It is important to know that just because someone holds a position of leadership doesn’t necessary means that they should. The problem we are facing is recognising our problems, but we can’t seem to recognise good leaders from bad ones. If you really want to determine someone’s leadership prowess, then give them some responsibilities and see what they do with it. Leaders produce result, but do political leaders in Wa central produces results? It is not always pretty experience in the case of inexperience leaders, but good leaders will always find a way to get the job done. Is Wa central has trouble identifying political leaders or has a shortage of political leaders, if the answer of the question is no, then we have a leadership problem. One of the primary responsibilities of leaderships is to create more and better leaders. John Maxwell ever said “there is no success without a successor”. Leaders without vision will fall, leaders who lack vision cannot inspire teams, motivate performance or create sustainable value. Poor vision, tunnel vision, vision that is fickle or a non-existent vision will cause leaders to fail. A leader job is to align his or her follower around a clear and achievable vision, even this can transpire when the “blind lead the blind”.
A leader who lacks character or integrity cannot endure the test of time. It doesn’t matter how intelligent, affable, persuasive, or savvy a person is, if they are prone to rationalizing unethical behaviour based upon current or future needs, they will eventually fall prey to their own undoing. Optic over ethics is not a formula for success, nothing smacks of poor leadership like a lack of performance. Nobody is perfect, but leaders who consistently fail are not leaders no matter how much you wish they were. Someone who has constantly experienced success in leadership roles has a much better chance of success than someone who has not. It is important to note that unproven leaders come with a high risk premium. Followers remembered leader’s potentials but they rewards performance. It is often said that in terms of difficulties women and children suffers. Just as our mothers who transact business in Wa central market suffers, the one and only Wa central market that our mothers transact their small business for survival is seen to be the bigger threat to their live and health, during raining seasons and sunny days our poor mothers who trade in the market cannot even get shed to hide their head from rain and sun. A major source of government revenue in Wa municipality cannot even provide the market with adequate sheds for our mothers who trade there to hide their heads from rain and sun, they suffers during rainy and sunny days, each day it rains the ground become muddy and slippery, water bodies, potholes and chocked gutters are found in each corners of the market, this makes it difficult for vehicles, motor bike and even human beings passing in the market. What of in the night, the store and business centres are not save from theft, light poles that are erected in the markets connected with bulbs and electricity never put on to serve as source of security in the market, hardly do day pass without hearing of thief breaking a stores of traders in the market, prostitution and armed robbery becomes the night business in the market .Do the municipal chief executive (MCE), the members of parliament (MP) and the regional minister (RM) really care about this.
If a leader doesn’t understand the concept of “services over self” then they will not engender the trust, confident and royalty of those they lead. Any leader is only as good as his or her team desire to be by them, an over abundance of ego, pride and non performance are not positive leadership traits. Real leaders take the blame and give the credit and not the other way round. It is frustrating to see people who occupy vital and important position calling themselves leaders and enjoying fat salaries, driven luxurious government vehicles yet our street light are always off in the whole of Wa municipality, the multimillion street lights project that the government has undertaken to prevent accident and armed robbery on our roads in the night are never put on in the night. The MCE, regional minister and members of parliament (MP) of Wa central are not disquiet about that.
A 2006 United Nation report on issues of governance as the core of the water crisis, saying “water insufficient is often due to mismanagement, corruption, lack of appropriate institutions, bureaucratic inertia and shortage of investment in both human capacity and physical infrastructure” may be that is in the case of Wa central constituency, some peoples must be held responsible to our water crisis that has left thousands of peoples without running water in their pipe lines, who are these people? and who should hold them responsible? Water they say is life, is one the most scarce commodity in Wa, our population which keeps on increasing, but our water supply systems still remain adamant and no effort is putting in place to make water available to peoples, the few pipe lines or taps that are running is a survival for the fitters. It is surprising to know that nearby village like ‘Junga’ and other villages a stone throw within the outskirt of Wa cannot even get access to portable drinking water they fetch water from river for domestic use ‘aba’, those responsible who bungalows and offices never experience shortage of water, why should they be nuisance about this.
Barack Obama the president of the United State of America ever said “we don’t need strong leaders, what we need is strong institutions” another democratic president is elected and many people’s have started lobbying for position to becomes the municipal chief executives (MCE) and ministerial positions, but those already there never bothered about the plea of the people.
Wa a rapidly urbanising society solid waste management is a key challenge facing the constituency, issues of waste collection, management and disposal of solid waste continue to facilitate prominently in Wa. The contamination of water bodies leading to spread of water diseases, health hazards from the stench emanating from uncollected and decaying garbage, air contamination, garbage-chocked drain and gutters, plastic waste menace, disposal of refuse are some of the challenges that need to address.
The people of Wa and upper west region will always remain royal to former president Rawlings for his gargantuan and unprecedented development he has brought to the region, including the creation of the region, construction of major roads and extension of electricity to the region and the rest, which has brought some socio-economic improvement in the living condition of the people, since then nothing changes and everything remains obstinate. The constituency continue to engulf with poverty, unemployment, school dropout just to mention a few and we never see any clear developmental agenda spelling out thematic step which to be taken to address this miserable condition, our leaders neglect those they lead, every leader live to serve and not to be served, but ours seems to be the vice versa. It is common to see brilliant but needy graduates seeking for scholarship to study law, medicine and other relevant courses but they never seem to be concern about them, I have never heard or read any where that our MP, regional minister and MCE given scholarship to student for study, may be one day you should spare your precious time and walk into the Wa regional hospital to see how patients in the hospital goes through during critical condition.
In taking a cursory look at the development of our roads network, it apparently to notice that our roads network remains unchanged, the population and number of housing of Wa continue to increase, but there is no corresponding increase in the road network within the constituency, the few roads we have are now death threat to motorist and pedestrians, you can’t take a minute walk without counting a number of potholes on our roads, this cause rampant road accident both day and night, our constructed roads can’t be differentiated from rough roads, yet our MP, MCE and regional minister ride on state of the art, automobile Navaras, Toyota Land Cruiser, Tundra and other multi-million dollars vehicles, in fact these are not leaders who has plea for their people.
Beside the aforementioned, we are in bed with poverty, the World Bank Organisation describes poverty as; “poverty is hunger, poverty is lack of shelter, poverty is being sick and not being able to see doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and knowing how to read, poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place and across time, and has been describe in many to escape, so poverty is a call to action for the poor and the wealthy like, a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their communities”. In this 21st century you can count hundred of old men and women on the street, market places, house to house begging for money and food to make a living, and no effort or network is putting in place to alleviate this situation and make life for them and not even an NGOs or partnership avenue are in place for addressing some of the problems facing the constituent.
Political leaders who have turning point and springboard can transform the lives and satisfy the needs of those they lead. A vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world. The future will require of us in such positions to keep our eyes, ears and minds open. It will require us to listen and to involve, to coach and to develop, to enrich and to motivate, to risk and to credit, to care and to express concern, and to laugh especially at ourselves.
Long live Wa
Long live upper west region
Long live Ghana

SEIDU SAMAD

The writer is graduate of Wa Polytechnic, School of Business, Department of Accountancy Studies.
E-mail: samad_seidu@yahoo.com
Tel: 0206653517/0541036700
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