The Common Fate Of Political Projects

It was great while the power-drunken demagogue was at his demagoguery best. That was in the wake of the “auspicious” passing of then-President John Evans Atta-Mills. Trust me, the quoted word is not mine. I have actually sanitized it, because what the late President’s arch-lieutenant said was that Divine Providence, in His inscrutable wisdom, had opportunely knocked that dirty, old bastard out of the way in order to usher in the auspicious era of the refreshing new leadership of Ghanaians born of the immediate post-independence generation. The narcissistic Gonja Boy was, of course, referring to himself; naturally, he saw himself as the luckiest among the post-independence generation of Ghanaian leaders. He made absolutely no decorous attempt to contain his exuberant delight. Thus began the tall litany of projects that he intended to undertake as a dutiful way of buying himself into a bona fide sonship of the Fante Nation. You can’t just make such story up.

The Kotokuraba Market would be face-lifted (actually totally reconstructed), with the sponsorship of the ubiquitous Chinese, into a state-of-the-art status the likes of which had never been witnessed in the entire history of postcolonial Ghana. And then, to top it all off, the Atta-Mills Memorial Library would be lifted gloriously up the shores of the Cape Coast portion of the Gulf-of-Guinea to celebrate Ghana’s first colonial capital and preeminent Cradle of Western Education and by implication, Western Civilization. On the latter count, I bet the people of Elmina are chomping at the bit, ready to contest this irritably ahistorical conferral of Ivory-Tower glory. Well, whatever the truth and reality of history may be, the John Evans Atta-Mills Memorial Library did get lifted up the Oguaa portion of the Gulf-of-Guinea, directly across the street from the old slave castle that used be the imperial residence of Britain’s Capt. George MacClean. But like the “Ganger” Boy’s decidedly vacuous electioneering campaign rhetoric, the authorities of the country’s highest-ranking teacher-training academy of higher learning, to wit, the University of Cape Coast, tell us that the John Evans Atta-Mills Memorial Library was, properly speaking, still a hulking shell of the real deal when the anonymous contractor executing the project mischievously attempted to hand the same over to the pennywise and dollar foolish dons of the UCC. At least that is what the reasonably critically thinking reader comes away from the news story with (See “Don’t Blame UCC for Closure of Atta-Mills Memorial Library – Vice-Chancellor” RainbowRadioOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 3/18/18).

The narrative goes something like this: Sometime in the lead-up to the 2016 general election, when the proverbial Waterloo handwriting on the wall boldly appeared to the Mahama Posse, the project suddenly ground to a screeching halt. A standstill, you could aptly say. The unnamed contractor then called upon the UCC’s V-C and his staff to take control of the reportedly uncompleted library, to which Prof. Joseph GharteyAmpiah promptly declined, pointing to the fact that a remarkable number of fixtures inside the building had not been put into place. As usual, the project’s manager or contractor bitterly complained that the project’s benefactor was no longer forthcoming with the requisite wherewithal to complete the job. Well, now, Prof. Ampiah is reportedly alleging that the contractor’s whereabouts are unknown; as well, the keys to the library cannot be located, as the contractor had decided to keep them until arrears owed him had been fully satisfied or paid up. I can see where the UCC’s V-C is coming from, both literally and figuratively speaking. And I am not sure if I would want to share residential bounds with him.

The fact of the matter is that common sense ought to have inspired the UCC authorities to take over the Atta-Mills Memorial Library, have it promptly and professionally inventoried and the dialogued with the newly elected Akufo-Addo government to see what could be done with this taxpayer underwritten public property. Neither of which clearly appears to have been done. What I clearly see here is that the initial refusal by Vice-Chancellor Ampiah and administrative associates to assume control of the library was simply because UCC did not want to invest a pesewa or cedi in the project. They only wanted to operate it for their academic and professional benefit at absolutely no cost whatsoever. You see, were the UCC Vice-Chancellor and his associates savvy like their American counterparts, they would have promptly assumed control of the Atta-Mills Library and then quickly solicited funds from the corporate establishment, many of whose chief executives would have promptly and gladly seized this prime opportunity to associate themselves and their companies with such an honorable venture and thus boost the image and reputation of their firms.

Does such basic commonsensical approach to academic management or administration need the input of the proverbial rocket scientist, which is obvious Prof. Ampiah and his staff are not? Ghana, oh Ghana! When would we get it?! Think outside the box, I mean.

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