Does Ghana Need a Younger President—or a President with Better Character?

Some persons have developed a very lazy formula for political analysis: If you are old, you are the same as every other old man who failed. By that logic, every old driver is a bad driver because one old driver had an accident.

There is something intellectually lazy about reducing the leadership potential of Chairman Johnson Asiedu Nketia to his age while conveniently ignoring the more important questions of character, integrity, experience, political consciousness, and commitment to the people. Ghana has a problem with leadership, but age alone is not that problem. The real problem is what leaders do with the power entrusted to them.

Nobody should ever compare Chairman General Johnson Asiedu Nketia to any former President whose government will be remembered as a family business.

Chairman General must never be casually equated with a former President simply because of age. Such comparisons confuse chronology with character and assume that growing older automatically means becoming the same kind of leader. That is not analysis; it is political stereotyping dressed up as intellectual argument.

If age were the only qualification for failure, Ghana would not need elections, manifestos, or public accountability. We could simply consult the birth certificates of presidential aspirants and declare the winner. What an ingenious way to save the Electoral Commission money!

But leadership is not a birthday contest. It is a test of judgment, values, competence, and service.

Chairman General's case must be examined on its own merits. His decades in politics, the offices he has occupied, and his experience within the political system provide grounds for assessing his preparedness for greater responsibility. His supporters see a man who has paid his dues, understands grassroots politics, and has built relationships with ordinary people. These are relevant considerations in any serious conversation about leadership.

More importantly, the question is not whether Asiedu Nketia is old. It is whether he possesses the integrity, discipline, political understanding, and capacity to serve Ghana effectively. Those questions deserve serious answers, not ageist taunts.

If you want to know whether an old man will be wise in office, don't count his grey hair. Go and check his childhood. Check his youth. Check his adult life. Check what he did when nobody was watching.

A man who was selfish and sarcastic at 30 will be selfish and sarcastic at 70, only with more power to damage a whole nation. A man who was wasteful and family-centered in his private life will turn the Presidency into a family business. That is what we saw. The state became a family business. Contracts for family, appointments for family, debt for the nation.

When Chairman General was young, he was not eating with gold spoons and building family empires. He was in the trenches. He was organizing, mobilizing, teaching, and building a party from the polling station to the national level. He paid his dues. Not in Dubai. Not in foreign boardrooms. But in Berekum, in Wenchi, in every constituency where grassroots work is done with sweat, not with press releases.

This is a man whose entire political life has been about people, not property. About organization, not family accumulation. Show me one office Chairman General held where he turned it into a family enterprise. You cannot. Show me his record - as MP, as Minister, as General Secretary for 17 years. The record is public, verifiable, and it speaks of discipline, strategy, and loyalty to a cause bigger than himself.

That is called integrity. And integrity is not bought at age 72. It is built from age 18.

He is an old man who thinks young. He is a grassroots man who knows that a party and a nation cannot survive without its youth. He does not fear the youth. He does not insult the youth. He works with the youth. He listens. In NDC, every young person who has risen will tell you - Chairman General opened the door. He mentored. He empowered.

The most important difference is this: The old President we are trying hard to forget surrounded himself with other old men. It was a government of old men, by old men, for old men and their grandchildren. The youth were told to "wait your time" while the President's family and friends shared the national cake.

The wise old man proverb says, "Not every old man is wise." Our elders also say, if you want to know if an old man is wise, check how he lived when he was young. A foolish boy will become a foolish old man, only with more power to cause damage.

Throughout his years in public service, you cannot point to a single contract awarded by Chairman General to his brother, his wife, or his children. Go ahead and name even one.

The other old President cannot say the same. His government became a textbook case of "family and friends." Kenkey was for Ghanaians. The meat was for family and friends. That is why today Ghanaians are asking serious questions about accountability, and some family members are allegedly trying to renounce the very citizenship they used to make money. What a shame.