A country like Ghana need not beg -Wayo

Wayo’s Radical Presidential Agenda
Long before he even filed the relevant documents to run for the highest office of the land, the Presidency, Charles Kofi Wayo, Founder and Leader of the newly formed United Renaissance Party (URP) promises to be a radical leader who would not hesitate to take firm and concrete decisions for the nation.

Considering the slow pace at which Ghana is being developed, Wayo says it would be suicidal to have yet another President who lacks the political will to take concrete decisions for mother Ghana. In an exclusive interview with The Chronicle, the URP Leader said he agreed hundred percent to the call for a radical type of leadership for this country since the country was far behind in development.

For him, a country like Ghana does not only need a radical leader but one with direction, knowledge and capability and not mere paper qualification. His kind of radical leader, he said should be one who would be able to criticize objectively, prepared to meet with his biggest critic to sit and confront each other on common issues and also be prepared to take advice from his worse enemies.

Meanwhile, Wayo says he is the kind of radical leader that the country needs. Severally described as a maverick politician, Wayo believes most of the country’s Presidents’ lack the political will to take firm decisions for fear of loosing their second terms’ bid but he was ready to forgo the second term and take firm decisions for the country to move forward.

He wondered why and how a country like Ghana endowed with rich natural resources such as gold, cocoa, diamond and the several others, would have its President trotting the globe with a begging bowl to beg for aids and loans to develop.

This, he said was totally insulting since to him, the country has all it takes to develop and manage its economy without assistance from any of the Breton Woods institutions. Wayo could not but asked rhetorically, “We have cocoa, diamond you name it, what do we need foreign aid for?”

He noted that it was high time Ghana moved from its over reliance on foreign aids and loans since they were not the solution to our numerous problems saying, “we don’t need the IMF, they need us”. If loans and aids were the solution to the country’s long-standing economic woes, the several loans and grants offered us could have salvaged us, he noted.

“I know cocoa is cash and I know how to use it, I wont give it to the white man and go beg him for money, Kufuor don’t know how to use it, Rawlings don’t know how to use it, all the African leaders don’t know how, so they give it to the white man because they see the white man as their God”, said Wayo who appeared to be emotional.

The ‘Nima boy’ as he preferred to be called, stated that most African leaders and for that matter Ghanaian leaders behave in this way “because they grew up in a culture that believes in slavery”. Fifty years after gaining independence from the country’s colonial masters, he noted that there was little or virtually nothing we could count on as achievement since in his opinion “we have nothing to show, except ignorance”.

For that reason, he said, “any Ghanaian who goes to that celebration proves beyond any doubt that they are inferior human beings”, because according to his reason, many Ghanaians do not have access to basic necessities like water and electricity. Wayo however does not believe that the current democratic dispensation was even worth celebrating since he says’ freedom of speech is a natural gift.’ Further, ‘Chuck’ as he is fondly called prescribed, “on that day, we should all sit at home and cry because our leaders have completely failed us”.

Quite apart of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President who succeeded in building the Akosombo dam and other industries, which he admits was a significant feat, he indicated that all leaders that came after him have been a disaster. Instead of improving on Nkrumah’s tremendous projects and achievements, he noted that they ended up messing up the country, stressing that our leaders have rather succeeded in selling out the major industries and chopped the money.

According to him, a government under his administration would revive all state companies that have been left to collapse. “We cannot rule like white people, they are playing what we call ‘the preservation game’, we have nothing to preserve, we have to build,” he said, stressing, “The tactics Nkrumah used to fight the colonialist is not the same we should use for the economic reconstruction. Nkrumah made that tactical mistake”. He vehemently criticized President Kufuor since in his view, “he does have any beliefs and ideologies on which he is building the country”.

Wayo described the current breed of leaders in this country as, “people who do not have compassion for the masses but rather for their self-aggrandizement”, labeling them ‘niggers with attitude’. “They like to play to the gallery of the white man” he said, wondering why in the midst of numerous problems, President Kufuor would set up a scholarship in his name at the Oxford university in England.

The slow pace of the country’s development have ignited several calls for a radical president who would be ready to take firm decisions as compared to the rather calm, more diplomatic and lax leadership under the administration of President John Agyekum Kufuor.