By Owei Lakemfa
I lived in
Ghana continuously for about three years from January 6, 2013 and
thought President John Mahama could easily be defeated by a determined
opponent. This was what happened on December 7, elections when his
challenger from the New Patriotic Front (NPP) Nana Akufo-Addoh beat him
securing 5,716, 026 or 53.85 percent of the votes, and Mahama
recording 4.713,277 or 44.40 percent.
It was not that the opposition
could proffer, or did come up with better ideas. But given the state
of the average Ghanaian, any hope, or even promise of change, was
enough to sway him.
President Mahama is a charismatic politician who
can easily charm his way into peoples’ hearts. I met him twice and
watched him sing the national anthem in a melodious tune to wild
applause. People smiled at him, but the economy did not; it was in
pains. Unfortunately, the Mahama government could not break itself
free of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB)
straight jacket. These institutions applied make-up on the Ghanaian
economy, and commended its beautiful looks. They needed a poster boy
in Africa, and picked Ghana; a myth of fantastic growth was woven around
the country with a false paint of prosperity. The country was then
presented on the international stage where illusion replaced reality.
Behind the flattery of their economic statistics which presented Ghana
as the role model of development in Africa, were the ugly scars of a
run-down economy, the pangs of hunger and the stretch marks of distress.
The first issue that confronted me in Ghana was the cost of food;
it was twice that of the Nigeria I just left. As I watched Ghanaians
eat in public places, balanced diet seemed off the menu; many simply
stuffed their stomachs and resumed the race to make a living. A year
before, I had been one of the leaders of a mass movement that fought the
Nigerian government through mass strikes and street protests for
increasing the price of petrol (PMS) but in Ghana, the price increased
almost weekly. I wondered how a manufacturer or employer could plan if
he did not know how much a litre of fuel could cost the next minute.
Although occasionally, I saw an ancient train wail noisily past some
areas, but there was no mass transit, and, compared to Nigeria,
transportation cost was quite high. Yet the National Minimum Wage in
Nigeria which stood at a monthly $112.5 was far higher than that of
Ghana that hovered around $72.
I was chief executive officer of an
organization and we paid some 70 percent higher than the average wage in
Ghana, yet our staff found life quite challenging. One day, a
dedicated junior staff submitted her resignation and I invited her for a
chat hoping to dissuade her even if I needed to increase her salary.
She said the cause is the cost of transportation. She told me the area
she lived and calculated the amount that went for transportation, and I
was shocked. She explained that even if I gave her an increase, it
would still go mainly for transportation. Besides, in order to get to
work on time, she left home quite early to beat the traffic.
Power
failure was common, but unlike Nigeria where electricity supply has some
organized madness and you could, like an experienced pools forecaster,
predict when your power supply will be restored, it was impossible to
predict that of Ghana. Power could be off a whole day, two or three. I
once experienced a four-day power outage. With this, all sorts of power
generators flooded the country and there was of course more demand for
fuel to power them.
Mass unemployment was rife as the so called
economic miracle of 7-10 percent economic growth over the years, did not
translate into jobs. The fastest growing industry I noticed was the
FOREX Bureau as people engaged in reckless currency speculation. Within
two years, the Cedi in relation to the dollar, had climbed from 190 to
400. To make matters worse, you could not collect the dollars in your
account; you were paid in Cedis at official rate. At a period,
depositors were allowed S1,000 withdrawal weekly.
I had an inkling
on what was to come when in 2015, I had a discussion with an 80-year old
lady on the state of the country. I expected her to be unhappy with the
government, but not the vehemence and analysis of the cause. She blamed
Kwame Nkrumah – who had been overthrown in 1966 – for introducing
stupid economic policies and politics. In any case, she assured me, I
should wait until the next elections when Nana Akufo- Addo will sweep
the polls and allow knowledgeable people run the country.
That was
when I realized that the now President-elect might be running on two
tracks of ethnocentric politics and a return to anti-Nkrumah and anti
‘verandah boys’ politics.
Indeed, his father, Edward Akufo-Addo
was part of the establishment Big Five, Nkrumah broke away from in the
struggle for independence. Their followers had gone on to establish an
armed resistance group, the National Liberation Movement (NLM) which
Nkrumah crushed. It might not have been coincidental that the military
regime that overthrew Nkrumah on February 24, 1966, christened itself
the National Liberation Council (NLC) Nkrumah had also dismissed the
Senior Akufo-Addo as a Supreme Court Justice.
Also among the
anti-Nkrumah Big Five, were two of Akufo-Addo’s uncles; William
Ofori-Attah and Joseph Boakye (JB) Danquah who died in detention
during Nkruma’s reign. The Senior Akufo-Addo had gone on to be Chief
Justice under the military (1966-1970) and ceremonial President from
August 31, 1970 until January 3, 1972 when the military overthrew the
Kofi Bussia government. The NPP which produced the President-elect is
actually a coalition of politicians of the Danquah-Bussia anti-Nkrumah
tradition.
Akufo-Addo had been careful to sell a different image,
promising to develop Nkrumah’s town, Nkroful. Also, after his victory
was announced this week, his supporters circulated a photograph of
Nkrumah meeting a thirteen year-old American, George Miller, purporting
it to be the President-elect as a young man meeting Nkrumah.
Akufo-Addo has promised Ghanaians mass employment under his “One
District, One Factory” programme, and to check inflation and budget
deficit. Under his poverty alleviation project, he promises to spend
$275 million annually over the next four years. He is also to probe the
Mahama administration for alleged corruption; this promises to have
Ghanaians fixated for a year or two. However, in the tradition of
Mahama, he promises to run Ghana on the basis of Market Forces; pray,
what force has Ghana that makes it committed to the forces at the market
place? Under Akufo-Addo, I think that Ghana would remain an African
dream, deferred.
This
initial phase of deployment comes after a months-long development of policies
and procedures, as well as the evaluation and selection of a vendor.
