The campaign has been
so vociferous that it has come close to becoming a national anthem. To make
matters worse, the trumpeters of change are themselves implicated one way or
the other in the vices that have brought the nation to its knees, from ethnocentric
fundamentalism to corruption and wanton suspicion. Indeed the clouds over Ghana
have been coloured by the deafening cries of change that would restore to
Ghanaians uninterrupted supply of light to make life and Ghana a place worth
occupying.
I am not a pessimist,
neither am I in this case an optimist. I consciously chose to be a
realist especially as I have lived through many promises of change in my
lifetime, none of which was fulfilled. I have thus decided to interrogate this
new season of the same old promises of change and to do so I have resorted to
history as that is the most reliable guide from the past to the future.
Ghana has historically
been in a constant rage of promised change, but as a trip through history
indicates, none of that promise either deliberately or not was ever fulfilled.
From 80’s when the erstwhile National Democratic Congress leaders campaigned
for probity and accountability, we were told that our rich masters were the
problem, that it was a crime for a man to own more than one two bed room house,
and that one man one house, and that things were going to be better once every
citizen was limited to a toilet facility things would change for the better and
Ghana would be a prosperous, peaceful, harmonious Eldorado and giant of Africa.
The rule of the
so-called effluents was eventually torpedoed through the barrel of gun, via thuggery,
violence, arson and a bloody military coup that truncated the Limman’s
administration for a diabolical military regime. In no time Military rule became
the problem and we were told that once democracy returned change would come and
Ghana would be well on its path to prosperity and harmony.
Flt. Lieutenant Jerry
John Rawlings metamorphose into the
scene as the democratically elected president of the republic in 1992 after his positive defiance
mantra and campaigning on probity, integrity and accountability, but soon
returned Ghana to election rigging,
corruption, and violence. Once again the leadership became the problem and we
were promised again that leadership was the last vestige of hope that would
bring change once ‘ Akonta Rawlings’ and
his clueless corrupt National Democratic Congress were removed.
And in came Kuffour and his New Patriotic
Party crew with modified diabolical agenda and a revolving door.
Before his coming, we
were assured a positive change, and when he came we were told change was coming.
In fact, I was busily awaiting the coming into reality that much touted
positive change, then Atta Mills came, again we were told change was coming and
that the Ghanaian was capable of managing his own affairs. And that Ghana was
going to be better under the management of Ghanaians, as if opposite was the
case. Sadly enough, these affairs was
never managed by Ghanaians and Ghana never also got better; then Mahama came with
‘ego bee k3k3’ and we waited for it to ‘bee’, but each proved to be worse than
the preceding regime. By the time each of them eventually left the scene, human
rights abuses and corruption inestimable proportions had become the order of
the day.
Corruption which was
one of their principal excuses for coming to power had been institutionalized
and all national institutions and infrastructure from Ghana Airways to ECG, TOR
to Steel plants, Railways to roads, and hospitals to schools amongst others had
been destroyed.
While the military held
sway, pro-democracy organizations started a noisy campaign to end military
rule. We were bombarded with a plethora of reasons why the military had to go.
We were told that once the military left the problems of corruption, poverty,
ethnic and religious divisions, marginalization, human rights abuses and
general misrule would end and Ghana would take its rightful place among the comity
of nations as a well governed, prosperous, democratic and harmonious giant in
the sun. In 1992 the military departed and in came the present democratic
dispensation.
Rather than the
promised change the hitherto democracy campaigners turned themselves into
godfathers and unleashed the most systematic looting in the nation’s history.
Critical infrastructure has remained comatose. Thuggery, assassinations,
election rigging and violence have become national pastimes while general
misrule is the single most defining attribute of the present democratic
dispensation.
In 2012 when President John
Mahama was elected to power there was again a promise of change and a glimmer
of hope. Many suggested he was an outsider who came to power through divine
will, a veritable messiah on a rescue mission. But three years later the
promises of change has dissipated and we are back from where we started.
In all, Ghana has fared
worse in the last 23 years of democracy than in any other period in history.
Elsewhere in Egypt and Tunisia the promises of change that came
with the Arab spring has ended up with the status quo, while in Libya and Syria
it has ended in violence wracked failed states. As can be seen, Ghana’s
history evidently indicates that time and again the promises of change have
remained unfulfilled and in all cases made things worse.
It is logical to
conclude that Ghana would have been better off if we had continued with the military
in spite of its imperfections. There are also so many who think we should have
remained under colonial administration; at least until such a time that we
would be able to run a democratic system successfully.
I am thus with
historical reasons deeply suspicious of every season of promised change as
presently obtains, because it has proven time and again to be a deceptive
slogan that only replaces one group with other power seeking
opportunists who always end up making things worse. If history can be an
accurate guide then continuity embedded with reforms would make more sense than
the deceptive rigmarole of change.
No comments:
Post a Comment