The Birth Of A Real Revolution

For the past several years, I have sounded a great trumpet of an impending ordinary man's revolution that would hit this country with terrible repercussions if the well-to-do continue to trample the poor under their feet. Then two weeks ago, I warned that the revolution was at our doorsteps.

Ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow the 3rd of October 2013, will usher in the real revolution which will shake the foundations of this great country. The revolution I am referring to would eclipse Jerry John Rawlings 31st December, 1981 coup. The plain truth is that, life is brutally hard for the ordinary man.

Personally, I believe that the catastrophe starring us in the face could easily have been prevented. But those who wield power and their collaborators kept downplaying the magnitude of such impending danger. In fact, they have proudly refused to read the bold handwriting on the wall.

By 2010, it had become abundantly clear that President John Atta Mills lacked the skills to carry the people with him even in the short term and that his leadership could easily lose the mandate to lead. At that time, President Mills and his government had lost touch with the political realities on the ground despite their false believe they were delivering great results. Quickly, they crafted a rigging plan at party and national levels. But such treachery would spell their doom. The peoples' protests shall utterly decimate the fragile victory in their Sunyani presidential primaries as well as the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections with deleterious consequences.

The marginalisation of the ordinary man has reached a point of no return. When they were in opposition and since coming into power in 2009, Mills and Mahama have unleashed their boredom of empty promises on Ghanaians. As the ordinary man is pushed down the poverty line, people voted into office to cater for his needs are busily creating, looting and sharing. Whilst the smell of statutory funds in the consolidated account and the oil money is strong, the smell of poverty around islands of wealth seemed even stronger than before.

State institutions established to improve on the conditions of the ordinary man have failed him. They treat him as a nonentity. Otherwise, how can Parliament doggedly approve of huge loans presented by the Executive? Legislators on both sides of the House are aware of the dizzying speed the economy has been travelling since October last year. Yet they encourage President Mahama to borrow more!! Are they waiting for the system to bury those they claim to be representing?

Our country is at a turning point. The choice now is either to look for a new leadership that is genuinely interested and committed to accelerated change of the economy or allow ourselves to continually wallow in frustrated hopelessness. We need leaders that would stop thinking of our people as liabilities and convert them into assets.

This government has failed woefully to win the confidence of the people and indentify itself with the awakening of the masses to the consciousness of poverty and degradation and the insistent demands for a better life. No wonder, one does not hear of the Atta Mills 'I care for you' slogan again. The general impression Mahama and his party have made on the ordinary man is that, they are intoxicated with power and wealth. They indulge in vulgar show and that their sole aim in life is to amass fortunes for themselves regardless of national interest.

Millions of poor people have been waiting for better times, jobs, decent shelter and for things that they see others around them afford. Unfortunately, they have been suffocated economically, politically and socially under a so-called social democratic government. The moral question is: How long should they be patient? And the political question is: How long would they wait?

Under the presidency of John Mahama, money has become the only measure of value and we are therefore losing sight of values that cannot, and perhaps should not be monetised. He thinks and speaks of millions of dollars as if they are tens of dollars. We have a president who chunters a lot.

Having lost faith in the present leadership, the ordinary man should begin to look out for a qualitative leadership our country needs. He should ask himself what are the essential characteristics of the nation he aspires to have and the place he wants his country to occupy in the community of nations.

The ordinary man should look for a leadership that believes in a shared vision. A shared vision where citizens will align in their efforts to make necessary changes in life. There is the need for a shared vision that is not created by cheap talk, presentation of numbers and trivialised intellectual debates. Nor are they shaped by political negotiations. The time has come for deeper dialogue that must include the wants of diverse stakeholders of the country, rich and poor, north and south, east or west among others.

What distinguishes the leadership of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, General Kutu Acheampong, Dr. Hilla Limann, Jerry John Rawlngs and John Agyekum Kufuor , is their use of crisis that tested them to discover new ideas, new skills, and new strengths whereas John Evans Atta Mills and John Dramani Mahama got crushed.

The sad state of affairs is that majority of Ghanaians are wallowing in poverty and yet our leaders are busily amassing wealth, gulping the choicest drinks down their throats and arrogantly boasting like Nero who was fiddling while Rome burned around him. But even in the case of Nero, at least he was aware that Rome was burning. Clearly, President Mahama and his team are unaware of the problems confronting Ghanaians and are childishly still blaming their predecessors and sometimes even extending it to the people. Consequently, they are not in control.

Let me caution organizers of the demonstrations. You must not forget that the security forces are not happy with anyone that has dissenting views of the government of the day. Remember that they cannot and would not suddenly become friends. Also, watch out for infiltrators who would be deliberately planted in your midst to create confusion. Again, some of your trusted colleagues could easily be bought over by the powers that be to trade confidential information.