Too many have had to
suffer at the hands of political economic elite whose only fight is for them by
them, with them and them... And with a bureaucracy so bloated and confused, the
powerful always win...but...Onyedikachi Ndidi
In a recent
conversation with friends on the state Ghana, I reminded of the Marxist theorem
that says, "When a society is on the verge of collapse, the ruling class
is thrown into confusion."
Ghana's current
identity is that replete with confused, factionalized and extremely corrupt
elites with a limited sense of nationalism. As my late Mother puts it,
"These elites lacking strong and viable base in production, have for long
used the nation as its primary instrument of primitive accumulation." In
the end, the country has been mangled and rendered impotent in the quest for
nationhood, growth and development, much less democracy.
The genesis and
development of the Ghanaian elite is as interesting as the generic rooting of
the Ghanaian nation. The elite, which took over power from the departing
colonial authorities, also took over from them the development ethos of the
colonial administrations.
This could be stated
as the self-interested exploitation of the people and the country. This
self-serving ethos, which had been the foundation, was what the colonialism had
engrained in the mentality of the emerging Ghanaian elite. The devastating
effect of this formed the basis of development orientation in the postcolonial Ghana.
While one can argue
rightly so too, that though the elite is meant to play a central role in
promoting and designing democracy, as it is quite impossible to prosecute any
democratic project in any society without the input of the elite, the Ghanaian
elite has sadly continued to impede and frustrate the democratization trend.
They see democracy or
governance more as a means to an end, and in Achebe's words, have a tendency to
‘pious material wooliness and self-centered pedestrianism’. Consequently, the
group remains just like its colonial progenitor an instrument of exploitation
and suppression of the popular classes and a tool for primitive accumulation
and class consolidation for the hegemonic groups.
In other words, the
few who control the system have access to all imaginable perks while the many
who are excluded are victims of all forms of abuses. Perhaps, it is for this
reason, the struggle to attain and retain power has become a veritable war
fought without restraint and with total disregard for the ethos and conventions
of democracy and giving birth to an unprecedented level of corruption and
misgovernance irrespective of the party or group.
In twenty-first
century Ghana, elite corruption is demonstrated in various dimensions, namely,
presidentialism, clientelism and rent seeking.
Now, let us look at
presidentialism, it implies the systematic concentration of political power in
the hands of one individual who more often resists delegating all but the most
trivial decision-making tasks.
This concept is
likened to patrimonialism or personalized rule, where an individual rules by
dint of personal prestige and power. It can emerge from either the army or a
dominant political party, whichever way; the point is that power is
consolidated by asserting total personal control over formal political
structures thereby making ways for corruption (Bratton and Van de Walle, 1997).
For example in Kuffour’s
government, President John Kuffour was the minister of roads and transport, a
portfolio he never wanted any other individual to handle.
He was minister of roads
for several months yet he did not build a single road. So it is foolhardy for
any sane person to be moved by his exhibitionism of lampooning John Mahama, a
man who continuous to pay his dues to him (Kuffour) timely.
In Ghana, primitive
accumulation comes in form of theft, looting, graft, expropriation, money
laundering, enslavement and internal colonization. In this sense, even
governments are not eager to probe the sources of personal wealth.
What is more? The
prevailing trend among the Ghanaian elite is how to enrich oneself in order to
remain relevant in the polity and how that is done is nobody’s business. To
this class of individuals, ‘the end justifies the means’, and not ‘the means to
justify the end’.
Little wonder, the
cases of DUMSOR being viewed as a political tool, coupled with ritual incompetence,
photo-shopping and secret recordings. To this end, the average Ghanaian simply
sees the elite as an opportunist, who’s first and foremost is in office for his
own end and probably those of his immediate constituency.
What is serious about
plutocracy is that, it breaks the unity of the state into two contending
classes: The rich and the poor. Plutocrats are consumers of good things and
seekers of constant pleasure, and when they have used up their money, they
become dangerous because they want more of what they have become accustomed to.
This then is my
admonition, and the analysis of all the big-sounding words I have narrated
above—If indeed elections do hold, if NPP wins, NDC would pretend to have conceded
defeat, only to organize a press conference to lunch a new set of campaign
message for the next election, if NDC wins, NPP would go back to Supreme Court
in other to find time to finalize bedroom agreements before the verdict.
However, whether any
of them wins and it stays so, with a little season of misunderstanding, it will
simply be because either party will see a re-congregating of elites, and so
therefore very little governance will take place.
Here, uprising of good
people may follow to correct all the evil deeds. Only time would tell.
