The need for a national movement - Arthur Kobina Kennedy writes
My fellow Ghanaians, I just read Prof. Frimpong-Boateng's eloquent missive to whoever would be President in 2025 and watched his interview on "POINT OF VIEW". His analysis is deep, patriotic and yet painfully familiar. He is truly a national treasure who has done and will do great things for Ghana - Insha Allah!
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As he said in a statement reminiscent of Archbishop Duncan Williams a few years ago, "90% of the youth don't see their future here".
The great Professor should have directed his missive to "citizens, not spectators " of Ghana.
Furthermore, he is right that science is foundational to sustainable development but a stable, progressive political system is even more foundational than science.
That is why despite getting the science and education and pride in ourselves right, Nkrumah failed. He got the politics wrong. America succeeded because it got the politics right. And we have gotten the politics wrong from the dawn of the 4th Republic.
Over the course of this 4th Republic, I have read similar analysis to Profs - with some not as eloquent but equally profound - from Kweku Asare Azar, Kwesi Prempeh, Kwesi Pratt, Yaw Nsarkoh, Kwesi Nduom and even from Rawlings, Kufuor, Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo.
Who can forget the man who pledged to "protect the public purse" and to make Accra " the cleanest city in Africa"?
Yet, sadly, we will begin our quadrennial dance with the looting and sharing of Article 71 soon.
In the next few months, the President will find a pliable and ignorant Professor who will Chair a sycophantic committee that will end with the President and Parliament approving each other's loot of our nation's treasure sanctioned by Article 71.
In the next week, we will once again engage in the pointless arguments about whether the nation that is in its death throes had a FOUNDER or FOUNDERS.
Then we will follow an empty campaign preceded by corrupt primaries in which more dollars flowed than votes.
And then we shall solemnly swear in another President - as if Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon did not happen.
As if February 24th, January 13th, June 4th and 31st December did not happen.
We will ignore the scandal of our Forestry Commission head acquiring more wealth in 4 years than Angela Merkel did as German Chancellor in 16 years.
We will ignore the scandal of how one Minister of a minor Ministry came to have in her house and bank account more wealth than exists in many Ministries.
We will look past the alphabet soup of government scandals that have emptied our national coffers while filling private pockets. We will ignore the shameful spectacle of our children and mothers drinking muddy water from our taps while those responsible for Galamsey brazenly head to our corrupt courts to sue the only Minister who opposed Galamsey.
Of this government, it can truly be said that not even God's Cathedral was sacred enough to escape their thriving hands.
The truth, my fellow Ghanaians, is that Ghana does not need candidates focused on this next election--it needs a movement committed to saving Ghana for the next generation and subsequent ones.
We need a movement to save, not just the 4th Republic but Ghana. If we wait for the pain and anger brewing in our youth and amongst the poor to explode on our streets, no walls will be high enough to protect anybody and June 4th would look like child's play.
Time and the tides wait for no man - and they wait for no nations either. The Roman, British, Ottoman, Zulu and Ghana empire we model ourselves on are all dead. We need a movement to execute a peaceful constitutional revolution.
That revolution would restore the Ghana that the Aborigines Rights Protection Society, the Fante Confederacy, the Asante warriors who fought the British at Nsamankow, in Sagrenti and under Yaa Asantewaa ---as well as all our founders fought for.
We need a nation where there is work paying a living wage to those who are willing to work.
We need a nation where the sick will not die because there are no beds while the rich and powerful get care abroad.
We need a nation where our resources are not destroyed to enrich a few.
We need a nation where politics work and politics is not more profitable than business.
Today, I humbly propose a National Sovereign Conference summoned in our name by some prominent citizens.
These one thousand delegates, drawn from workers( TUC), teachers ( GNAT), students(NUGS), lawyers( GBA), politicians (Parties), market women, drivers( GPRTU) and the unemployed would meet to develop a broad consensus around the following issues:
Constitutional reforms that would
Furthermore, we should demand the investigation of the major scandals of the 4th Republic, including Kume Preko, Agyapa, the Covid monies, The Takyiman massacre and other election violences etc with the help of rewards for whistle-blowers.
These constitutional reforms should be enacted before the 2024 elections.
I have reflected and prayed and respectfully ask the following to lead this effort. They will read this at the same time you do, my fellow Ghanaians. Plead with them and pray that unless impaired by health, they step forward.
They are
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Justice Sophia Akuffo
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Brigadier Gen. Nunoo Mensah
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Archbishop Duncan Williams
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Mr. Kwame Pianim
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Togbe Afede XIV
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Ms Afia Pokuaa
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Mr. Kwesi Pratt
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Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe
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Speaker Kingsley Sumana Bagbin.
To those whose names are here, my apologies if you feel embarrassed or offended. This is NOT the summons of inconsequential Arthur K--they are summons from your desperate countrymen and women.
In the middle of the next year, when this agenda is set , the Presidential and Parliamentary candidates should be given a chance to pledge fealty to the people's agenda. If they don't, the movement should select and back candidates who will contest on and if elected, implement the movement's program.
These are uncertain times. An independent candidate, backed by a strong movement can be elected President, just as Thomas Yayi Bonni did in Benin in 2006. An unconventional candidate, even with flaws, can be elected just as Trump , who was a flawed businessman, was elected in the US in 2016!
My fellow Ghanaians, we are the men we have been waiting for!! Let's save Ghana peacefully for our posterity.
Please sing along with me
"Yen Ara Yen asase ni!"
May God bless you.
May God bless Ghana.
Arthur Kobina Kennedy
21st, September, 2023.
