MAHALIA JACKSON: “Tell them about the dream.”
MARTIN LUTHER KING: “I still have a dream, a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live up to its creed, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…’ I have a dream… that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves, and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood …. I have a dream…”
THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS AND FREEDOM –AUGUST 28 1963
BY THE TIME this paper reaches you, dear reader, Ghanaians will have cast their ballots and demonstrated their resolve and changed the NDC government headed by His Excellency John Dramani Mahama. Or will the tables turn in NDC’s favour? I don’t know, but James Adjei has his doubts. By this singular act of mutation, the populace will have been good students and followed the current international trend of periodic change in government, and allowed democracy to fester—an episodic phenomenon whose season has come. The Gambian people demonstrated this just last week (on 2nd December this year) when they removed Yahya Jammeh who had come to power in lilliputian Gambia through a coup d’etat that overthrew Sir Dauda Jawara in 1994, under the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC). The opposition parties had come together to fight a common enemy, Jammeh whose regime was best described in a single word: ‘tyranny’. At the last count, Jammeh had garnered 212,099 against the winner, Adama Barrow’s 263,515 votes. Just before the polls, Jammeh had sworn to bow to “… only Allah and my mother. I will never tolerate opposition to destabilise the country”. He was later to eat humble pie. ‘Nobody tae no do’ (Nobody is chasing him).
A month ago, the United States demonstrated their predilection for change when Donald Trump of the Republican Party with the elephant as its emblem beat Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party. Donald Trump, the billionaire New York developer whose political style had been judged to be pugnacious and insulting, demonstrated his ability to wade into the disillusionment of a huge swathe of white middle class Americans about the trend of affairs in the Democratic Party-led United States . Clinton conceded defeat in a phone call, immediately after the Republicans broke the 270 electoral college threshold with a win in Wisconsin. Trump’s campaign had shown his eerie style: spending 18 months insulting women, blacks, Latinos – and even the handicapped. The Speaker of the house, Paul Ryan, among others, would not even mention Trump’s name but refer to him as our party’s nominee. When Hillary’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, said several states were too close call, Hillary had to cancel her address to supporters at the Javits’ Centre as planned, and the audience were tacitly told: “We’ll have more to say tomorrow”. The result : Trump 306; Hlllary 232; and Obama the 44th US President of African – American descent left Ghanaians no other legacy but the edict that we should strengthen institutions and not macho men—compared with that of George Bush who supported Ghana to build the George Bush Highway, after his historic visit to Ghana in February, 2008. The blind clairvoyant, Baba Vanga who predicted the presidency of black – American could not be accurate that Obama will be the last US president, playing the Nostradamus card and spreading doom and gloom.
In Italy, the citizens rejected Matteo Renzi’s referendum by voting 59.26% for ‘no’ to reforms in the 1948 constitution which has a place for the ‘perfect bicameralism’ in which both Chamber of Deputies and the Senate must agree on legislation before it is passed. As Renzi’s government fell over the attempt to reduce the Senate’s power, there had been 60 governments in Italy since 1948! President Sergio Mattarela has to pull together a caretaker prime minister perhaps from Renzi’s Democratic Party to serve until February 2018 when the next election is due.
Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, noted “Change is the only constant in life” – he was creating a doctrine about the constant change and flux of life. All is flux, no one bathes twice in the same river and this had been proclaimed by Heraclitus 500 years before Christ.
Should the change come, there will be a rejection of the corruptible NDC regime. President Mahama smarts when he is tagged with the word ‘incompetence’, so those of us who are sympathetic to him and those who are his brethren should not hit him hard with that tag. His competence has enabled him to supervise a corrupt society unprecedented in the history of this nation. The government may tout infrastructural development. But the question he himself asks is which government does not add on to infrastructure? Nkrumah Interchange as a credit? So Dubai has come to Ghana? Takoradi to Kojokrom railway line as a booster? What is the right word to describe people who think this way? And still the people at Bole share drinking water with cattle! Are we clowns and jesters? Feste in Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ tells Olivia: “… The future is uncertain, laughter momentary and youth a stuff will not endure.” ‘Yemfa bi nsere.’ (Let’s laugh it off).
What about the unprecedented levels of corruption of this regime? Dr Mumuni Bawumia calls it ‘Wayomenomics’, that is, not proper economics referring not only to the unjustifiable payment of GH¢ 51.2million judgment debt to Alfred Agbesi Woyome, but also the waste of funds by SADA, GYEEDA and other governmental organisations like them. The Electoral Commission headed by the discredited Charlotte Osei would have all they could to tilt the votes in favour of NDC as depicted in the faux pas that marked the ‘special voting’ on 1st December. Despite all these the wind of change would have blown and Ghanaians will have spoken through their thumbs.
I have a dream: an ‘apala – hala’ government headed by average- heighted, but quick witted Akufo Addo will provide purposeful, dedicated, corrupt – free, governance for all Ghanaians from ‘kaya – yoo’ to the top business executive. Ghanaians are longing for a return to the Kufour days with social interventions like: NHIS, National Youth Employment Programme, free maternal care, school feeding programme, capitation grant, restoration of teacher and nurses training allowance, MASLOC, LEAP, Metro Mass Transit system, name them.
The wealth of this nation shall be equitably distributed for the benefit of all and sundry. The Presidency shall not tarnish the integrity of the ‘State’ by collecting a bribe – car from a Burkinabe and putting in the government’s pool of vehicles.
Willy—nilly, the Electoral Commissioner will announce the result—she will announce the path ordained by God, and the heavens shall open and all shall rejoice. However, if the announcement should be sonorous that is, not pleasing to the ear, there will be many options. Professor Wole Soyinka of Nigeria threatened to tear up his American green card if Trump should win the American election, he did exactly that when Trump won. Do you know ‘hara-kiri’, the Japanese form of ‘seppuku’ (or ritual suicide effected by slitting one’s belly)? Do you remember the Tunisian Mohammed Bouazizi whose self-immolation (burning) sparked the Tunisian Revolution and the larger Arab Spring, starting in December, 2010? Bouazizi was desperate- after taking a 200-dollar loan to purchase farm produce put up for sale in a wheel barrow and same got seized by the police. A likely option? Me? Tofiakwa!
Africanus Owusu-Ansah
africanusoa@gmail.com