We need focus
Our godly examples earn us the moral right to teach, rebuke and correct others. John F. Kennedy
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Most of us have lost our sense of nationalism. National discourse has been reduced to dysfunctional partisanship, where issues are not looked at for what they represent but what gains could accrue to our supposed preferred political party; otherwise things that undermine our collective interest should not be glorified merely because of where we belong politically.
My concern has been aroused by how a comment on two incidents—the promise of chairs to a school in the Upper West Region by Dr Mahamadu Bawumia and the brochure for the independence anniversary—were rebuffed with sterile and puerile comments about Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo. The comment was about the statement by President John Dramani Mahama that the errors in the brochure, including the one which referred to President Uhuru Kenyatta as the President of Ghana, as attributable to the Printer’s Devil.
One of them said it was unfortunate that the President was euphemistic in attributing the patently factual error to the Printer’s Devil and should have limited himself to the fact that the Chief of Staff was dealing with the matter.
Before he could conclude his submission, the other retorted that who has made more factual errors than Nana Akufo-Addo, pointing out that the flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had alleged that the country’s debt stood at $37 billion and queried where he got the figure from. He then went on to say that he had photographs of Dr Bawumia going from one school to another in search of classrooms without furniture. He then concluded by saying that if for the eight years that the NPP was in power it had resolved the furniture problem of all schools in the country, there would not have been schools without chairs.
The next stage of the argument was how the issues were related and how they helped in the advancement of the national cause. Yes, indeed, the mistakes in the brochure, including the fact that we got the name of our President wrong in an official brochure to mark our independence anniversary, should not be anything that must be defended in the name of whatever partisan cause. It was a national disgrace. Indeed, it reminded me of a statement by a former managing director of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd, when his name was misspelt in the Daily Graphic. He commented that now that his name had been misspelt, he would find it difficult to defend any journalist who was accused of factual error by outsiders, since he had been subjected to a factual error.
A third person who chanced upon them and who advised against fanatical partisanship retorted that if any child of the man was at the school where Dr Bawumia offered support and for which the government had to rush to present furniture, he would have appreciated the gesture. He emphasised that when issues come up, we must look at them from the point of view of the national interest rather than narrow and sometimes uninformed partisanship. Any shame or glory, which becomes a concomitant of such developments, whether in the nature of the errors in the brochure or the pupils learning without furniture, do not favour any party member but all of us as a nation.
My ego was deflated as I listened to the discourse because it suggested to me that we have lost our national focus and we could no longer discuss matters from the national and objective perspective. The matter of the brochure should not be defended by any objective person interested in the image of our motherland. It was a national disgrace.
In the matter of the furniture, we must all admit, agree and accept that the government alone cannot meet the needs of all our people at the same time. We should, thus, not be bothered about the politics of Dr Bawumia’s offer. The philosophy of the half glass of water, which could be half full for the optimist or half empty for the pessimist, becomes germane.
It was not that Dr Bawumia ordered furniture to be taken out of the classroom after which he took the photograph with the pupils writing on the bare floor. If the district assembly had programmed to supply furniture to the school, the Ministry of Education would not have been compelled to divert furniture to that school.
We have a collective responsibility to develop and protect the integrity of this nation. That obligation is emphasised under Article 41 (a) that it shall be the duty of every citizen “to promote the prestige and good name of Ghana and respect the symbols of the nation.”