What is the meaning of change as distinct from a better Ghana?
I am in a state of pure funk, quite confused yet happy at the turn of events. When I was in America, I remember clearly the trouble the Reverend Jesse Jackson got himself into when he rendered his community activism group PUSH as People United To Save Humanity.
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The Save part was the cause of the uproar since many Americans did not believe the Rev. Jackson could save humanity from the ravages of racism, poverty, unemployment and the rest. It was at that time that the word ‘empowerment’ and the name ‘African-American’ achieved prominence in the linguistics of social and political action. Rev. Jackson changed the save to serve, to maintain the abbreviation and proclaim and protect the humility a pastor must display at all times.
And so it was that I was utterly dumbfounded when I heard our Information Minister, Mr Mustapha Hamid, address a press conference to mount a spirited defence of the appointment by President Akufo-Addo of 110 ministers and their deputies, a gargantuan figure unmatched in the history of the Gold Coast and Ghana combined: in the 60th year of our political independence. Why was it necessary for him to offer any justification? The process of nomination and appointment seems to me to be quite lawful. Our President has not committed any constitutional mistake so why was there the need to defend him?
The reasons for this unprecedented number can be deduced from what he said, which I vehemently disagree with. No one had demanded prior to his election that President Akufo-Addo, once elected, must establish a smaller, therefore more efficient government than his predecessors. Why answer a question which has not been asked? And why belittle numbers if they are irrelevant to performance?
The last point, I am sorry to say, is a flat untruth. The late President, Professor Mills, had the smallest government in this Fourth Republic, and his government clocked a world record of 14 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been in power before with former President Kufuor, and its performance did not guarantee the victory of the party in 2008.
However, there are so many aspects of this appointment bombshell which have destabilised a lot of us. I think the skilful employment of social media by the NPP to win the last elections has come home to roast and haunt them. I noted with dismay, that a loquacious online presence who works with an Accra radio station and now based in the United States completely forgot his manners and prefaced his angry reaction to the huge number of appointees by addressing our President as Nana Addo. This is a sign of utter disgust and bad breeding using the social media. President Akufo-Addo remains our President no matter how strongly you feel about something he has done, and a loquacious journalist is certainly a role model to us all in measured and dignified speech.
Indeed, it is the loud, violent and extremely negative reaction on social media that Mr Hamid sought to stem with his unprecedented press conference. He will not succeed because none of the appointments will be withdrawn.
This particular bit of news has confirmed for many observers that competence, performance, loyalty, ideological fidelity or efficiency are not the reasons for changing governments. President Akufo-Addo promised to reward all who stood by him and helped him win the presidency, and he is doing exactly that. Future better performance is not a factor in his political calculus, but peace in his party.
I get amused when we hint at performance as a credible benchmark for assessing the electability of a party. What didn’t former President Mahama do? The recent media attention on the uncompleted maternity block at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi only highlights the fact that the earlier NPP government could not, amazingly, complete and commission for use a vital health facility in the very heart of the party whose foundations were laid 43 years ago. It is such as these that I am certain that performance per se cannot be an enduring and truthful factor in assessing the likelihood of the winning chances of any party. Of course, such a position calls into question the reliability and veracity of the results of the last election but as I keep on saying, I am prepared to wait for the day of transfiguration when all will be laid bare.
I am not overly worried about the gargantuan sums of money budgeted for the Office of the President, which works out at over four million cedis being expended daily. I am not worried about the insane fascination with V8 gas-guzzling vehicles, 110 of them being acquired for our new ministers. I am not worried about performance, howsoever defined. It is just a matter of hating the guts of those who held office previously, nothing more.
What I am concerned about is the mundane things that show to ourselves and to the world at large, that we value and can build and maintain the fine and useful things of life for ourselves and our posterity. My example is the Nkrumah Interchange we all are watching being devalued and destroyed before our very eyes as if it serves no purpose in our lives.
To conclude, if it is possible to secure the highest GDP growth in the whole world with the fewest number of ministers in this country as shown by President Mills, then we are in for bigger disappointments in our national life.