The Svengalis Add Nothing To Our GDP

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When it comes to the development of multi-party democracy, Ghana suffers from a surplus of deafening, stentorian commentaries and a deficit of credible action. For decades, we have allowed the political, populist Svengalis to divert our attention from the things that matter and how best to deal with them. The word Svengali means 'a person who completely dominates and controls another, usually for selfish or sinister motives'. It is a literary allusion to the character Svengali, a hypnotist, in George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby.

The Statesman has received a lot of knocking for accusing the NDC and NPP, the only two parties likely to rule this country for the next decade at least, of having lost the core plot of seeing to Ghana’s development, and instead, engaged in a mudslinging contest. When you challenge the gospel according to the NPP/NDC dichotomy, you should don a tin helmet. The truth is, the noise and criticism thrown at The Statesman have come mainly from the ruling party.

Some have accused us of foolishly and disrespectfully comparing former President Rawlings to President Kufuor. Some say, it only confirms the long-standing perception that The Statesman has lost its way and lost its ground as the NPP paper to a paper like Daily Guide. Some have even gone on to say that it’s all in line with a scheme by one ambitious cabinet minister to undermine the good works of President Kufuor.

The unfortunate thing is that the NPP continues to show such nonchalant simplicity in grassroots politics. Qanawu found extremely interesting, news last week that both the First Lady and wife of the Vice President were on a historic tour in the North. For the past six years, the two women appeared to have failed to learn some few useful lessons from Mrs Rawlings. Oh, yes, give it to the lady. Whilst her husband was busy cleaning gutters and pretending to govern this country, she was busily winning as many Ghanaian women as she could to their political cause. The least she did achieve was to keep the women already in the fold in the fold.

The NPP has everything to lose by allowing themselves to be dragged into the pit of mudslinging and bog wrestling with an opposition that appears to have nothing more than negative campaigning to offer. The party must continue to stay focused on governing. Even if you are forced to comment on a supposed assassination attempt of NDC key figures, you dismiss it with contempt and remind Ghanaians that you are in the business of providing leadership and that’s where your focus is; you don’t spend a whole week spokespersoning on such a topic that adds no percentage points to our GDP.

The likes of Gabby, Kwame Sefa Kayi, Kweku Baako, Egbert and co should take the bulk of the blame. Can we simply not choose to deny some of the nonsense the oxygen of publicity? Do we have to spend three weeks talking about a supposed coup plot or coup-conduciveness? Couldn’t we just kill such a story by analysing how not viable it is to stage a coup today? Posterity, Qanawu fears may judge us with such contempt that our children’s children may drop our surnames.

President Kufuor is also becoming uncharacteristically reckless. It is so below him to allow whatever frustration from opposition and his predecessor to get to him so much as to be heard publicly talking about who is allegedly importing cocaine or funds for a coup. His popularity in 2004 was not won by the level of the decibels of his boom-to-boom responses to Rawlings. No, it was based on the fact that he stayed above the fray. He was seen, as he has been seen in Asia the last couple of weeks, to be concentrating on the things that will help move this nation forward. Not on that which divides us and keeps us dancing with the bird called Sankofa.

Qanawu believes it is time the country’s social actors speak out and act against this no-business-to-do as usual kind of attitude towards the great task of development. We want our politicians to show to us that they are wholly determined to take this country in a new direction. We want politicians who can constantly give us the confidence that they share our values, understand our needs, and respect our intelligence. The days of too much heat and brimstone on our morning airwaves and newspapers must be numbered.

Yes, there should be room for the occasional sensation, but we cannot continue making it the norm when ours is such a pathetic lot. As the Editorial of The Statesman today laments, we are so far behind the global economic ladder that it is not funny. The world is passing us by as we watch screaming at each other. Yes - President Kufuor, even going by his weeks of eating strange foods in China, Korea and Japan and humbly pleading for foreign assistance and cooperation shows that - a lot is being done. But, modern history teaches us that a very crucial aspect of every nation’s development is the ability to get the national psyche in tune with the development programme.

The truth, in the view of Qanawu, is that Ghana is yet to reach that collective psychological zone. Frankly, the people of this country are yet to show that we are wiling, committed, prepared and ready to make that all-important leap out of poverty, misery, and mediocrity with alacrity.

Why else would we allow our leading politicians to keep taking us back and either exaggerating the failings of today or underscoring the challenges of today? What else would make them keep frightening us that Ghana is today ripe for a coup? Why do we keep reminding ourselves of our past not as lessons for the future but as a whip to spank our political opponents? Why can’t we just up the quality of, at least, our discourse a few more notches? Those who have managed to cross over from the shrubs of under-development to the mowed lawns of prosperity did so by challenging the collective psyche and constantly throwing logs into the fire of national will to keep it burning.

If this year’s Human Development Index by the UNDP is anything to go by, Ghana has made some progress, from 138 last year to 136. Last Friday, The Statesman erroneously published the 2005 figure as this year’s rating. The good news may be that at 136, we are among the list of Medium High Development countries. Top of this is Libya at 64, followed by Russia (65), ending with Swaziland (146), just beaten by Cameroon (144) and Uganda (145). Look at it from the other way, and we just missed the unenviable category of Low Human Development countries by ten! Togo, of course, at 147, Senegal (156), and Nigeria (159), are there to remind us that we have serious national and regional issues to address.

Here at least, the NPP is doing extremely well, if looked at on a scale of domestic relativity. But, the truth is that what is being achieved is far from enough and a lot more needs to be done. A lot of what needs to be done is also psychological, to reiterate. The politicians and others in leadership positions must make it a national task to find what other nations did – to find a psychological path upon which to drive the people on that destiny-defining trek. The Ministry of Information and National Orientation, it is hoped, will be focusing more on this and less on theatrics.

Also, Government should be less quick in taking defensive positions whenever an issue arises. We have serious difficulties as a people, as a nation. You only help Ghanaians to blame you when you think you are being blamed and seek to defray that. It is this kind of attitude and unnecessary sensitivity that emasculates otherwise good advisers from giving their counsel. When your approach is to tackle issues from a defensive posture, you end up not helping that problem to go away because it impetuously blinds you from dealing with the real causes. If NPP does not learn to sing its praises and at the same time be critical of its failings Ghanaians may be forced to reluctantly throw the party out in 2008. This, notwithstanding the fact that NPP, for the foreseeable future, is the only party with any semblance of a project to move this country forward.

Even in America, where mid-term congressional elections and the absence of ministers being chosen from the legislature affords a greater level of legislative independence from the executive, the Republicans have learned the hard way. They have seen the electoral cost of keeping mum when the direction is not the best. They have seen the cost of losing touch with the simple realities of life.

The story is told of a mid-level executive, who got his job through an exaggerated CV, becoming frustrated at being passed over for promotion year after year. He decided on a brain-transplant in the hope of raising his IQ some 20 points. After some tests he was presented with a pre-surgery bill. The brain surgeon informed him: “An ounce of accountant's brain for example, costs ¢5 million; an ounce of an economist's brain costs ¢10 million; an ounce of a blue chip CEO is ¢20 million. An ounce of a politician’s brain is ¢50 million.”

Flabbergasted, the man asked, “¢50 million for an ounce of a politician’s brain? Is it imported?”

“No,” the surgeon responded, “100 percent home grown.”

“Why on earth is that? All they do is to fight among themselves and behave as if Ghana is so advanced that we have the leisure to mudsling.”

“Do you have any idea,” the surgeon asked, “how many politicians we would have to kill to get an ounce of useable brain?”