Stop it! Stop it! Union government is not the solution

Since the hearing of the election petition came to an end, many people have been advocating for a power-sharing government in Ghana as a means of ending the winner- takes- all system of political administration and the rivalry and fighting that flow from it. Whilst I appreciate the concern of all people who have expressed this opinion to end the political feud in the country, I know in my heart that the answer to the problem is not union government. The answer to our problem is for the losers to be democratic enough to accept the results of the election and congratulate the winners no matter how many petty errors or issues happened so long as the Electoral Commission and we the people of Ghana do everything we can to bring a high level of integrity to the process. For it is not possible for us to have a perfect election with the kind of equipment, education, and personnel we have, if even there is such a thing as a perfect election anywhere.
The most important thing we need to forge amongst our people is the tenets of democracy. This is because it is the single most important problem confronting us now. THE GREAT AND BEUATIFUL DEMOCRACY. She is what losers of elections that she brings turn to hate so much. For election victory brings formation of government which in turn brings elevated position in society and POWER. All over the world and throughout history, power has played progressive and regressive roles depending on what group holds it. With civilization, society has come out with a process where the majority of the people decide periodically who needs to weld this instrument called power to exercise temporal authority to lead society. It is called Democracy in the English language. There are so many forms of democratic rule but in Ghana we chose the republican multi-party constitutional democracy that comes without any kings and queens and makes everybody equal to attain the position of head of state or member of government.
Unfortunately in the Ghanaian society, there are some people who consider themselves as above the ordinary people and society when it comes to leadership. This attitude is manifested in many ways including arrogance, sense of superiority and TRIBALISM. These people will only accept democracy when the results of elections ALWAYS favour them and they will do anything to demean their winning opponents even if their actions will destabilize the country. This people will not fit into a “union government” system because their aim is not to share power but to exclusively weld it.
It is rather unfortunate but the Ghanaian society is still based on tribal lines by geography and language. As a result, there are groups in the country that are still very tribalistic with serious superiority complex. They still think that Ghana is the old Kingdom and all tribes should serve them. They can be very arrogant and insulting when challenged. The nearer one is to the ruling classes such as the palaces or the higher one’s education the worse the situation becomes. If you combine this with the fact that some members of this groups were among the first to have education in Europe and could pose as the equal of the white man when the mass of the people were living under colonial rule, you can see why they hated people who not only refused to join their political movement, but opposed their leadership of the country.
A very important constituency of the NPP tradition came out of the ruling classes of these tribalistic and privileged groups and like the tiger, they came with their spots. It is said that no matter how intensively a tiger is washed, its spots don’t go away and this group in the NPP is living to tradition. NPP has also succeeded in forming a coalition with all groups who have a sense of entitlement and superiority complex. Its ranks are filled with Lecturers, Lawyers and Doctors who think they are above society by virtue of their education and jobs. These groups find it difficult to entertain challenge from the ordinary people and get really pissed off when they are beaten in elections or others are elevated to their level. THIS SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT IS THE PROBLEM, not the form of a democratic government. Until the country rallies and boldly confronts this mentality, the politics of insults and challenge of election will continue. The reality is that a faction of the NPP is incapable of accepting anything less than being at the top with everybody looking up to them, all the talks of rule of law and democracy notwithstanding.
They can be very insulting and violent when they are pushed and they have massive following to back them up. They did it to Nkrumah when he opposed and refused to serve them. They were prepared to break the country into pieces so they would have enclaves where they will control power. In spite of Nkrumah succeeding to bring independence to Ghana, they did not relent their destabilizing activities throughout his rule until they acquired power through a military coup. These great exponents of rule of law and democracy resulted to bomb throwing that killed innocent bystanders including school children and teamed with the CIA to use the military to destabilize the country. Since Nkrumah, they have not found any election they lost as fair and have resulted to means including the Stolen Verdict to demean recognition of their winners.
So our problem is not power sharing, but power grabbing by one group. Until that faction in NPP becomes truly democratic and begin to respect rule of law, we should all prepare to face these kinds of attitude. Luckily for us all, some other faction of the party have begun to see the truth and have starting advocating for more democratic practices in the party and we should all pray that their activities will be taken a serious look at and lead to a reformation of the party in the interest of us all. For the NPP by itself is a great party and Ghana stands to benefit a lot from a truly democratic NPP in a constitutional Ghana.

Kwame Yeboah

gyeboah@harding.edu