Nevertheless, the linkage between
democracy and human need is important and should be borne constantly and
carefully in mind in all discussions about democracy. Democracy is not just
theory or an end in itself; it is a means to an end, and that end is human
well-being and happiness (E. A. Boateng, Government and the
People: Outlook for Democracy in Ghana).
Over the past few weeks, two very prominent
people in this country have pleaded with us as citizens of this country not to
allow politics to divide us, as a people. The first within the timeframe under
discussion was the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, when
he toured one of the newly created regions.
Otumfuo Osei Tutu, during his anniversary to
celebrate his 20th Anniversary on the throne of the great
Ashanti Kingdom, made a passionate appeal that we should not allow our
differences in politics to divide us.
These two very prominent personalities made
passionate appeals to us to see ourselves as one people who have chosen to
belong to different political parties with the view to attaining political
power to govern this nation. Indeed, they are not the first to make such pleas
and I believe they would not be the last either. The truth, however, is that
this country was divided long before its independence on political grounds and
we have never made efforts to mend that division since independence. Once
again, the truth is that this nation continues to be divided by politics on a
daily basis because of what we have adopted as political systems when we were
not mature enough to implement those systems.
It does not also mean that the systems we have
chosen to govern ourselves since independence were bad in themselves, because
the same systems have worked elsewhere; it is primarily the people implementing
and operating the systems in this country who seem to be parochial in thoughts
and actions. As I said earlier, this country was politically divided long
before our independence because certain sections of the country, even under the
colonial administration, were considered inferior by the ‘natives’ close to the
colonial masters.
So it came to pass that even as early as
1954, political parties not based on common beliefs in ideology or philosophy
sprang up. The Northern Peoples Party (NPP), Ghana Congress Party (GCP), then
led by Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, The Muslim Association of Ghana
(MAP), the Togoland Congress and the Anlo Youth Organisation (AYO). Many
of these small parties having failed in their bid to challenge the Convention
People’s Party (CPP) perhaps rallied behind the National Liberation Movement
(NLM) which became very prominent in the politics of the time and whose
formation created more divisions in this country, this time on ideological
lines.
Since then, the politics in this country have
been founded on the CPP and the UP which were formed out of the UGCC. A
critical study of all the political parties from the 2nd and 4th
republics would indicate the political or ideological and philosophical
allegiance of the parties to the CPP and the UP. Sadly though, even those
parties which make claims of ancestry to the CPP or the UP are almost always
divided when it comes to the struggle for political power.
In both the 2nd and 3rd republics,
political parties aligned to the CPP and the UP dominated the political space
and the Progress Party from the UP emerged the winners. During the 3rd Republic,
the PNP emerged the winner from a number of CPP oriented political parties
while the highly divided UP parties placed second and third respectively. The 4th Republic
saw the most divided front of the CPP groupings while the UP followers learnt
their lessons from the 3rd Republic and stayed together for the
purposes of winning political power.
These are to indicate the political divisions
the nation has grappled with since independence even within political groupings
with the same ideological and philosophical background. So intense is the
division between what has come to be known as the CPP and the UP traditions
that their followers of today, who neither suffered nor saw the history behind
any of the atrocities – oral and written – has bequeathed to us to see ourselves
as enemies and not political opponents.
This political division was used to further
divide this nation on ethnic and even religious lines such that one can be
aligned to a particular political party just by his or her name. The military
disruptions of our constitutional dispensations had even been based on the
CPP/UP politics. The NLC takeover of the Nkrumah administration was more of
ideology than the failings of the Nkrumah regime. The Acheampong coup d’état
was ideological than proven failures of the Busia government. The least said
about the Rawlings revolutions and coups, the better.
The above limited accounts of our political
history gives an indication that our division is an externally influenced
factor of ideology which is foreign to our traditional way of life and
thinking. No matter which Asantehene is on the throne, the interests of Asanteman
is the most dominant policy and so it is with many if not all chieftains in
Ghana.
We have, like many developing countries, been
restricted to a particular style of governance which entrusts all powers in the
hands of the group which wins majority of the votes cast during an
election. Therefore, after each election, if the winner obtains 54%
of the total votes cast, all powers and decisions and appointments to public
offices to manage the resources are placed in the hands of those within the 54%
bracket.
In the process, the 46% of the people have no
role to play in the governance of the state. At best, they can only exercise
their rights to shout their voices hoarse but who cares. They would be lucky
not to be described as nation wreckers or saboteurs. Fifty-four per cent of
people having their ways and the remaining 46% just having their say in our
environment will never create national unity.
The ‘discarded’ 46% citizens in their quest to
also grab political power in the next elections will never see anything good in
the government in power and will do everything within accepted political norms
to thwart the efforts of the ruling government and bring it down in the next
elections. Compromises are anathema in our political environment.
Public institutions all of a sudden become
appendages of the ruling government and faceless party functionaries order and
instruct public officers to do what is wrong in their favour or against
political opponents. The institutions themselves become divided in their stated
mandates and perform to the dictates of the ruling party.
It is good for this nation to have all the good
attributes of democracy as espoused by the proponents, but those of us
perceived to be championing the principles of democratic governance, limit
democracy to general elections each four years while our institutions keep on
weakening in their service to the nation generally, then our nation will remain
divided on political lines. Many public institutions have lost the confidence
and trust the people originally had in them because of partisan politics.
The Republicans and the Democrats can continue
to do what they are doing in the U.S.A. but institutions will not take any
illegal instructions from the ruling party to the detriment of the American people.
America is still stable and serving its people. The Conservatives and Labour
can fight all day in the U.K, yet the citizenry will be served as expected. Our
politics – intra and inter – have become so polarised to the point that we are
divided on that line.
Until we do something about the current
arrangements, Ghana will remain divided particularly with the mounting
indiscipline in the country leading to serious challenges in our developmental
efforts. Daavi, I beg, some three tots.
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