By Frank S. Debrah
Fellow Ghanaians, the year 2012 is knocking on our doors and with it the countdown to the next presidential and parliamentary elections. Ghana’s history is rich, its economy is on a sustainable path to growth, relative peace prevails and, as a young Ghanaian, I am proud that Ghana is making a steady progress towards consolidating its democratic experiment.
My brothers and sisters, 2012 will be a year of great promise but also a year of potential mishap. Great promise because we stand a good chance of resurrecting and turning into reality the hopes and aspirations that our founding fathers carried with them at the dawn of our independence – a truly industrialized black star nation that will be a shining example for the rest of Africa and indeed the world. Nonetheless, we also face potential disaster because the 2012 elections will challenge our political resilience and stretch our democratic and security institutions to the limit, as the rivalry between our two dominant political parties grows increasingly acrimonious each election cycle. I say this knowing full well the dangerous precipitous that the country came close to in the aftermath of the 2008 elections.
Ladies and gentlemen, democracy is a messy business. It is no secret to say that its return into our system of governance two decades ago has unleashed deep divisions between the Ghanaian people. The debates have been and continuous to be fiercely contested on our radio and television stations on a daily basis. And despite the rancour and the all too often insulting behaviour from some of our ‘not-so-honourable MP’s’, the problems of democracy are far better than the problems of dictatorship. We have had the pleasant and unpleasant opportunity to taste both throughout our history so we are in a position to be better judges.
On one end of the power struggle, we’ve heard those who seem to be implying that they must win the upcoming elections at all cost; that they will be willing to turn Ghana into Rwanda, if they have to, because “all-die-be-die”. To those I say unto you, history will judge you not by what you destroy to gain political power but by what you create. On the other end, we’ve heard those who appear to be threatening to use state resources to intimidate their political opponents. I say unto thee, the state is not your private asset. It is the resource of the Ghanaian people therefore you will not be allowed to use it to intimidate, steal or plunder.
Dear friends, at stake in Elections 2012 is not who must be anointed by the Ghanaian people to use the state for parochial political interest. At stake is a national action plan on the way forward. After all, the NPP and the NDC are not all that dissimilar if you unmask the rhetoric. Although the NPP claims the ideological rhetoric of the center-right (property owning democracy) and the NDC claims the center-left (social democracy), in practice there are no substantive policy differences between the two when in government. Their ideological stance is often moderated by their paymasters in Washington i.e. the IMF and the World Bank.
Amid all the noise, passion and public animosity between the NPP and the NDC stands ordinary Ghanaians who are concern, not so much about whether Nana Akuffo-Addo or Atta Mills rules the country, but whether jobs takes root in Ghana; whether we can reduce the spectre of poverty in our villages; whether we can build our dilapidated and non-existent infrastructure; whether our education system can churn out students capable of analyzing and solving problems; or whether we can improve the lives of our brothers and sisters in the northern regions.
These are monumental problems that require all hands on deck. They especially require us to come together as a nation in understanding that we may have different stories, but we share common aspirations; that we may not be from the same tribe or live in the same part of the country, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future. A future where our jobless university graduates are not queuing at foreign embassies searching for escape, a future where our northern sisters are not migrating to Accra in drones to be ‘Kayayo’, a future where pregnancy doesn’t become a death sentence for our mothers, a future where clean water and health facilities are not the rights of only the privileged.
Fellow countrymen, we have a choice in the days leading up to the next elections. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and scorn. We can accept the politics of “we the Akans” or the politics of the “boom speeches” or the dirty politics of “incumbency”. We can pitch one tribe against another, one region against another. We can continue to turn our radio stations into a circus where the person with the dirtiest mouth gets the loudest megaphone. We can do all of that and worse. But if we do, I guarantee you that we will forever focus on distractions every election cycle and nothing will change in this country that we all profess to hold so dearly.
That is one option. Or, in 2012, we can join together and say, “Enough is enough!” This time we will not be hoodwinked. This time we want to hear substantive discussions on national issues. This time we want to hear how the candidates plan to create an environment conducive for innovation and job creation. This time we want to hear the concrete policies that the candidates will adopt to eliminate misdirection of state funds. This time we want to hear how the candidates plan to finance their campaign promises, if they make one. This time we want to judge the parties on whether they fulfilled their last campaign promises. This time we want to hear how the candidates plan to address the perennial power outages in the country. This time we are tired of the promises, we want some action! Long live Ghana!