If you go for new voter's register and the same people goes to register, what makes it new or it will rather pave way for NPP to slot in minors. Do this writer want to tell me that every four years Ghana has to get new voters ... read full comment
If you go for new voter's register and the same people goes to register, what makes it new or it will rather pave way for NPP to slot in minors. Do this writer want to tell me that every four years Ghana has to get new voters register because NPP is not winning. The same NPP went to court about 2012 election and they didn't say anything about people from TOGO voting in Ghana but pink sheets. The crafted voter ID from TOGO does not even have names to those pictures. I have not seen voter ID or any other ID without name to the picture before and I am surprise a whole Dr. Bawumia was bold to stand before the media to tell us the planned story. NPP we are fed up with you, find something better to tell Ghanaians but not the new voter ID. I will rather advise NPP to call clean up of the register before voting time as its been done by EC before every voting. New ID is not the solution, NPP can rather loose voters from this type of NPP style.
Kirk Morris 8 years ago
Trotro your comment misses the import of the article. Though the writer highlights on the VOTER REGISTER, the drive or essence is about IGNORANCE hurting most of our people. Because of IGNORANCE we tend to align ourselves to ... read full comment
Trotro your comment misses the import of the article. Though the writer highlights on the VOTER REGISTER, the drive or essence is about IGNORANCE hurting most of our people. Because of IGNORANCE we tend to align ourselves to wrong ideologies or suppositions. I think you are cherry-picking. Did you read his concerns ETHNOCENTRISM, GOVERNANCE, AUDITING OF REGISTER or REPLACEMENT and others that are worrying. Stop being blind or you are IGNORANT. I will entreat you to have a second look at the article and you'll appreciate what the article is all about.
Nokware_ Asa 8 years ago
This poignant advice to people like the Ashanti Regional Boss of the NPP, Benard Antwi-Boasiako, the so-called 'Chairman Wontumi', who foolishly persisted in having minors, who had gotten their names on the 2012 voters regist ... read full comment
This poignant advice to people like the Ashanti Regional Boss of the NPP, Benard Antwi-Boasiako, the so-called 'Chairman Wontumi', who foolishly persisted in having minors, who had gotten their names on the 2012 voters register, re-registered in last year`s limited registration exercise.
A sizeable chunk of the NPP vote has therefore been disenfranchised through the folly of this guy, and the party is therefore looking for an opening to get the names of this malleable group, back on the register.
"Woto adubone a, ebika waono"!
Little did Antwi-Boasiako realize that he was hurting his own party through the bullying he orchestrated in the region to get these youngsters re-registered.
Nsia 8 years ago
Winston Churchill said a lot of things and he was not always right.The British people saw through his "outright" lies on socialism and they booted him out and voted for labour. In return they got got a socialist "oriented" Na ... read full comment
Winston Churchill said a lot of things and he was not always right.The British people saw through his "outright" lies on socialism and they booted him out and voted for labour. In return they got got a socialist "oriented" National Health Service that lifted them out of poverty and misery.In fact, they were cured of diseases even if they were dirt poor through their basic contributions.Churchill was wrong,wrong,and wrong!
Prof Lungu 8 years ago
Nsia,
You don't say that!
Imagine, Phillip Kobina Baidoo's Godfather, Churchill, wrong on anything!
But he was!
READ: "...The British people saw through his "outright" lies...and voted for labour. In return they got ... read full comment
Nsia,
You don't say that!
Imagine, Phillip Kobina Baidoo's Godfather, Churchill, wrong on anything!
But he was!
READ: "...The British people saw through his "outright" lies...and voted for labour. In return they got...National Health Service that lifted them out of poverty and misery...Churchill was wrong,wrong,and wrong!"
WE SAY: Pithily said, Nsia!
Imagine, a social program (not Free Enterprise) lifting people out of poverty.
Thanks, Nsia!
francis kwarteng 8 years ago
This article is by Dean Williams, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of Leadership for a Fractured World: How to Cross Boundaries, Build Bridges, and Lead Change.
Winston Churchill is often hailed as the m ... read full comment
This article is by Dean Williams, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of Leadership for a Fractured World: How to Cross Boundaries, Build Bridges, and Lead Change.
Winston Churchill is often hailed as the model of a great leader, but a hundred years ago this month, in the early days of World War I, his leadership was dreadful. As Britain’s lord of admiralty (secretary of the navy), he made the fateful decision to attack Turkey on its Dardanelles coast, specifically at Gallipoli. The eight-and-a-half-month-long battle involved a total of about a million men on both sides, of whom nearly one half became casualties. The failed campaign led to the humiliation of the British. Churchill was dismissed from his cabinet position, excluded from the War Council, and allowed no hand in the further conduct and administration of the war.
Gallipoli has become an enduring symbol of the worst kind of military folly and waste. Even Churchill considered it the greatest tragedy of his political career. “Looking back, with after-knowledge and increasing years,” he later wrote, “I seem to have been too ready to undertake tasks which were hazardous or even forlorn.” His wife, Clementine, would later tell a biographer that, given the burden of this failure, she thought Winston “would die of grief.”
Why did Churchill fail to provide adequate leadership in this critical situation? What did he miss? What went wrong?
When it came to dealing with this leadership challenge, Churchill was pig-headed. His stubborn attachment to his own point of view, coupled with a can-do attitude that verged on the hubristic, led him to ignore, discount and distort vital data. He forcefully imposed his strategy and did not give ample space for dissenting voices to challenge his assumptions, express their views, or explore alternative strategies. The merits of his plan seemed completely self-evident to him, and he was hell-bent on seeing that his strategy prevailed.
The primary person that he failed to listen to was the head of the Royal Navy, first lord of the sea, 74-year-old Admiral John Fisher. Fisher told Churchill his plan was doomed to failure and moreover fraught with possibilities of disaster utterly incommensurate with any advantage that could be obtained from the plan. Not only did Churchill spurn Fisher’s counsel, he took steps to ensure that Fisher’s perspective would never be considered by the War Cabinet. Fisher decided to resign in protest, telling Churchill, “You are bent on forcing the Dardanelles and nothing will turn you from it—nothing. I know you so well!”
The prime minister, Lord Asquith, was under the impression that Churchill was consulting with all the relevant parties, making the best use of his advisers, and bringing their recommendations to the War Council. He also believed, based on what Churchill had told him, that the war would be over by Christmas. It continued for another three years.
Churchill’s lack of leadership during this period had serious consequences in that thousands of young men from Britain, Australia and New Zealand died needlessly. I acknowledge that I am biased in this matter, as my grandfather fought as an Australian at Gallipoli and was lucky to survive. Australia, being just a young country at the time, lost a significant portion of its male population, and those who returned were deeply scarred, emotionally and physically. Each year on April 25 the Australian people are reminded of this tragedy as they remember the heroism of their soldiers. Very few realize the nature and extent of Winston Churchill’s role in the mismanagement of the affair.
Churchill failed from the beginning to understand how to operate as a civilian minister with his military advisers. He allowed his own opinions on the problem to be given greater weight and credibility than the professionals whose job it was to provide the knowledge and expertise to attend directly to the specifics of the challenge.
Politicians make errors all the time. Nevertheless, in times of great danger a particular kind of leadership is required that is more sensible, responsible and inclusive than what one might provide during a time of peace or relative calm. In a time of crisis, too much is at stake for one individual to unilaterally determine the best course of action. Certainly, someone needs to take charge, but as we learn from Churchill’s experience—and from that of George Bush and his team as pertains to Iraq and Afghanistan—given cognitive, ideological and cultural biases, it is easy to make serious errors of judgment that can have dire consequences in terms of loss of resources, loss of life and even loss of wars. No doubt Churchill learned something from his errors, for he later redeemed himself as prime minister during World War II, providing leadership that was nothing short of outstanding.
francis kwarteng 8 years ago
Two recent studies in evolutionary biology (discussed in Scientific American) concern the problem of why not all individuals cheat: “A key problem when trying to understand the evolution of cooperation has been the issue of ... read full comment
Two recent studies in evolutionary biology (discussed in Scientific American) concern the problem of why not all individuals cheat: “A key problem when trying to understand the evolution of cooperation has been the issue of cheaters.”
In other words: cheating helps the cheater, so why doesn’t everyone cheat?
One finding (“Generalized Reciprocity”) has been that to the extent that individuals in a culture trust and help strangers, the culture itself thrives, but that to the opposite extent, in which it’s common to take from strangers without giving proportionally in return, the culture suffers and declines.
This means that cultures in which cheating is prevalent decline; that’s one reason not everyone cheats – the more cheating there is, the weaker the culture is.
Another finding is that “cooperation could be a viable evolutionary strategy when individuals within the group collectively punish cheaters who don’t pull their weight.”
In other words: The only type of culture that can thrive is one in which there is prevalent trust, and in which there is also prevalent contempt and rejection of cheaters.
But what happens when the person who is held in contempt is not the cheater, but the cheater is instead more often admired because cheaters (by definition) avoid the barrier, to their personal success, of adhering to the rules of decency and fairness – the rules against frauds and against all other types of theft from others? It’s by avoiding those barriers that cheaters win.
When success itself is admired, regardless of how it is won, then the result becomes what the philosopher Thomas Hobbes called “the state of nature,” in which there is “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
This is what results when everyone places success above fairness or any other ethical objective. Some people call this “state of nature” “libertarianism,” or “anarchy,” and they think that this might-makes-right society is the ideal form of “government” (no government at all), towards which the world should strive.
However, the recent studies in evolutionary biology show that there is actually evolutionary benefit in “the state of nature” only if the culture happens to be one of trust of strangers, and of contempt for cheaters. But how can there continue to exist trust of strangers, and contempt for cheaters, in any “state of nature”?
It’s too dangerous to trust strangers in such a society. Furthermore, contempt for cheaters imposes ethical rules that remove the state of nature, and that replace it with the imposed ethical order.
This is the problem that libertarian believers must wrestle with, if they are at all serious, instead of just ideological kooks.
So, rejecting government solves nothing. It’s like rejecting food: The real issue isn’t to reject food, it’s to eat healthful food, and to avoid poisonous food. Similarly, the real issue isn’t to reject government, it’s to support good government, and to oppose bad government.
And so, too, the issue isn’t whether government should be “small,” or “big,” but rather that it should be the best size to serve the public, who must bear its costs.
In other words: Libertarianism entirely avoids the real question, which is: What type of government is good? As an “ideology,” libertarianism doesn’t even make it to first base: it’s fake, from the get-go. That’s why libertarianism fails
What do you expect from a country with so many idiots? Our so called universities continue to teach Swahili when even the Kenyans have stopped speaking the language. What a pathetic useless country! Forget about our president ... read full comment
What do you expect from a country with so many idiots? Our so called universities continue to teach Swahili when even the Kenyans have stopped speaking the language. What a pathetic useless country! Forget about our presidential lounge being used for trafficking cocaine! Idiots.
C.Y. ANDY-K 8 years ago
"... a can of worms which it CAN'T deal with...
"... a can of worms which it CAN'T deal with...
Prof Lungu 8 years ago
Andy C.Y. Kwawukume,
We understand perfectly your response to specific "sayings"/claims by some individuals.
READ: "...It is a pity that this basic history is not taught in our basic schools so that all know this...Rather ... read full comment
Andy C.Y. Kwawukume,
We understand perfectly your response to specific "sayings"/claims by some individuals.
READ: "...It is a pity that this basic history is not taught in our basic schools so that all know this...Rather, we get all kinds of ignoramuses spewing rubbish about how Nkrumah allowed Ewes to join Ghana and they would deport Ewes to Togo!..."
WE SAY: True, that is "rubbish".
That said, we do not understand much at bottom of Nana Akwah's essay. Yes, "Ignorance And Hate...(are)...The Bane Of The Ghanaian" in many respects. But, unless we misread this essay, seems to us the writer is a tad "guilty" of some of the things condemned in the essay.
If you go for new voter's register and the same people goes to register, what makes it new or it will rather pave way for NPP to slot in minors. Do this writer want to tell me that every four years Ghana has to get new voters ...
read full comment
Trotro your comment misses the import of the article. Though the writer highlights on the VOTER REGISTER, the drive or essence is about IGNORANCE hurting most of our people. Because of IGNORANCE we tend to align ourselves to ...
read full comment
This poignant advice to people like the Ashanti Regional Boss of the NPP, Benard Antwi-Boasiako, the so-called 'Chairman Wontumi', who foolishly persisted in having minors, who had gotten their names on the 2012 voters regist ...
read full comment
Winston Churchill said a lot of things and he was not always right.The British people saw through his "outright" lies on socialism and they booted him out and voted for labour. In return they got got a socialist "oriented" Na ...
read full comment
Nsia,
You don't say that!
Imagine, Phillip Kobina Baidoo's Godfather, Churchill, wrong on anything!
But he was!
READ: "...The British people saw through his "outright" lies...and voted for labour. In return they got ...
read full comment
This article is by Dean Williams, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of Leadership for a Fractured World: How to Cross Boundaries, Build Bridges, and Lead Change.
Winston Churchill is often hailed as the m ...
read full comment
Two recent studies in evolutionary biology (discussed in Scientific American) concern the problem of why not all individuals cheat: “A key problem when trying to understand the evolution of cooperation has been the issue of ...
read full comment
What do you expect from a country with so many idiots? Our so called universities continue to teach Swahili when even the Kenyans have stopped speaking the language. What a pathetic useless country! Forget about our president ...
read full comment
"... a can of worms which it CAN'T deal with...
Andy C.Y. Kwawukume,
We understand perfectly your response to specific "sayings"/claims by some individuals.
READ: "...It is a pity that this basic history is not taught in our basic schools so that all know this...Rather ...
read full comment