ADDRESS BY THE DEPUTY MINISTER FOR INFORMATION SAMUEL OKUDZETO ABLAKWA ON ‘CREDIBLE ELECTIONS; THE BEDROCK OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT’ AT THE 2009 ANNUAL PUBLIC LECTURE & AWARDS OF THE WEST AFRICAN STUDENT’S UNION (WASU) ON Thursday October 22, 2009- Arewa House Kaduna, Nigeria

It is difficult to say I bring you greetings from home. This is because as far as Nigeria and Ghana are concerned, both countries are home to all of us.

That notwithstanding, I bring you warm greetings from Ghana, a country where many of our brothers and sisters from Nigeria now comfortably and peacefully reside just as Ghanaians do here in Nigeria.

While I was preparing to leave for Lagos enroute to Kaduna, the whole of Ghana was still reveling and jubilating in the euphoria brought about by the historic victory of our Under-20 football team, the Black Satellites, at the just-ended World Youth Tournament in Egypt, the very first by an African country.

I am aware that many Nigerians and indeed Africans generally, celebrated this victory and as my President, His Excellency John Atta Mills, put it; it is a victory for all Africans.

My brothers and sisters, I thank you all and especially the Regional Executive Council of the West Africa Students’ Union (WASU) for this invitation and the honour to share my thoughts at this all important gathering.

May I take this opportunity to commend WASU for their contribution to Africa’s political heritage. Though WASU’s history has been checkered, no fair analyst would omit WASU when recounting Africa’s triumph over colonialism. It is in this light that I am eternally happy I was part of the resuscitating effort when I was president of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) and I salute Comrade Daniel Onjeh and his colleagues for keeping the touch burning.

Comrades and Friends, The theme I am required to speak to this morning being “Credible Elections; the bedrock of national development”, calls for nothing but absolute frankness.

We gather here at a time Africa’s democratic credentials are under a cloud of uncertainty. There are many who are vigorously engaged in a debate as to whether Africa’s democratic clock is still ticking, has stopped or has even gone anti-clockwise.

Only this week, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation was unable to declare a winner. Only this week, ECOWAS has had to impose sanctions on Guinea due to the bastardization of democracy by a military junta. As I speak, Uganda, Chad and Cameroon have just amended their constitutions to enable sitting presidents run for a third term.

In this era, Coups appear to be raging on as Guinea, Madagascar and Mauritania have added to the list. A strange animal called power-sharing has been discovered. And less I forget, dynasties are emerging again. In the places where there have been elections, many have fallen short of international standards as they are anything but free, fair and transparent.

I do agree that luckily, we may have the Ghana and South African positive story to tell in recent times but we must be honest to ourselves that too many negatives will drown any positive gain anywhere. There are those who have said that there can be no credible elections in Africa. Indeed, I cannot agree with that assertion. It is akin to telling me Africa cannot get anything right.

First of all, it is important that we all agree that conducting a free, fair and transparent election is not rocket science. It is indeed a basic and simple task. We are talking about ordinary plastic boxes, ordinary paper, ordinary indelible inks and people of our own kind who queue just like the way they queue at the transport yard any other day – in this basic exercise, if not for wonders, we don’t expect to see weapons, macho men, self-styled Olympic athletes who run away with ballot boxes and magical electoral officials who declare results for polling stations where not a single person voted.

The reason why things take this wonderful turn is nothing but greed and gross disrespect of the will of the people. There are a group of politicians who see themselves as natural heirs and that without them nobody else must govern, they are God’s only and permanent gift to their people and when you refer such “God sent politicians” to Abraham Lincoln’s 1854 speech where he stated that “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent” they are likely to tell you to go to hell.

Comrades and Friends, History has taught us that the politicians who do not aim at the true verdict of the people stifle development and in most instances are richer than their countries. It is therefore to be observed that a natural benefit of free, fair and transparent elections is national development. Where the political elite know they will be accountable to the people in the next four or five years, they do their best to better the lots of their countrymen and women so as not to be shown the exit on accountability day.

As you are aware, Ghana returned to multi-party democracy in 1992 after we experienced military coups, but later gained political stability largely through the efforts of Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, one of our former military rulers who became democratic. He contested elections and won and finally handed over power to an opposition candidate, John Kufour in the year 2000.

John Koror was re-elected in 2004, and in 2008 his party lost to the opposition, and John Atta Mills, who was earlier defeated by John Koror in 2000 became President. Ghana has been described as a model of Good Governance in the West African sub-region. Ghana’s example, that of Senegal, South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana and some Nigerian elections are a further illustration that democracy and credible elections are possible in Africa.

The election of 2000 was the first democratic transition of power from the ruling party to the opposition in Ghana's history, and in 2008 another credible election was conducted. These elections attracted US President Barrack Obama to visit our country as an example of what is possible.

May I state that this notwithstanding, we are not complacent in Ghana as we are of the view that we can improve and eliminate some of the shortcomings of previous elections. It is in this vein that Government has agreed to fund the Electoral Commission in preparing a fresh Voters Register which we suspect was bloated in the last elections. We are also considering a biometric system of voting.

My brothers and sisters, I am very proud to state here that hundreds of thousands of Ghanaian youth played, and still play, a very active role in the struggle to sanitize our electoral system.

I recall the confidence our leaders, including the Founder of my party, the National Democratic Congress- former President J. J. Rawlings and the current President, His Excellency John Atta Mills, reposed in many young men and women and encouraged us to join the forefront in our quest to sanitise our electoral system. That paid off, as many young Ghanaians have become politically active and alive to what needs to be done to ensure that our elections are credible no matter the fraudulent schemes put in place.

From experience, one of the sure ways of strengthening our democratic structures and building a strong electoral machinery is for us as a people to develop greater political consciousness and to be eternally vigilant during the conduct of elections.

It is important for us to appreciate the fact that as nations that have embraced constitutional democracy, we cannot develop when national elections to elect our leaders are not credible. The end result would be tension, civil strife, cynicism, lack of legitimacy and a non-committal attitude in helping the government succeed. This will certainly lead to a negation of the successes chalked by our countries.

The facts speak for themselves that African countries that are stable and hold credible elections have better macro-economic statistics. For example most of these countries have grown at an annual average of 7% GDP, inflation is normally less than 20% and interest rates are far better when compared to countries in other categories. Their Human Development Index according to the United Nations also show a positive trend and social interventions are normally rife in these countries.

Agreeably, credible elections trigger national development, we as African politicians must be committed to play by the rules at all times in order that when you are elected you can enjoy the respect and popular legitimacy of the electorate.

Off course, we cannot have a credible election without an equally credible and independent elections management body. That calls for an Independent Electoral Commission that is manned by professionals who are non-partisan in their dealings in order to be able to win the confidence of all parties and contestants in elections. The independent electoral commission must also actively involve the political parties at all times more crucially before the polls so that all stakeholders will be involved in setting the ground rules from the very beginning.

Also, we can only guarantee credible elections in our countries when the process is totally free, fair and transparent. That will require that we allow everybody an opportunity to have a say or share in the process by making their voices heard.

Very importantly, the candidates and the electorate- must be guaranteed equal access to airtime and newspaper space in the state media. Particularly for ruling governments, we must ensure that all the candidates and their parties are treated with equity under the law.

Your Excellencies, comrades and friends, Many of Africa’s young men and women are not asking for favours. What we want are opportunities that will allow us to demonstrate our talents and be able to take advantage of the natural resources around us.

In Ghana, many of the country’s youth are expectant of the new government, believing that the commitment of President Atta Mills to create opportunities will be realised. With the appointment of many young persons in his government, the president has more than demonstrated that the future of the country rests on its young people.

Accordingly, various interventions aimed at investing in people, creating jobs, improving the livelihood of all and building a Better Ghana are currently under implementation. One of such programs is the Youth in Agriculture concept under which over 30,000 hectares of land has been cultivated by young people with all inputs including seedlings, fertilisers and tractor ploughing provided free of charge by government.

Ladies and gentlemen, on a continent that has many unemployed graduates, such innovative interventions are important in demystifying the notion that farming is for school drop outs, while mechanising our agriculture and ensuring food security all year round.

As a young person, and infact the youngest minister in President Mills’ administration, it is my hope that African governments develop structures that provide the youth with various opportunities. The youth are also crying for a more open and transparent engagement with the citizenry such that they can positively engage their governments.

My colleagues and I at Ghana’s Ministry of Information, for instance have various modules with which we constantly interact with the citizenry including the ever popular social networking platform, face book. You’ll be amazed at the number of Ghanaians, both home and abroad who continue to applaud these initiatives which include unfettered access to our offices for one-on-one sessions, radio and TV discussions and field trips to explain government policies and get feedback on our activities.

My brothers and sisters, In sum, the tenets of true democracy is not just about holding elections but where we respect the will and aspirations of the people at all times, not only at elections, where the number of voters on election day does not exceed the number of registered voters at the polling station even when the voters register itself might be bloated, where there is no snatching of ballot boxes, where there is no violence and intimidation, where we do not throw money at the people during elections, where losers are gracious in defeat and winners are magnanimous in victory. We will get there by a conscious and committed effort at attitudinal and electoral reforms. This as young people, we must commit ourselves to and I am glad the Nigerian Government has electoral reforms key on her agenda- it is important that all views are taken on board, we should not be coy to exchange ideas and expertise on how both Ghana and Nigeria can improve our electoral systems and most importantly any electoral reform must not disadvantage any group, segment or society.

It is also important for me to stress that when electoral reforms and improvements have been attained, we must make sure that the way we share the ballot paper on voting day, is the same way we share the national cake. One man one vote, one citizen one slice. We have no choice if we are to end cynicism amongst African people about their political elite.

Your Excellencies, comrades and friends, Our past as a continent so far as democracy and credible elections are concerned is certainly unpleasant but posterity’s interest will be whether we entrenched this unpleasant past or whether we extricated ourselves and like Confucius may we come to that sacred conclusion: “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of as in a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

Long live WASU, Long live Africa.