What We Want From President John Mahama: An Open Letter to the President

H.E. The President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama,
Flagstaff House,
Accra, Ghana.


Your Excellency,

Ghana has just crossed the 56th year's milestone and wiggles its way haphazardly, as it were, of an inebriate, into the unknown. As remarkable as this eventful traverse has been, we are battling our breath to catch in the mirror a glimpse our grisly image at 56, and as individuals hurl themselves to give account of their experiences on the realities of this timespace, the flux of articles in the media expressing disdain and disappointment is prodigious. Two of these attracted my attention; one on behalf of the government reported by Citi FM which titled, “Be proud of Ghana's success at 56 – Gov't”, and the other by one Abdul Baba that said, for “Ghana at 56,” it was “a time to rise.”

Undoubtedly these articles mean well, but the “government” in the first is nuanced since it can't be inferred that the feeling of “being proud” of [some] success at this particular time would be an idea cherished by the president of the republic. It emanates therefore as an expression for, rather than from the president's own bona fide sentiments of a hypothetic situation as the president is obviously knowledgeable of the current state of affairs in the country.

Collectively, one understands the precarious position of the government as it clutches to the straws by trying to make us feel comfortable with “success” very hardly perceptible! The fact that the country is crumbling under the enduring and excessive post-independent pillage of our resources and management catastrophe by successive governments and their officials cannot be understated. On the other hand, agreeing with Abdul Baba, I also believe it is truly time for us to rise. But looking at the state and moral assessment of its citizens, what are we rising on? Injustice and impunity that place politicians above the law while perpetually voting on big paychecks for themselves with nothing to show for it?

I have tried to wait for echoes of the presidential elections to wane in order to have your attention critically focused on the theme of this letter: CORRUPTION,direct result of and mutually dependent on the exaggerated lack of will in the exercise of rule of law by parties concerned, and in the shade of which are the overwhelming lethargy and extreme inefficiency spanning every institution at management levels in Ghana. But having gleaned from various NPP pranksters' boisterous tantrums throughout all this time, most of us have come to conclusion the party is not about to rescind its recourse to court. One thing is of utmost essence however, as far as we others are concerned: Ghana goes first, ahead of individualist inclinations of NPP's fanciful imagination.

If at one and the same day (Ghanaweb.com General News of Thursday, February 28, 2013 – Culled from radioxyzonline and joyonline respectively) Haruna Esseku would swear the NPP court actions are geared to “unseat the president” while the National Vice Chairman of the NPP, Fred Oware “would debunk claims the party is contesting the legitimacy of the President,” what is more contradictory? Is politics now an idle stroll for fun in Ghana?

Mr. President, what is driving some of us in awe of the situation, is the distinctive pervasiveness of corruption and its mounting amplitude over time, and on the other, the weakness of the authorities to find a sustainable solution. My concerns reflect that of so many like-minded and very honest Ghanaians who believe this country is treading on paths that may soon escape repair/stretch limits and may well tip us tumbling in a spiral of no-return if we do not turn the tables and halt the trend in the flawed management of our affairs. Factually, it is my belief solutions are there at the end tip of our fingers – at the disposition of the state.

While contending that subscription to pessimism is trifling and frivolous at this point in time, it is worthy of thought that optimism needs necessarily be built on substance – practical thoughts, creativity and objectivity that herald hope. It is this hope that some of us believe is rekindled in your election as the President of the Republic, knowing you have an inclination to listen. It is the conviction of most of us that with you as a president a change in direction is possible. We want you as the flag bearer of that change. We want you to listen, then act like a President who has the destiny of people in your hand, and who has the power to alter the course of history.

Your Excellency, you were not elected at the steer of the country because the country is convinced the NDC is spotless as far as corruption and mismanagement are concerned. Parties are composed of Ghanaians, and all the political parties are identical twins of each other. The country voted for your person! We believe in your honesty, your humility and sense of purpose; we see in you the reincarnation of hopes and virtues that have been usurped for selfishness and irresponsibility of thought.

Mr. President, there is a paradox that for our politicians in Ghana tomorrow never comes so promises made for the next daybreak are left into oblivion as soon as made, yet they convince us as they go to bed every evening that their dream policies smell good of alambic. In the same vein, on the leeward, that is, protecting themselves under the sacrosanct veil of the so-called goodwill and faith, churches and their prophets wearing all beard types and lengths proliferate with amazing prevalence and momentum while at the same time financial crimes and corruption are at their highest peak.

While denouncing the hike in the lack of transparency and dynamism in the gestion and administrative procedure in state institutions it is noteworthy that management is not about as hard as cracking a nut! If education and competence are touted so fondly as requisite conditions for effective managerial and administrative prowess why is it that Ghana is falling below standard when the country boasts of increasingly many highly educated cadres?

In 1976 the percentage holders of doctorate degrees was higher in Ghana than in Denmark yet our country barely stuck out of the waves. Ghana and Africa are not only trailing the Western world in innovation and Management, they are doing worse of anything, and this is certainly not related to the lack of highly educated intellectuals. Taking a glance at trends therefore we can now ascertain that even 100% literacy in Ghana would not help.

Management is simply a matter of defining objectives, then instituting a system of and guarding modalities to achieving desired results. Other factors remaining the same, the optimum result is attained by packaging into the resources strict regulations which are, in fact, principles and work ethic, and the extent of achievement equals the effort engaged in assuring that those principles function as programed. Failure is bound to be certain in management situations where regulations are neglected, which amply explains the lasting situation in Ghana.

Your Excellency, though I don't want to enumerate types of corruption because the list is very long, at least one or two cases are worth mentioning for the sake of this. Sometime ago, my business institution required a police report. Getting one in Ghana, depending on the charge, is a headache. Now, after two months of drag-feet imbroglio notice was issued that the reports were processed since three weeks pending the signature of god, that is, the honorable police officer who swore in the service of Ghana, but he had other things to do! In my opinion such officers should be fired. These are the type of people who will undermine your government.

A second case concerns a friend who called from home in a rare enthusiasm I never knew of him to exclaim the center of the world was in Ghana and that the sun rose and set in his home. Just as I queried my mind about his use of symbolism in the representation of what must be going on he asserted he now changed cars every six months and had three, and that he also had two “mansions”. Carpe Diem, the future could take care of itself? And he wasn't a senior officer!

I wasn't surprised when he later during the conversation disclosed he was a CEPS officer. His tale, contrary to his expectations, didn't inspire the reaction he anticipated from me and I wasn't amused. Thinking about this one does not require the IQ of a genius to figure out that it would only take a handful of such officers spanning state institutions to collapse the country completely.

When I left Ghana, my friend had just started life as a welder after graduation from a technical institution, and was later absorbed into CEPS through the backdoor by his cousin's wife who was a senior officer. These ignoble situations are a tradition in Ghana considering that a president, during his incumbency, blamed Adam – of our biblical ancestry for all of it as a prelude to and justification for embarking on an unprecedented wholesale predatory on our resources.

Mr. President, in Ghana, while we relish flaunting our latest models of flashy cars and houses in boastful exhibition of affluence we often forget the desperate condition of the poor next door neighbor who, as a compatriot, also has titles to the same misappropriated wealth. The melancholy in this is that, while this all last, we sidestep the blunt reality that at the end of our time when we go down, we will not carry materials away. So, why is it difficult thereof to consider that it makes more sense to bequeath to our generations a prosperous and healthy state?

Your Excellency, corruption is a state of mind. It is born at the crossroads of deliberate moral bankruptcy and perfidy. Trying to right this faulty mindset is also the sociology of trying to change what causes individual minds to stray from the normal. Corruption in a country is symptomatic of chronic political failure. This involves systemic lack of volition or resolution to initiate authoritatively control programs and jealously guarding their success through effective monitoring schemes or lines of action. This explains why corruption in developed and advanced states like the U.S., Britain and Germany is different to the horrid culture in Ghana, and why it does not really affect aggregate developments in those countries as they always have plans of actions that are followed to the letter. You are in infraction of the law; you will suffer the consequences, no matter who you are.

Other parts of Africa trail in the same pathway however, Senegal is one country emerging out of the dark shades. Senegal's political elites spearheaded by the incumbent President Macky Sall are taking voluntary and admirable steps in a different direction. Just four days after the presidential elections last year, the Ministers of the former government of Abdoulaye Wade were denied access into their offices. This measure was to prevent them from taking away compromising documentation, and some Ministers were caught red-handed stealing state materials. All state-owned vehicles were seized immediately (We have not forgotten how ineptitude of the government has left Ministries burning, as we are still waiting for account on cars that were never retrieved from the former President Kufuor's government officials).

Actually some of those suspected of involvement in corruption and other financial crimes are in jail pending investigations while high profile politicians including the former president's son are under strict travel ban. The current big front-page headline reads, “Arrest imminent for Karim”, the son of the former President Wade who was nicknamed “Minister of Heaven, Earth and the Seas” who is also under the same travel ban and can't go anywhere. Where else in Africa could this happen?

The Senegalese president also directed investigations in most western capitals for assets stashed away of by politicians and his success so far is overwhelming. As was contained in his package of campaign manifesto, the Senegalese President assumes responsibility for those actions leading to the turnout of events concerning corruption and theft. Some of us would not expect a miracle out of this but it marks a fulcrum in the country's political will to eradicate corruption. The first step is of consequence.

Pushing for more legislation and rule of law

To call for the hard-line prop-up of laws, rules and regulation or amendment thereof would have assumed we have already been respectful of our laws. We don't respect, comply with nor are we responsive to laws in Ghana. This is the genesis of decadence in individual behavior, the general break-down of morality and ethics in everything we do and the perspective from which we view everything. I am sorry, but it is the reality. This behavior, you know, Mr. President, questions our intelligence.

Starting from 0, as in ZERO, how does a human civilization evolve from the rudimentary savage life of a jungle into a complex structure of developed, prosperous and civilized society capable of sustaining principle-based healthy culture, viable economy, good will, freedom, equality and ethics and morality systems that guarantee not only immediate life instincts but also takes posterity into account?

Since we understand every human has his own social pulls and pushes, streaks of character, mentality, attitudes that may be dictated, or not, by rationality or from a myriad causes, we suppose that there ought to be regulation – rules that define how each individual comports themselves so as to uphold the intrinsic idea of intelligence, wisdom, order, sense of direction and purpose, as distinct from lower animals.

Next in sequence, the tedious challenge and the predominant of all, in scale, which may be likened to a structural frame, is finding honest and loyal people who would be the interpreters of the rules and who would assure everyone in the nascent civilization bows to the rules by will, reason or by force, that is, the laws will be imposed by default.

It is understandable that in the dire absence of any such rules, what would fit the description of this society would be chaos; life here would be meaningless. No objectives, no vision, no judgment, no sense of morality as the sense of good and bad would be lost. The very strong of this civilization will subdue the weak to every known form of bully, in the fashion of the Law of the jungle.

Your Excellency, what is happening in Ghana now bears close resemblance to this. As far as Ghana is concerned, we don't have such structural frame. The country is presently getting stuck in the mud because nothing seems to be working because the laws aren't working!

Your Excellency, I am aware you know it is the LAW that changes people, and it is people who must enforce them. Take for instance the pilot who takes off in his airplane into the emptiness, heading for an unknown destination. Each day is different. Now, flight statistics show that the probability of arriving at his destination is very high, meaning he has almost all the chances of arriving safely.

But no matter how very reliable navigational instruments could be, his utmost vigilance is required. So he applies very stringently all the rules and regulations as apply during all the phases of the flight. It is a matter of discipline, passion, challenge, the urge to be successful, the desire to mark a passage! If he made any mistakes he would not live to correct them as he would go down with everybody aboard the flight. What is his top challenge therefore? Many pilots make daily successful flights, so he would not be an exception, taking that all other pilots are products of this earth. This, in real life situation could liken the president of the republic to a pilot who needs to apply all the rules required to reach the destination.

For the President to be successful during the next four years of administration and be able to eradicate poverty, reinstall confidence levels and optimism, stem negative tendencies he should have to take stiff actions immediately and assume responsibility. The president needs to enforce policies that instill retribution for wrongdoing; reward for excellence, in a way that would revitalize the sense of nationalism among the population.

To fight corruption people have to get punished and others have to get fired for misbehavior and abuse of confidence. The prisons have punitive/correctional effects and those of forestalling similar behavior of others. As an old French adage would have it, “l'enfer est pavé de bonnes intentions,” the road to hell is paved with good reasons.

People are people; they don't have to be rational. People put up bad behavior when they understand they will not have to worry about consequences of their actions. In fact, bad behavior begins the moment it is noticed that others did not face action for what they did wrong. The more a system stays impunity, the more dramatic the successive turnouts. Lack of punishment is therefore the direct motivation for the recurrence of similar and worse behavior.

We are aware the presidency does not represent the law but this is a humble plea that it is time something gets done. And it goes from ridiculousness to mockery at our scholarship and collective sense of responsibility that there is an open acknowledgement of generalized and extreme financial malpractice and mismanagement going on and yet no one gets punished or fired. No one alone is indispensable. If someone can't function as required, others should be given the chance. We can't afford to continue losing billions of dollars to corruption alone while we go borrowing millions.

Some of us could assist His Excellency to be successful in salvaging the country from the rot and ruins it finds itself in if the state would pass more laws and have them enforced against criminal behavior.

Finally, Your Excellency, while we wait for your actions, this is worth the thought of the moment: which underlying conditions predispose one race to a tenacious sense of goodwill, hard work and innovation, the jealous upkeep of order and justice, while apparently conferring on the other tendencies of utter carelessness and qualities destitute of positive thought? While at it, I keep convinced this kind of considerations are also games of the mind, but until we stepped out of the old trappings of our craniums, from the ill-motivated drives of the selfish African and have our gaze leveled not only on moral refinement but also on the sweeping momentum of the new world order, the dawn of hope and search for “renewed” total independence will be lost on us. We will remain forever the mystical figure with a complex and head-breaking paradox: Our feet are on gold and diamond, and in our hands an empty calabash.

While thanking very heartily Your Excellency for his audience let me express the honor to remain, Sir, Your Excellency's most humble subject.

God bless Ghana and God bless the President.

Nana Kofi Komfuor , (Vuvuzela on the Ghanaweb.com)
132B rue 41097 M3,
Tevragh Zeina,
Nouakchott, Mauritania

[email protected]