Another exercise to prepare Ghanaians to choose their governors has been marred by violence and a fierce rivalry amongst the prospective competitors to boost their advantage in their perceived political strongholds through foul and illegal means.
And to add insult to the injury of perverting our participatory democracy, the two main protagonists have pretended that each is holier than the other in their incessant use of skulduggery ways and means to add ineligible people to the voters register.
The gall of it all is that both parties then join together to cry out in unison that the resulting register is bloated and that the Electoral Commission of Ghana must ‘clean’ the register to make it sufficiently credible for the impending election.
All of this makes total nonsense of the ongoing legal battle to clean the register when those making the demand are feverishly engaged in adding ineligible minors and foreigners from our neighbouring countries to the register.
In a refreshingly honest admission, the General Secretary of The NDC, ‘General Mosquito’ last week put the blame squarely on political parties when he said ““We are the people who create the problems and we turn to blame the Electoral Commission,”.
Unfortunately, this honest admission was immediately ruined by Sammy Awuku of the NPP who called for the arrest of the General ‘Mosquito”, in a clearly botched attempt to claim the electoral lofty height of honest conduct.
The foregoing narrative begs the question as to the real purpose and intent of those who seek our mandate to become our government; Is it their intention to offer selfless public service, or do they see governance as merely a means for their private gain?
This question has exercised my mind for the past decade as I have attempted to assess my role in Ghana's public and political life under the working title of “PG3, Public Good, Private Greed, Poor Ghana”.
My thesis and my experience is summed up as follows: Whilst the purpose of entering public service is to contribute to the Public Good, the overwhelming majority of those who enter are in it for their private greed, and our motherland Ghana is the poorer for it.
That to me is why Ghana has sunk into a quagmire over the almost 60 years of being Black Africa’s first independent country; only proving that all the black man is capable of doing is the rape of his country for his personal benefit.
The 1992 Constitution sets out the purpose for seeking political power in very clear and unambiguous language, in the very first article, to wit: (1) The Sovereignty of Ghana resides in the people of Ghana in whose name and for whose welfare the powers of government are to be exercised in the manner and within the limits laid down in this Constitution” As I wrote last week, government must be in “our name and for our welfare.”
Unfortunately, the process employed by politicians is so corrupt and tainted that it substitutes the intent of our constitution right from the word go.
Those who seek to lead their own parties buy the allegiance of those who decide. The leaders and parties who then compete for our mandate do so by literally buying the votes through direct and indirect inducements.
When power has been obtained, it is time to recoup the investment made to buy the votes, reward those who contributed to the investments by offering ‘juicy’ contracts and positions which bring personal gains, as well as appointing the ‘foot soldiers’ deployed to subvert the democratic practice of one eligible person, one vote.
In the dispensations where I learned my politics, those who offer themselves for public office are helped to achieve their noble purpose. Others who believe in their fitness of purpose often knock on doors to fund the campaign of their noble fellow citizens.
Now it’s all internet- based, alas Bernie Sanders’ US$27 average contribution, which has raked in more millions of dollars than the influence-seeking Super PACs.
How do we know all of this? Simple really! It is called accounting to the people (in the real sense) because there are institutions and laws which ensure that politicians obey the underlying premise behind governing “in our name”, which to me means simply full disclosure to us all of the time in the use of our resources for our welfare.
Alas when they get power, the politicians decide on what we should know and what we should not know, hence the 22 year gestation period of the RTI bill that is still not passed into law.
In this era of evidence-based assertions, one does not need to be a rocket scientist to deduce that looting has taken the place of service as the primary purpose for entering politics.
When you see your contemporary attain extraordinary personal wealth whilst not visibly working as hard as you, it is more than likely that your mate is now a politician, and not just a politician, but belongs to the party in government.
It is the search for the quickest way to alleviate personal poverty that drives most who seek political office. Unlike the Olympics, it is not about taking part; it is all about winning the power to govern. Since this entails getting 50% + 1 of those who vote on Election Day, registering ineligible minors and foreigners boosts your chances, hence the despicable spectacle that we have just witnessed in the recent limited registration exercise.
It is just as well we did not embark on a full blown registration exercise to create a new voters register. The result would have been a register that is probably bigger than the total population of Ghana.
The blame lies squarely with our politicians and we must stop blaming the EC or asking it to fix all the self-inflicted problems that stem from the pursuit of loot instead of service by those who seek to govern in our name and on our behalf.
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