Unity And Cohesion Of Our Country, Mother Ghana

Safe Democracy Ghana is happy President John Dramani Mahama has pledge to do all in his power to promote an atmosphere of political rapprochement in order to diffuse any tension that may threaten our national wellbeing and he expects that all political leaders in this country will do same. (March 6, 2015; Ghana at 58).

But the problem facing mother Ghana is more than rapprochement with other political leaders to calm down nerves for peace and progress; it is rather a rapprochement with the constitutional political structures the 1992 constitution has carved for us as a people which we must reconstruct like the Americans did with the articles of confederacy reformed into the Seven (7) Article Federal Constitution of the United States of America which has held them together from 13 initial Union States to about 50 Federal States today and still growing by voluntarily inviting and awarding citizenship to capable working class citizens of other nations into their fold.

Mr. President, multi ethnic society with different backgrounds in cultures and traditions, faiths and beliefs and different shades of income and education that destiny has brought us together can sail the rough seas of Bermuda Triangle and come out safe if the Ghanaian culture and traditions had been considered in the structuring of political bodies in the making of a government under the constitution of the Republic of Ghana.

So we appeal that in the interest of national unity, cohesion and progress you join the campaign into reforming the constitution to allow for a Ceremonial President in the Person of the President of the National House of Chiefs, a House of Lords to be made up of a percentage of Traditional Authorities in Ghana, representatives of experts and professional organizations in Ghana and representatives or heads of independent constitutional bodies whilst Honourable Members of Parliament of political groupings in their capacities as representatives of the Commoners of the Republic of Ghana, shall fill the Primary Chamber Parliament representing different shades of political divide.

The majority political party in the August House constitutes the government with their leader as the Chief Executive Officer of the Republic of Ghana appointed to the office of Prime Minister by the Ceremonial Head of State of Ghana.

The Head of State of Ghana;
In our inner most belief, an astral and illustrious position, “The Head of State of Ghana, the President of Ghana”, is of political and spiritual eminence that befits only the Head of the assembly of all the stools and skins in Ghana( the National House of Chiefs; Article 271.1) and doubles as the Custodians of the Land that makes Ghana of whom we are all subjects to by virtue of our customary law and usage(Article 11.2, 3) and by virtue of the constitution 1992 Article 267 (1) and chapter 26, Article 295 paragraph (1) clauses (32) and (33).

(Article 267) (1) ''All stool lands in Ghana shall vest in the appropriate stool on behalf of and in trust for the subjects of the stool in accordance with customary law and usage.''

295(1) (32)"stool" includes a skin, and the person or body of persons having control over skin land;

295 (1)(33) "stool land" includes any land or interest in, or right over, any land controlled by a stool or skin, the head of a particular community or the captain of a company, for the benefit of the subjects of that Stool or the members of that community or company; and

If certainly Mr. President is seeking unity and cohesion, then we must all rethink and get back to the drawing board and consider with frankness various unfavourable laws we made under the constitution 1992 among them the true position of Traditional Authorities within our environs vis-à-vis the cajoling position they are posited, under the 1992 constitution of mother Ghana. The true intent and interpretation of the Articles 92.8 and 91.3 incorporated with notwithstanding clause vis-à-vis the rigorous electoral system under Article 89.2(c). The total number of persons appointed to the council of state by the President outweighing the number the entire nation has elected with a boisterous notwithstanding clauses attached to Article 91.3 as if the Council of State on counselling the President and any other authority on the bases of experts and consultants recommendation(s) may wrongly counsel them.

The President appointing majority of his ministers from the parliament without a corresponding institution of state to check on the Presidency either than the parliament from which he appointed majority of his ministers leaves a lot to desire, the combination of duty of the Attorney general and the minister for justice and many other more makes the Constitution 1992 a shirker to Ghana's Democracy.

For a brief, all traditional councils in the ten regions of Ghana as assembled in various regions under the leadership of the Regional Houses Chiefs of Ghana have a role to play in the political administration of Ghana because they are social institutions known to the nation long before the coming of the white man on the shores of Ghana.

Each Regional House of Chiefs elects five of its members to the national level to constituting the National House of Chiefs. The National House of Chiefs elects among itself the President and other executives of the National House of Chiefs.

Surely by virtue of Articles 11, 36.8 and 267 all of 1992 constitution that imposes unto the traditional authorities a plenary mandate on our customary law and land warrants this constitutional body to deserve an astral position of the Head of State of Ghana even if that Headship shall be Ceremonial.

Consider the Malaysian system, political and economical achievements and rethink Ghana since independence.

As assembled in the name of the Republic of Ghana, as managers of the land either than state land acquired from these honourable chiefs, forbears of our culture and tradition educated and seasoned professionals and business acumen in all works of life unsurpassed by some members of the Parliament of Ghana, are some of the attributes of these glorifying people that deserved to be included in the political administrative systems of Ghana and conferred with the Plenary Authority of the Head of State of Ghana.

Political Parties and the Primary Chamber Parliament;

Political parties shall propagate political ideas, social and economic programmes and offer alternatives to issues affecting mother Ghana in their contest to win the vote of the masses to form government; political party government either than government sponsored by political party.

Then the Primary Chamber Parliament from which the Chief Executive Officer of Ghana shall be a member shall form the government and protect and guide the interest of the commoners and the nation at large; make laws to be seconded to by the Second Chamber Parliament for steadiness and candour then assented to by the Head of State of Ghana, the rotating Presidency of the National House of Chiefs to become law.

Proportional Representation;
Safe Democracy Ghana is keen to have proportional representative system introduced in our political party arrangements such that it paves way for political party to appoint, nominate and elect some of their key persons who are not likely to win constituency seats but have contributed immensely to the growth of the political party and could do more with in house development of the political party if made Members of Parliament.

Proportional representative system shall assuage the tension that could creep in as a result of the present system where the winner takes all and the co-competitors and opponents of the wining political party goes without award. Proportional representative system comes in the form of awarding seats in the Parliament of Ghana on proportional aggregate win made by participating political parties in the general election.

This initiative shall bring leaders of all contesting political parties and some of their teaming executives in the decision making body of the parliament of Ghana and there shall be unity and cohesion in our homeland Ghana much as there is, for now, a Second Chamber Parliament to augment, support, delve and share issues affecting the Primary Chamber Parliament for calmness, easiness and acceptability of results devoid of unwise, hasty and proscriptive laws.

It would be noticed that, the present system of popularly electing the nation's Chief Executive Officer is proficiently withdrawn and suffrage is resigned to the political party at its primaries where it elects party executives and she/he, the Prime Minister shall be duly endorsed and attested to by the majority Honourable Members of Parliament for him to become the Chief Executive officer of the Nation Ghana

John Dickinson, the Penman of the American Revolution at the Constitutional Convention of the United States constitution admonished that, “Let experience be our guide. Reason may mislead us” and so they heeded to experienced advice and established Polybius theory of mix government; powerful Chief Executive Officer, a Senate to represent the State and the House of Representative to represent the Commoners.

Alexander Hamilton gave a clue to redefining democracy and asserted that; “It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity”

In searching for the right government for the people of America, the founding fathers analyzed several system of governments ever practiced on the face of this earth including but not limited to some of the practices that existed within individual states seeking considerations for the union upon which Alexander Hamilton advised that they keep onto the British model of bicameral legislature and he averred; “I believe the British government forms the best model the world has ever produced.......This government has for its object public strength and individual security.”

Here in Ghana, reason misled us to think that democracy is about everybody within the voting rank (Article 63.2) must exercise their franchise through direct election of the President (Article 63.3) and that, it is assumed to be democracy; whereas in the developed and advanced world, suffrage is resigned to only a few in electing the Chief Executive Officer of the land. This is our biff, nefarious and incongruous.

Today, of a voting age population of 235,248 000, the power to elect the President of the United States of America lies in the hands of 570 Electors of which a candidate is required to win only 270 Electoral College votes to become the President of the United States of America. Popular vote is not a determinant as to who becomes the President of the United States of America.

In United Kingdom, the leader of the majority members of the House of Commons makes the Prime Minister, so are Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Israel, Jamaica, Germany and many scores of these great nations. Why should Ghana be anything different?

For more than three hundred years the people of Ghana where chiefdom is practiced, the general population have never consented to electing their sub-chiefs, chiefs, and kings. It is the kingmakers who are customarily members drawn from sections of the society to conduct in their own way, how a chief is selected, nominated, elected and installed as a chief or queen mother in accordance with the relevant customary law and usage.

In our own botched constitutions of 1957, 1960, and 1969 constitutions, it is the honourable Members of Parliament who elected the Chief Executive Officers of the land and that is key to our success as a people if we so care to do so.

Second Chamber Parliament;
When George Washington was breakfasting with Thomas Jefferson who had just returned from France why he agreed to a Senate he said;

“Why” said Washington, “did you just now pour that coffee into your saucer before drinking it?” “To cool it,” said Jefferson; ''my throat is not made of brass.'' ''Even so,'' said Washington, '' we pour our legislation into the Senatorial saucer to cool.''

Safe Democracy Ghana's call for a Second Chamber Parliament and a with a view to Parliamentary System of Governance is not without cogent reasons more especially where we have found the nation being bashed in and out with capacious mistrust of successive governments leading to cancellation of previously awarded contracts by previous governments and causing the tax payers undeserving and preventable judgement debts, incessant and incredible increase in the rate of corruption, excessive patronage practice eating hard into the fabrics of governmental departments, making every issue a political gist, disparity and wanton desire of politicians and their sympathisers to loop in ethnicity and tribalism using all forms of cleavages so to disrupt a society that has come to learn to leave with thy neighbour as a brother.

The centeredness of political power in the hands of the President, encircled and shielded by his minions, favourites, counsellors and partners at the Presidency and at the unicameral legislature where she/he elects majority of his ministers from (Article 78.1), arrogated with nominative and appointive powers and inordinate influence on all appointments including appointments of heads of National Security Agencies; empowered as the Head of State in the presence of the assembly of the Custodians of the land of Ghana and made the Executive President and Commander In Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces (Article 57.1) with cognizance sponsorship to the office ( the Presidency) by a Partisan Political Party (Article 55.3) must surely be a source of worry to every Ghanaian and these are the very source of the political cynicism and sheer wickedness of political patronage confronting mother Ghana.

It is so hurting the framers of Ghana's constitutions since we gained independence from the British ignored the values in the bicameral legislative system though the political climate of Ghana is more of a parliamentary system state of a bicameral nature than an executive system dwelled in unicameral legislature or parliamentary with a unicameral legislative order.

Under a bicameral legislature, Ghana stands to gain better and more responsive representation, more stability in law, restrained in actions, preservation of steadiness and reliability in law, quality decision making, efficiency and protection of state resources as lobbyist shall find it more difficult to influence dispersed authorities of different calibre and make.

Of the fifty states in the United States of America, 49 of them have bicameral legislatures and at the inception of the United States of America, the population of the entire 13 states according to 1790 census was fewer than four million, (the oxford history of the American people page 305) yet, the United States adopted a bicameral legislature as assembled in congress. Today the United States has 100 senators whilst the House of Representatives has 435 members and USA is the most powerful state on earth. What stops Ghana from emulating same?

A Second Chamber Parliament to be made of representatives of expert organizations, professional and consulting bodies in Ghana, Independent Constitutional Bodies and a percentage of our Traditional Authorities to be shaped and mandated with authority akin to the United Kingdom House of Lords or the United States Senate. Members of a given organization shall elect among themselves or shall arrange in their own way persons to represent them at the Second Chamber Parliament.

To link the system of Ghana's political hierarchy, we shall have the leader of the Government of Ghana as the Majority Leader of the Primary Chamber Parliament appointed as the Prime Minister by the elected President of the National House of Chiefs, then a second chamber parliament to augment services of the Primary chamber parliament, checks and balances and transparency shall prevail in every affair of the state of Ghana to increase nationalism and reduce corruption to the barest minimum.

National service scheme should not be only for graduates of tertiary institutions, it should be designed to incorporate all Ghanaians age between 18-28 with or without education under the supervisory role of the Ghana Armed Force. Every Ghanaian male or female should fall in line to serve the nation and professions shall be gained under the tutorial of the Ghana Armed Forces and discipline instilled in the Ghanaian.

Mr. President, this is no mean a task for a President who got elected under the current political dispensation and has the good and the bad laws of the country to protect as a solemn duty sworn on oath, more so a President sponsored by a political party that has its private agenda though; but that is the rough edge to trudge and secure the liberty, peace and harmony the people of Ghana deserve for now and posterity.

Thank you very sincerely and God bless our homeland Ghana.

Munir Saani
Executive secretary
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+233 502 489 152