Together with his running mate, the Walewale Adam Smith, Dr Bawumia, they have proffered many fantastic solutions to Ghana’s ailing economy. Perfect team.

The NPP presented the duo to Ghanaians as our Messiahs – yes, they have what it takes to deliver us from Mahama’s “poorly managed” administration! Ghanaians, from Agavedzi to Nadowli, from Nzulezu to Bawku, believed them. This was evident in the resounding victory they gave him over the “incompetent” John Dramani Mahama. On the day of his induction into Office, he boldly announced a “GHANA BEYOND AID.” We cheered its possibility. No need for doubts. Afterall, the leader of the agenda has been preparing for this and certainly knows the way.

The kind of preparation the President had undergone is not the contention of this post. However, the messier economic woes, he, together with his Vice, who was tagged, the Economic Messiah, and is the Head of the Economic Management Team, has plunged the country into will leave every concerned Ghanaian to wonder at the rudiments of the preparation the president had undergone.

The President is now everything he has ever criticised and worse. He gave Ghanaians the sense that with a stroke of his magic wand, the fortunes of Ghana will be restored. Things are worse! When he told us he has spent over 30 years in preparation, we should have asked him what he was preparing for, to lead or to loot us? When they told us they have the men, we should have asked them, to do what? Like a damsel so betrayed by her former and desperate to love again, our sense of judgment was obscured in their decoying promises and slogans.

Did Akufo-Addo lied to Ghanaians prior to December 7, 2016? I don’t think so. Is he well intended? I think so. Does he have the men? Many of them! Why then is his Presidency becoming so unpopular among Ghanaians? Why is the once Show-Boy suddenly receiving hooting and booing from section of the citizenry? All the adjectives that describe his administration now connote disapproval and regrets. His name, on the lips of many Ghanaians now implies shame. What a dichotomy for the once Darling-Boy to become a subject of ridicule among even the commonest of the populace!

Deep-seated in Addo-Dee’s governance is dishonesty, pride, insensitivity, senseless ego and lack of compassion and integrity. To be a successful leader, your words have to be everything you’ve got. You must have integrity. If your followers begin to have a sense of you and realise you are not true, they will conclude that you are dishonest, crooked, corrupt and untrustworthy.This is where the President now finds himself. Not a very pleasant place.

What is missing in the Akufo-Addo’s administration is honesty and the humility to accept responsibility for one’s failings. Yes, Covid and the Russia-Ukraine war certainly, might have contributed a fraction to our economic woes. But to parade these in the faces of Ghanaians daily as though they are the only causes of their plights while they can clearly see traces of the dishonesty, insensitivity, ego, incompetence and corruption you are overseeing can only make you be disliked.

James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner agree with me. The two management experts performed a survey of several thousand of people around the world using several hundreds of case studies. They found that honesty was the most frequently cited trait of a good leader. This character was so frequently cited that they decided to coauthor a volume about it called, Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It.

Even Lorin Woolfe in his book, “The Bible on Leadership” reveals, “It doesn’t matter how noble or worthwhile your cause; if you haven’t earned people’s trust by constantly keeping your word and being true to your values, people won’t follow you too far. They may follow you to a point, but when the going gets tough, they’ll start to hang back or look around for another leader. You may tell followers that despite the obstacles, the goal is achievable and that you will back them up 100 percent. But if you have failed to back them up in the past (or even if you simply lack a track record of trust and honesty), no one is going to line up to follow you through a deep mud puddle, let alone the Red Sea.”

Fellow Ghanaians, you will agree with me that this is exactly the state the President and his government find themselves with the citizenry. They have lost a track record of trust and honesty that, we, their followers, can’t follow them far and no longer trust their “we will fix the economy” promises.

Maybe, the President and his Appointees should get copies of these two great books.

Well, if for nothing at all, Ghanaians must respect the president and his “competent” government for one thing: They have kept their promise to Ghanaians. They promised Ghanaians a “Ghana Beyond Aids” and today, they have done just that. They haven’t? Is Ghana currently not beyond aids? Is the fundamentals of our economy not so broken that investors are so alarmed and parking their bags? Is our currency not currently the most useless in the world? Is our economy not so tattered that the International Capital Market does not even want us? Don’t our books look so bad that even the ‘benevolent’ IMF has to deal with us more cautiously?

Sadly, these are realities the government will rather blame on external factors than to accept responsibility for. If you mark them with the scripts they used to call Mahama incompetent, they will come shamelessly with the justification that their own case is peculiar. Even if the World Bank diagnosed that our problems are more internally driven, their fingers will still be pointed to Covid and the Russia-Ukraine war. Let Fitch and Moody downgrade them and they will tell you the matrices they used in grading them is questionable. Meanwhile, it was this same grading system they heartily accepted and used to lambast the Mahama administration. A President that boldly told Ghanaians he knows what it takes to bring the economy back but can’t bring us back to life if we allow Covid to take our lives is now blaming Covid? The irony!

Tell them that in the face of current economic crisis, there is no need to create six addition regions and they will tell you, “Watch us do it.” Tell them though well intended, the Free SHS Policy must be reviewed and they will tell you, “You don’t know what time it is.” Tell them to shelve the building of the National Cathedral and they will proudly retort, “Cathedral no de3, y3b3si.” Yes, “The battle remains the Lord’s,” they will conclude, ignoring the fact that even the Lord they claim the battle belongs to, demands responsibility from us and is compassionate and despises the proud – He actually fights the proud!

This government is so good to get it wrong, sometimes. They are too wise to be advised. It is only them that have Ghana at heart and know how to cure her ailing economy. They are beyond criticism. Somebody or something else, but them, is responsible for the economic hardship the country is facing. Granted that uncouth youths or the NDC was behind the booing the President received recently at the Global Citizen Festival in Accra and the one the Vice-President received in Anloga. But to be booed at in the Ashanti Region? C’mon! But of course, the all-knowing and egoistic government will rather regard this as the handiworks of their enemies and untrained youths than to take it as a negative report from the same populace that once rallied behind them and massively voted them into power.

However, the more they deny the economic realities of their own failings and limitations and vow to Ghanaians they have what it takes to fix the economy, the messier things get.

How shameful and disappointing for a man who had spent his entire life preparing for a position only to perform so abysmal when given the mandate eventually? An irony, perhaps? Truly, if the gods have marked a man for destruction, they will first break a stick in his ears to stop him from listening to the voice of wisdom and reason. The president should be reminded that the Presidency is a responsibility and not a crown. Instead of the flame of arrogant ego, corruption and insensitivity, good leadership demands that he lights the flame of sensitivity, integrity, honesty, humility and compassion.

There’s a Hero in you; unleash it!