Dr. Felix Anyah and Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom
Dr. Felix Anyah and Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom are two talented Ghanaians who have achieved a lot in life. They are two Ghanaians I will describe as Entrepreneurs Emeritus. The great visionary leader, Lee Kuan Yew, the late revered leader of Singapore wrote in his book: “From Third World to First – The Singapore Story: 1965 – 2000” the following “It has taken me some time to see the obvious, that talent is a country’s most precious asset”. I wish to hazard a guess that it is possible if Dr. Anyah and Dr. Nduom had lived in Singapore during the days of Lee Kuan Yew, he would have recognised their talents and invited them to serve in his government.
Africa is poor by choice and not by accident or design. We in Africa have failed to see the truism in the words of Lee Kuan Yew. Africa does not lack talents; what Africa lacks is the ability to identify the talents, give them the necessary recognition and opportunity to position them strategically to make their talents useful to society. Right from independence, Africa has put into leadership positions prison graduates, veranda boys, blood-thirsty revolutionaries, mediocrity, greedy bastards, old evil dwarfs, babies with sharp teeth, leeches, parasites, thieves, liars and educated illiterates whose education has made them accomplished criminals.
There is nowhere the failure to harness talents is openly displayed than in the board room where the greatest brains are supposed to assemble to take decisions affecting the welfare of society and the fate of the people. In the African context, the opposite happens where one comes across nit wits, day dreamers, sleep walkers, vagabonds and incorrigible tricksters sitting in boardrooms and taking strategic decisions which only aid their glutinous lifestyles. Most of the time, the question they ask themselves before taking any decision is: “What is in this decision for me” Of course the question will not be openly put. However, the question runs and permeates every body language and unspoken words of the men and women who find themselves in privilege positions.
Today DR Congo is an epitome of a failed state which is founded all over Africa. During the era of Mobutu Sese Seku, that tyrant of a dictator would ask his Finance Minister to collect US$1,000,000 for him from the Central Bank. The Finance Minister will collect US$2,000,000 from the Central Bank governor, give US$ 1,000,000 to Mobutu and pocket US$1,000,000. In the meantime, the Central Bank governor had taken US3,000,000 out of the vault of the bank, pocketed US$1,000,000 before handing over the remaining US$2,000,000 to the Finance Minister, no questions asked, a clear case of create, loot and share. The rape of DR Congo by her leaders continue up to this day. Check other African countries like, Burundi, Togo, Central African Republic, Sudan, South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea and Eritrea for equal measure and test your knowledge of the greatest infantile fraudulent, tyrants and corrupt leaders on the continent
Today at a time when some pensioners take as low as GH¢276 as monthly pension from SSNIT based on the National Pensions Act 2008 Act 766, there are people in leadership positions who have managed to maneuver using their exalted positions in society to retire on their last monthly salaries which run into thousands of cedis; monies which they do not even need under normal circumstances. The way the tax payers’ monies are squandered by few top people in leadership position as revealed in the recent cases of SSNIT and COCOBOD, makes terrible reading and the educated African in leadership position, a clear candidate for hell.
If today Ghana has a leader who is touting the idea of Ghana beyond aid after 61 years of independence, then the woeful and heart breaking significance of that statement can only be meaningful if we judge it against the background that at independence, the inaugural leader of the nation used all the force at his disposal to shout himself hoarse that Ghana was free forever and that the blackman was in a position to manage his own affairs. Combining the words of these two leaders, ancient and modern, I can only suppose that the ancient leader wanted to use the word; “mismanage” but at the critical point in time when the word was about to come out of his mouth, one of his able lieutenants standing with him on the independence podium accidentally hit him in the elbow and tragically the prefix: “mis” got lost in the mouth of our ancient leader resulting in the spoken word “manage” instead of “mismanage”.
Or it is also possible that our modern day leader feels so ashamed, perplexed and embarrassed of all the wonderful things he has come to observe on his world travels as he confered with other world leaders what they have managed to use the resources at their disposal to achieve for their countries, he might have felt he must make some bold statements of intent even if it might only be illusionary in the light of the clear misuse of talents in this country.
Since independence, people are most of the time appointed into positions not based on competence but on party political loyalty, tribal affiliation, school mate fraternity, mythical gender balance or plain exchange of gratification in form of cash or sex. On the issue of gender balance in appointments, God in his wisdom gave the woman a Coca-Cola bottle shape and breast cancer while He gave the man Fanta bottle shape and prostate cancer. Why do we continue to pursue that nonsensical philosophy that whatever a man can do a woman can also do and vice versa and that there should be equalization in appointing men and women into national positions. How many organistions give paternity leave of even one week to fathers whose wives have given birth to help their wives nurse the new born baby? People continue to make the statement that behind every successful man is a woman while failing to realise that in the same vein, in front of every successful woman could be a man.
Unless we can find a way of recognizing talents and appointing people into positions based on competencies and integrity and honesty, all our efforts to achieve national growth and development will come to naught. The basic reason why most state institutions collapse is due to the appointment of incompetent corrupt fraudulent people into the boardroom and leadership positions. If indeed we can only manage our national railways, national airlines, and national shipping lines into oblivion, what guarantee can we give to ourselves as a nation that the people who did that great injustice to us by destroying our national assets by accident of history could be the people with similar mentality who always find themselves occupying the State House? It is certainly a worrisome thought. Is it not time to put the State House on the divestiture list? My pen no be gun!
KWAME GYASI