Sycophancy- the evil to our democracy now

By Seth Nketiah, Lecturer, Regent

University College

Introduction:

So far we have not regretted in embracing the challenges of democracy as the platform to meet our national aspirations and development. For 16 good years we have had the privilege to take our cherished democracy through various stages.

Today, the role of Parliament as an institution is not restricted to the traditional responsibilities of legislating laws and checking the Executives, but also as instrument for grass root development through for example the MP’s Common Fund. The Parliamentarian is now seen more as a factor for change, development and growth and this expectation rings bell in the minds of the citizenry more than any other functions.

This cherished democracy has taught us how to put on line people placed on responsible positions in our bid to fight poverty, ensure social cohesion, facilitate the development of our social services, deepen political development, ensure the freedom of speech of the citizenry, cater for the vulnerable, ensure the rights of everyone, and above all sustain the peace of our society.

Much progress has been made and if this momentum is responsibly given all the necessary support and energies; correcting our mistakes and deepening those better results, there is certainly no reason why we cannot develop our country in dignity and humanity in order to be in the good books of a better society.

Democracy and loyalty:

We are on the path of re-engineering our society where the betterment of the individual is supreme in our national development agenda. Some call it “property owning democracy” whiles others call it “social democracy”. In all of these, the state’s role is mainly to create and facilitate the necessary enabling environment allowing the individual to exercise his/her inalienable rights in freedom, utilising his/her potentials to the best of his/her capabilities within a framework of social growth, so as not only to be recipient of such democracy but also to participate in its ownership.

This democratic process has also brought to us greater sense of loyalty which is a good ingredient for development. The loyalty between those who governed and the governed has increased tremendously and this augurs well for our national development process.

Loyalty and sycophancy:

The loyalty we are experiencing in our political circus in particular is however turning into something evil which, if not checked, has the potential to derail us from the democratic track we are on in “changing” to “moving” Ghana forward. And for me this evil is more dangerous to our democracy than the coup makers. This evil is what we know as sycophancy.

I had the chance to interact with Hon Yaw Osafo-Maafo, a former MP and a Minister of Finance, Education and Sports on many issues. I asked him what he considers to be the greatest threat to our democracy now. A solid politician as he is, he minced no words and answered “I consider sycophancy in our socio-economic and political life as the biggest threat we face in shaping our society.” He continued, “People are just licking the shoes of authority in the name of loyalty; some to score personal goals but the majority to undermine others. This is my fear.”

Having reflected on his statement I could only take solace from the traditional adage which goes like “se aponkyereni firi nsuom beka se odenkyem awu a, yengye no akyini” meaning that “if the frog comes out of water to tell you the crocodile is dead you need not to doubt.”

Today there exists a thin line between loyalty and sycophancy to such an extent that the two seem to be synonymous with each other. People no longer mean what they say, and say what they mean. This is our 21st Century enemy to our democracy! Today in our political development, people say and act just to get the attention of the powers that be for their own personal gains. In fact, our politics is sadly infected with quintessential professionals who have the habit of singing hosannas when they really mean crucify him.

Nature of sycophancy:

Sycophancy is not far from “full time praise singing”, “perennial lobbying for personal gains”, “obsequious flattery”, “servile”, “parasite”, “fawning”, “buttering” and “sucking up.” It also paints grotesque mages and mental associations of negative social attitudes and deviant behaviour in our way life.

Our democratic process faces an unprecedented high level of respected professionals from across board playing to the gallery through sycophancy. Their main weapon to achieve laurels is to ‘effectively lick the boots’ of leaders at the right place and time. From the media establishments to religious organisations, from civil societies to political parties, from our academic institutions to our partners for development, from our professional bodies and to our traditional institutions, we have all petered into slavish and virtually sycophantic public address systems for the leadership of the state or of the party in control.

In our social, political and economic development process today, we have seen varying degrees or levels of sycophancy institutionalising into concrete magnitude, having direction and effect on our identity, and succeeding mainly in a strong, perpetual, powerful and virtually unchallengeable unbridled wielding of political, social or economic power and authority.

Today we do not need any expert to teach us that intellectual subjugation into the whims and caprices of the powers that be is the fifth estate of our 1992 Constitution.

Memory lane:

Let’s go down into the memory lane for a minute. After the overthrow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a statement made by one of his ministers of state in the person of the late Hon Kwaku Boateng, then a Minister of the Interior, who also held a similar portfolio in Education and Science is worth noting. He noted among other things that [they] ministers have all been reduced to political sycophants by Dr Nkrumah. For a key minister of state to have expressed a sense of relief over the overthrow of his president just because of the high magnitude of sycophancy in the system should give us a cause to be wary of this evil.

It behoves on our leaders to be wary of the sycophants clothed in the colours of the loyalists and be extremely mindful of the strong derogatory concept that sycophancy connotes.

Causes and effects of sycophancy:

This democratic evil triumphs very well where there is a gross lack of effective cohesion. Besides, where the governed feel rejected and sidelined to the periphery where their voices and candid opinions are seen as attacks on the personalities of those governing then they begin to create avenues for their voices and opinions to be counted. Unfortunately, the weapon they adopt ends up being a social cancer. A cancer that only licks to gain fame in order to ‘matter’ in the affairs of national development.

The painful fact is that we have not been able to separate opinions on national issues from attacks on one’s authority leading to many people who want to stand up to their opinions fall victims to unnecessary politicking. When this happens those who could not believe in themselves to make it to the highest possible level based on their own abilities and capabilities end up singing the hymns and praises of their masters.

For the sycophants it is better to swallow pride, crash valued opinions and play the second fiddle to people in authority than to believe in themselves to make it to the highest level. They [sycophants] will be happy to go this way than to be honest and straight-forward enough to speak their minds no matter the cost. For them putting up a debate on an issue against the powers that be is not in their dictionary simply because they do not want to have to write `finis’ to their ‘career’ when they can just quench their ideas and continue to enjoy ‘honey and milk’ within the corridors of power.

Sadly, no wonder most of the corridors of authority and power are full of seasoned connoisseurs of sycophancy. Their business is just to pull all stops in buttering fellow citizens in leadership positions with hyperbolic, flowery phrases that could wet their appetite and woe unto you if you happen to come their way. This is the bane of our nation today!

The sycophants are so powerful that they could easily reduce a performing state servant to that of a disgruntled one. They can mesmerize you to such a point that you feel like you are an alien to the very system you have been part of it operations. Their motives are simply to infect the system of government and hence end up doing grave damage to our democracy and the future development of our beautiful country. And for me this is the evil scaring our democracy!

Harold Laski, an English Political Scientist and a one-time Leader of the Labour Party, once said; “Anyone who has watched for instance the way in which newspapers can turn the public mind to the direction of their proprietors’ desire will realize that an alliance between government and the press might be very fatal to the very heart of democratic government.”

If democracy is under threat under an alliance between newspapers and government then we can imagine the cancer that people who infiltrate government systems only to sing praises will cause our democracy.

The question we need to ask is do we need these sycophants in this 21st Century democracy? The obvious answer is no, and the time to make it impossible for them to continue their slaughter of our democratic process is now.

Waging war on sycophancy:

We need to be strong on political sycophancy and take every step to discourage such grossly disturbing instances of ingratiating behaviour anaemic to democratic sustenance. Of course political loyalty is extremely vital, but it should not be allowed to mutate into unashamed genuflection that has the potency to undermine the future of Ghana’s democracy. It is in our collective interest to vanguard against the evil sycophancy. Let us be concerned about the high level of unquestioning loyalty feuding into our social, political, economic and cultural fibres.

We need to see this as a sign of danger to our 4th Republican Constitution. The danger is that this sort of behaviour seeks to suppress dissent within parties and in the long term undermine democratic norms at the national level. At this critical juncture in our national life, we certainly do not need such inexplicable political grovel.

Any experienced politician or leader can differentiate between loyalty and sycophancy and we should be bold enough to stem it [sycophancy] out of our way of life. We should avoid entertaining such behaviours for one day the same elements will mount the platform to declare that we have all been reduced to political sycophants.

Conclusion:

Effective leadership in our democratic process does not need flatterers and genuflectors to achieve it. Let us do our best to eliminate this evil or else it will eliminate our constitutional democracy from us and the price we will pay for it can be very disastrous. Let us accept that the mix between democracy, development and sycophancy is very bad and inhuman for any society and Ghana is no exception.

Let’s ask God Almighty to grant us the wisdom to fight this evil which is more deadly to constitutional governance than the coup-making.