Party politicking-time for house-cleaning not propaganda
Ghanaians are looking for a government they can believe in and trust, because they are tired of the unending mismanagement and corruption that successive governments have visited on them.
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Our nation has become weak as a result of these, and has been re-colonised by other nations and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its relatives who determine how we should run our own economy. It is our political parties which produced the people who have been running this nation through these decades of decay leading us into our current predicament. Party officials at the helm of affairs have, with the support of ordinary Ghanaians, run this resource-rich nation down to the point that we have become a beggar nation.
Political parties are home to a myriad of human motives because each of the human beings in them comes with their own motives to join these parties. The desirability of these motives as far as nation-building is concerned, however, is debatable. The quest for numbers is a major preoccupation for political parties in this country. They do not seem to care (and should they?) about whether those joining their ranks have honourable motives or not as indicated by the fact that no party turns away new members. Many people are joining parties to satisfy their lust for power, further their backward tribal interests or to attain selfish economic goals among other things.
It is alright for political parties to welcome all these people but it is unthinkable that in the midst of this multiplicity of questionable motives, they are comfortable defending their members when there are allegations of corruption and other misdeeds against them.
Support from party members
Governments today enjoy little support from the party members who voted them into power. Rather than working to ensure that their party succeeds in government by fighting corruption and antisocial acts, party members rather aim at enriching themselves at the nation’s expense. They clamour for jobs for which they are unqualified and many do not apply themselves to these jobs when they get them. Their actions are emboldened by the mantra, “Yen aban na ewo so” meaning it is our government that is in power. The arguable truth is that, often, those that wreck the nation most are those in bed with the party in power; that is, the party members themselves.
When political parties trumpet their parties’ virtues the way they do, one is left wondering whether they have really examined the motivations of their membership. Governments have come and gone, and repeatedly, vehemently defend their officials who are alleged to be corrupt, vouching for them.
It is strange to sober minds that political parties cannot openly acknowledge that there are bad nuts in every party including theirs, whose aim is to prosecute their own selfish agenda at the national expense. These people gratefully enjoy the protection of their parties which are bent on projecting an incorrupt or incorruptible image. Why for example should a party be at pains to defend or deny if one of its members is caught dealing in drugs, when they know that they have no moral criteria for admitting people into their ranks.
Even churches have bad people in them, and they do not complain and defend if a member is caught being wayward. It is time for this hypocrisy to stop. They fool no one when they portray themselves as upright and yet loudly vilify their opponents.
Patriotism and responsible citizenship
Political parties are potential vehicles that could be used to raise levels of patriotism and responsible citizenship which are currently at an all-time low in this country. They ought to inculcate in their members, values that would accrue to the benefit of the nation rather than placing value on networking for individual prosperity at the nation’s expense.
Ghanaians want to see action within the political parties aimed at sanitising their ranks. They should ditch the disgraceful defence of the misdeeds of their members, and start educating their members about the values their parties stand for, about the effects of corruption, about the economy, etc. Every member of the party must be assigned a role to play to help the government succeed if it wins power. They need to have their capacity built for these roles which should necessarily include policing their neighbourhoods and workplaces to counteract the antisocial activities of nation wreckers.
Ghanaians must see workshops being organised by political parties for their members across the country on the mechanisms by which government actions reflect in the pocket of the man on the street, on how antisocial behaviour like littering, open defaecation, illegal utility connections, etc., all go to affect the nation’s development. If these are done, party foot soldiers would not go on a rampage when their party comes to power seeking to reap where they have not sown and the higher-ups in the party would fear to milk the system the way it is being done.
If political parties are sincere about being incorrupt and incorruptible then they must be trumpeting these virtues within their ranks in very forceful ways to make their parties uninhabitable by people of shady and questionable characters and motivations.
In the absence of such actions, they must stop disturbing our ears with the polarising empty talk and propaganda, because Ghanaians are discerning. Until this happens they would continue to be held responsible for Ghana’s woes and its underdevelopment.