President Atta Mills and the Ghanaian Members of Parliaments

President Atta Mills

Philosophers are very interesting and peculiar people to deal with because they usually do not take things at face value. They tend to be experimenters and so they always trying to test hypotheses or theories in their day to days work. They have a propensity to be people that always test theories to find out whether the theories are well fitted to observation or not. In their quest to find the truth, they can come up with the same truth which indicates the truth that other scientists through experimentation and testing have discovered. They may also question the validity of certain theories, and by so doing come up with different results that may be different from the established truth gained by scientists.

The new president, as a philosopher and professor, wants to employ the scientific method, even in his governing, which is characteristic with his personality as a practicing philosopher. The author is not surprised that both President Rawlings and a few other NDC members are crying that the President has not chosen certain people well known by the public into his cabinet. Mills by his profession is an independent thinker and so one can immediately conclude that this era of NDC is totally different from the NDC we have known in the past or over the years. The President, by no means shows that he is an independent thinker, which again surprised me to hear from some people that he had been subscribing to the dictates of the former President Rawlings. The author thinks that if ever President Rawlings has uttered something which had led President Mills to have followed doing or acting upon, it does seems that the latter might have informed the former first about his plans (due to his respect for him), but that the former being so naive might have come out to reveal this plan only to show that he is still in control.

Coming back to the mention of the ex-gratia, which had caused controversy for sometime, President Mills by using the scientific approach in this governing style, is not a bad thing at all. Like his contemporary philosophers, he would like to have a second independent body to examine it to see what they think about the content of these emoluments in order for him to make his own judgement. Will they agree with the first commission or would they disagree? Would they suggest some changes in the content of these emoluments? Or would they abolish everything and suggest their own manners which may be entirely different from the Chenery-Hesse Commission? Now, we must understand that this manner of working is also the usual way the courts work with their cases, therefore, to me, the President is on right track in this approach. Any attempt by the MPs to go to the court with this case will be of no use because the President is not suggesting that he wants to abolish the ex-gratia but that he wants a second opinion, which conforms to the scientific approach of pursuing cases in the court or research investigation in the field.

What does this says about President Atta Mills, the philosopher-professor? His approach of working signals the end of President J. J. Rawlings; he does not have absolute power over his party nor can he advise the philosopher-professor before he takes action. The people of Ghana should know that they have a president who is well-trained and polished and so he is methodical, scientific oriented, not naive and therefore, has control over what he is doing as the President of Ghana. The era of former President J. J. Rawlings and his characteristic manner of roaring in public like a lion as if he owns Ghana is over. Unfortunately, J. J. should look for a job outside the country or he should apply to become an Honory Professor to come and lecture at the University of Ghana, Legon, at the Department of Administration to lecture on "Military Dictatorship and Political Administration: Lessons to be Learned from the Ghanaian Experience".

By Desmond Ayim-Aboagye