Haruna Iddrisu Shows The Way

A few days ago, President Akufo-Addo launched a Seven-Year Coordinated Programme of Economic and Social Development Policies.

It is instructive to note that one of the highlights of the programme was the submission of the Minority Leader, Hon Haruna Iddrisu, in which he showered accolades on the President for the novelty.

We think that the Minority Leader has showed the way politics should be undertaken in every society worth its salt. The opposition's core mandate is to keep the government on its toes because it is in the interest of the country for it to do so.

It would be recalled that President Akufo-Addo predicted a bright future for the Minority Leader during a State of the Nation Address. A statesman, a gentleman is truthful and consistent.

In Ghana, politics of divisiveness has not helped us very much and so when such overtures from both sides of the divide are visible, it is for us all to encourage them so that our country would be the beneficiary in the end.

Truth must always be told so that the positivity of this virtue shall be reaped by the populace. Democracy cannot thrive when there is no viable opposition. This attribute of democracy must, however, be undertaken with sincerity and with the overall interest of the nation as the driving force and not the parochial interest of a political grouping.

We have come a long way from independence and should be charting a new course now: the old ways of bellicosity and lies lead to nowhere.

When praises are showered when they should and criticisms when they should, for genuine reasons, the deference politics deserves would come.

Condemning, for instance, programmes which definitely are intended to move the country forward and even inciting people against them, would not inure to the interest of the nation.

For us, therefore, Ghanaian politicians on both sides of the divide should learn from the Minority Leader and be sincere in their approaches to national issues.

After all, the interest of Ghana our Motherland should be paramount in all that we do. It is this quality which many politicians lack which has affected us negatively over the years.

On the programme which saw the Minority Leader praising the President, all we can do is encourage our compatriots to render it the necessary support so that together we can move Ghana forward.

Groping in the darkness not knowing which direction to go, is what the case is, when there is no tangible document about the journey to the destination of ample employment openings, appreciable growth of the economy, among other objectives.

Such development plans are critical in the lives of countries. No country has made it, in economic terms, without such a programme as the President launched a few days ago.

It is our hope that by the year 2024, the transformation the President envisages would have come to fruition. With perseverance, there is no doubt in our minds that success shall crown our efforts.