‘Opportunistic Leadership Under-Developing Ghana’ – Dr. Seidu Alidu

A senior lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana has attributed Ghana’s shortfalls in leadership to what he describes as the greed of individuals who occupy offices meant to accelerate development in the country.

Dr Seidu Alidu, who was speaking to Neil Armstrong- Mortagbe on the Morning Xpress, contended that the leadership challenges the country has been facing for some years is not as a result of the unpreparedness of people who are appointed or elected to serve as put out by former president John Agyekum Kufuor.

“I honestly would say that we will never have an unprepared leader, what we do have is opportunistic leadership, where people come to power with the intention of enriching themselves and not leading the country,” he said, indicating that leadership failure in the country has long been underpinned by political opportunism and not ill preparedness.

“We can never have a leader who is unprepared because before you become a president in this country, you have to go through some processes either at the party level [when] you begin contesting for primaries, you win the flagbearership race of your party the you move on and campaign­– so in that cause you know that your intention is to be a leader so there is nothing like unprepared leadership,” he explained.

He observed that leadership is very critical to the development of nations, and while several researches in the African continent over the years have shown that leadership is core to the general and political development of a country, Ghana’s development is crashed by opportunistic leadership.

“What we are facing is opportunistic leadership,” he said while pointing that many leaders have failed to function and be responsible to the people as expected of them.

He said people who are appointed to occupy key roles are “responsible to the president” instead of the Ghanaian people.

Dr Alidu also bemoaned the appointment of people to take up roles they are not fit for, urging presidents to look beyond politics in when appointing people to serve in their respective governments.

He further advocated for clear goals to be given government appointees, especially ministers of state to help bring about remarkable economic development to the country.

He also urged institutions to train people to be “patriotic and selfless” so that when they are given leadership roles, they don’t end up embezzling state funds to double their properties but to be committed to the people.

Dr Alidu’s comments come at a time former president John Agyekum Kufuor expressed worry about the kind of leadership that exist in Ghana.

The former president at a fund-raising ceremony to complete the John Agyekum Kufuor Center for Leadership and Governance, noted that Ghana’s slow pace of development is as a result of failed leadership that is stemmed from the unpreparedness of people made to assume leadership roles in the country.