Opinions of Sunday, 7 November 2004
Columnist: Aborampah, Emmanuel
Come December 7, 2004 the good people of Ghana will be taking a decision on their future. One cannot help but wonder, what are the expectations of the millions of well meaning citizens of the nation who will be trooping the poles at the end of the year?
I cannot say for certainty that I know what every Ghanaian wants and expects from this exercise and can only speak for the few thousands who have interacted with me and then assume that their expectations are reflected in many places in space and time around the nation.
I personally have talked to many people, and generally speaking most would like to see definite steps taken to improve the lot of every citizen. By this I mean any measures and policies that end up improving the quality of life of the people of this country. Many are of the opinion that the magnitude and enormity of the problems facing the nation require no ordinary measures to address and that the current way of doing things will never take us where we wish to be. I was surprised also to learn that many people are willing ? despite their current precarious living condition to sacrifice yet again provided it holds hope for a better future.
I don?t profess to know everything about the way our system of governance works, but if our experience at ?Multi-Party? democracy is anything to go by, then I am convinced that we as a nation are not ready yet for such a form of government. All our attempts at multi-party democracy ushered in sinister manoeuvrings and social discord, resulting in lack of consistency and continuity in developmental programs.
Secondly, most of the current breed of national leaders we have are not leaders at all, they are being rather led by circumstances and by others. They lack foresight and originality in thinking. They have been motivated more by the trappings of power than by true leadership drive. My conclusions have been based on the biblical saying that ?you shall know them by their fruits?. These career politicians have not delivered what the people desire ? to see appreciable improvement in the quality of life, if not for themselves then for their children. What I see is ?education for sale?, ?health for sale?, ?justice for sale? and ?survival of the fittest?. I see filth and squalor in our towns and cities, I see indiscipline in many aspects of our national life and I attribute these to lack of leadership.
In the light of the above factors, I think as a people we do need to pause and reflect for a while. We need to device a means to dispassionately tackle our problems, guided by our common experience in the past but not dragged back by it. I wish I were sworn in as the President of the Republic of Ghana on 7th January, 2005. I would propose the following major framework and recommend it to whoever wins the elections as the program for the next four years. Within the first 100 days -
Now let us look at the five priority areas for some specific policy directions.
I trust my fellow countrymen to come up with more workable ideas.