Ghana@66 Needs a transformational servant leadership to steer affairs of the nation on the eve of independence anniversary

1 On the eve of another independence anniversary (after over six decades and more), Ghana / Africa urgently needs a transformational servant (Tran-Serve) leadership to drive affairs of the nation and continent. And this objective can mainly be attained with a fusion of traditional African and Western values and principles of representation, transparency, accountability, and participation for organizing the designs and shape of STATEHOOD according to needs, realities, and aspirations of the constituent communities - Blended Representation Principle (BRP). Africa presently is an amalgamation of hybrid variants of Western models of democracies, and remnants of traditional African societies, and its systems of rulership and governance must adequately reflect such structural characteristics.

2. Everybody can strive to be a Tran-Serve leader by learning and imbibing the values, principles, and attributes. Tran-Serve Leadership encompasses all public office occupants whose power, authority, and positions are rooted in the public purse. Practical example of Tran-Serve Leadership for driving national affairs is the combined sterling qualities of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, and Dr. Mohamed Mahathir of Malaysia in terms of respective journeys of leading to serve and transform their various societies at a given point in time.

3. Some of the qualities worth upholding include: focus on solutions; creating empowering spaces; building communities of practical learning; uplifting voices and mindsets around a common goal; energizing people; improving outcomes satisfaction and performances; enhancing political participation; setting aside self-interests; promoting transformation of the whole; enabling transparent policy decision-making; operating with underlying motivational value of serving others; driving accountable stewardship; considering every individual needs and inputs; shrinking distance between the ruled and rulers; construing public service as a vocation; engendering economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the use of the public purse and societal resources; performing to earn trust and respect voluntarily; and eschewing empty and rhetorical high-level buy-in and sense of belonginess.

4. Public service leadership is a generational mindset. In the post-independence era of Ghana’s existence, three broad and distinct generational leadership are worthy of note: the generation of Hope and Privilege (Gen. HP); the generation of Hope and Disillusionment (Gen. HD): and the Generation of the Most Deprived of All (Gen. MD).

5. Gen. HP is the generation that assumed the mantle of public service leadership after the leaders who fought and freed the nation / continent of the physical rule of the enslavers and colonialists. This generation is rightly labelled hope and privilege who squandered and dissipated the opportunities along the way. As a result, the country is presently experiencing a ‘bitter lesson of leadership.’ The generation of hope and disillusionment is also appropriately categorized because they enjoyed the crumbs of hope and privilege while growing up and in school. However, when ready to enter the public workforce began the steep decline of decay and despondency. In response, several of this generational category left the shores in droves and many settled wherever they are. Others who stayed put aligned interests and superintended over the continuous decay and decadence of society. Both Gen. HP and Gen. HD created a small window for a tiny proportion of the most deprived generation of all to join in the ‘create, loot, and share’ bandwagon with a monumental impact on the mindset of the younger / youthful generation in the process of nation building. Hence on the eve of another independence anniversary, political organization of society for transformative development has become an endemic means to self-serving uncaring aggrandizement.

5. In a nutshell, this is our reality as a nation and continent from which to carve out a Tran-Serve Leadership to steer affairs. This is urgent because the enterprise Ghana, (and for that matter Africa), is forever and eternal, and quality of living must change for the betterment of the majority. For every generation, there are expected roles and responsibilities and the Almighty God beckons all of us to play our parts.

Most of the ideas here are detailed in my forthcoming book, Leadership in Post-Independence Africa; Six Decades On: The Blended Representation Principles as a cause For Afro-Optimism (London: Zed Books, Fall 2023).