Earliest signs
It seems to me, using benefits from hindsight to date to believe that our John II [President John Kufuor—2000/8] had recently repeated a confirmation of the Political Historian’s dictum that ‘out of office- Leaders’ join the queue of fellow “formers”, dead and alive to re-discover or release shrewdness which was beclouded during their tenures. He was reported encouraging the nation for patience to give the current President some time to deliver electioneering pledges.
It stands reasonable to surmise that he was reading inability ahead in the snippets of country-restiveness. To cite a few among the pre-polling populists’ favourites: the one million US dollars cash to…, the separation of Ahafo from Brong-Ahafo, creating a new region to make it 11 lack-depth vetting and an older one which is the controversy about “small or large government,” resurrecting as the slew of cabinet posts pour out and vetting is yet to conclude. John II and this President today harangued a prior administration for bloated government. John recanted later through discovery by himself at the helm then.
Heady days
These are early but certainly no less heady days for a just sworn-in President, yet there is a groundswell of some un-satisfying murmurs flowing from [i] Nana’s own making—the emphatic assurances he gave during the campaign; and [ii] the gullibility and perfidy of electorate. Rumoured or not, as the fidei defensors begin to parry or fob off the unfolding up-turns post-elections, despite being a familiar set-piece to be anticipated. It demonstrates that there is a must for political office contenders to strategise tangible fall backs in advance of the shortened honeymoon for any unforeseen cause.
And I dare say that only “formers” become ultimately and fully aware out of the saddle while the Johnny entrant finds also in early days or thereabouts the risks they had run making promises pre-entry only after the “Fontomfroms” [giant royal traditional drums] began to thump the demand for deliveries without variations like Shylllock, the end of that drama ceasing to be comparatively parallel and not specifically germane here.
Reality and pledge
The narrative is that it is only at that juncture that the difference between reality and pledge stares you bonkers. How to appease to freeze the general public’s disaffection to pre-empt that retrogressing into alienation becomes veritable. This may stalk the leader throughout the term. Political science has no definitive answer to commend the better option when this scenario [ebbing euphoria] invades in the sense whether it was better it occurred earliest or latterly. Prime Minister Prof. Kofi Abrefa Busia who had won a landslide [Sept 1969 -2nd Republic] never forgot and complained the “Naabu! Naabu! hoots” which serenaded his passage through the streets of Accra, signalling the displeasure from about half mark of his 27 month’s hold on power.
Prof. Busia regretted and vaguely blamed the electorate’s apparent bad tempered impatience as is soonest now with failed to deliver promises. Trust evaporates fastest than confidence, especially in politics. The trouble with the ‘would-have-wished- otherwise’ has two qualities:[i] “had I known” and or [ii] push to rush doing something big in error. There is either panic or steadfastness which would usually characterise any leadership’s responses.
Rather historically most opt for smart sensations which ditch them. Examples are Jack Kennedy [Bay of Pigs] Gen.de Gaulle [vivre le Quebec], Harold Wilson [the Sunday Times (Chapman Pincher) trial] Harold Macmillan [EEC (EU now) debacle twice un-done by de Gaulle’s famous “Non”; and the extradition-renege on Chiefs Obafemi Awolowo and Anthony Enahoro] and Churchill/Roosevelt appeasement at Yalta 1942]. The lesson is to measure words carefully making public speeches with fulsome ‘will-dos’ because there would be inconsistencies found later in the saddle. This is the base from which the story of civilian governments’ non-success starts. It is not incompetence, as some would have it. The litmus test is no one can say Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President, was inept.
This theory that “incompetence” may not be applicable to indeed all in the preceding references priorly and given the high lift which the chorus against un-fulfilment causes popularity decline with Leaders and leave them prone, out of anxiety to go for broke—a sensation for bonanza to swing back their public esteem’s rating, some bounce back resurgently like Macmillan with “You’ve never had it so good” and Kennedy with the Cuban missiles crisis.
Thus, Prof. Busia hiked the IMF-advised devaluation percentage in the belief that it would enable him to present his government’s goodies nine months before the polls to carry the nation’s approval as a result of that slightly imminent ballot—18 months left statutorily. The stratagem to retrieve popular favour boomeranged. But I testify that he ordered that double your money kind of in good faith, though displaying innocence in economics and running a nation’s economy in politics like applied sociology.
I have combined the politics of election pledges and history this far for: [i]what I see as the dynamics; [ii] compare and or parallel with trending here; and [iii] hope the un-propitious omens would be stymied by actions bereft of rancour or unnecessarily creating one for partisan points-scoring which has a nature of lasting only to find the day is gone—exacerbate the public disappointment.
I think I can be loaned a better phrasing of the essence by younger brother Columnist Colin Essamuah:”…we must feel the change Ghanaians voted for in how we confront and deal with…problems.” An issue that is a difficulty is the name of the seat of government. It used to be the Christianburg Castle, Osu, in Accra. When Dr Nkrumah, then Prime Minister [later President 1960], moved the office to reside at the Castle from Flagstaff House where he had been early 50s into after independence 1957, the Opposition here found it most repugnant.
A reference to the “move” was prominent in the list of political writing piece of ridiculing indictment by the Deputy Editor of the then Cecil King London Daily Mirror Group at Daily Graphic in Ghana [Sierra Leonean called Bankole Timothy] . The sarcastic article was headed:”What Next Kwame?” The country found it insulting pin-pointing that it was prompted by the Opposition, proof presumed.
Timothy was deported immediately. He was bundled out along with Alhaji Ahmadu Baba and Alhaji Orthman Lardan Lalami, alleged financiers of the Opposition, not denied but went to Court which brought about “Shawcross in Shawcross out”. Shawcross was an English QC [Queen’s Counsel] who was flown in to lead the Complainant’s case. He was stopped from out of the plane and marched back the plane on the instruction of the Interior Minister Krobo Edusei on the spot personally at the Accra Airport.
Flagstaff House
Flagstaff House was deliberately re-constructed to return the Presidency there. John IV [JDM], immediate erstwhile President, took up full in situ after the death of John III [Prof. Atta Mills] though halvedly, John II had gone there 10 years ago—“Ghana @ 50” when he re-named it “Jubilee House”. It caused a political furor for a while until John III [Prof. J.E.Atta Mills] declared tentatively that the name would be restored on completion of the re-building and would reverse government headquarters there from the Castle.
The rumour today is that President Nana Akufo-Addo is gearing up to divest the name. The source of the intent is speculative, derived from Jubilee House being repetitive in Nana’s regular verbal finger-prints. This has become meaty for public arguments and media news and programmes discourses. There is no objection as an exercise conducted with decorum.
I have recently spoken my mind on it as to why I think a confirmation would stir political rancour and would be historically incorrect primarily because it adds to the penchant to erase our landmarks and we are coming from bearing that a country without a history—ugly or beautiful—does not exist. Also apart from the interpretation of the Jubilee and Flagstaff permutations as only a partisan gimmick, what concretely [economic or social developmental] would the change bring or enhance, re-calling the President’s own other theme “we are going forward”, or “I am moving forward”? The rumpus now hinders time and urgent or necessary things to be done.
Tracking back or even freeze would leave only the phenomenal attachment to promises and expectations-delays to be queried by an impatient electorate, when the rumbling starts, as inevitably as in politics.
The turn away from the “Jubilee” and “Flagstaff” argy-bargies would then lend strategising to re-negotiate the otherwise disappointment over pledges-undelivered. Its success to placate skeptics would depend on who does what and how the hold-up is presented, explanatorily. Consequently, it would be plain that its strongest dividend is a twin: [i or”Panyin”] in the force of attention to quick fillers [what are feasible] given poignancy; and [ii or “Kakra”] that the very rows they would have issued could impede the verity of the old dictum:”a day in politics is a long time indeed” and chickens coming home to roost with belated ruthlessness.
Anyone who refuses this is simply willing to walk like the chap who had just been pulled out of an earthquake disaster. Even before the polls had closed last December, the pundits felt the promised creation of Ahafo as a region was more than an attractive vote-winner. It is thus hard to assuage concerns in a camouflaged ultimatum if demographics and other electoral boundaries rules stumped the pledge. Already, the war-cry has been raised from the President’s own party to’… focus on his campaign promise to create the Ahafo Region out of existing Brong Ahafo Region’ [Daily Graphic pg 18 Jan.17 2017] quoting the Party’s Asutifi North Constituency Chairman Francis Opoku Sarfo saying inter alia:”In the quest to remain loyalists of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and voting for the party…the Akufo-Addo-led administration would need to remember those of us in the Ahafo area.”
Shortly after the 1956 elections here where Nkrumah’s chief lieutenant K.A.Gbedemah had led a most spectacularly triumphant Convention People’s Party (CPP) onslaught in Ashanti despite the secession conflict whose embers had not been entirely extinguished, Prime Minister Nkrumah decided to break up the then Ashanti Region [a Province in Colonial era]. The Brong-Ahafo was established. No amount of legal pieties for excuses could be accepted let alone convincing that he did that as a huge political swipe against the Ashanti for that secession bid and to capture the loyalty of the people in that enclave for the ruling CPP. The Opposition DOMO [NPP’s founding father] was very known home and internationally as behind the internecine that occurred 1954/56 centered in Ashanti but rippled in Akyem Abuakwa too. Current President is Akyem and Akuapem.
He has lineage with the Dr J.B. Danquah-William Ofori Atta royal family. Both men (Danquah and Paa Willie, his nephew) were among the DOMO leadership. The separation to carve Brong-Ahafo out of the sprawling Ashanti Region was a devastating political coup de grace for which Dr Dr Nkrumah has not been forgiven. One man who reaped leader’s honours blessed by the Ashanti was Prof. Busia. He was Brong. The Ashanti took to him as their son time before the break up after his death in Oxford and buried back home. Its later development for and in the Opposition or Right Wing politics in this country revealed unspeakable ethnic cracks [ because it was painful and the bitterness is a wayward ghost today] that caused the split into PFP and UNC 1979.
Meanwhile, the Brong were grateful immensely at the polls to Dr Nkrumah and his Party the CPP and swung apparently to the National Democratic Congress (NDC), perceived as the CPP successor for some elections thereafter until the Region has become unpredictable generally but a likely swing Region latterly. I should add that the transferred loyalty was also likely to been in respect of then Capt. Boakye Gyan [is it rather ‘Djan’? pardon] who is a son and was the “number 2” in the Rawlings AFRC at the time the tiff and quit but contested a parliamentary seat on NDC ticket in December.
Against this brief it is not impossible to believe that President Akufo-Addo’s supposed intent about the Flagstaff House in context is part of a long political knife. Question: QUI BONO.? [who benefits?]. It is intriguing that ordinary Nana Akufo-Addo harangued the Rawlings and Mills governments over sizes of the administration. He has just defended his five new additions to that historical “Big Government. To be just to him deservingly, he had not campaigned inclusive of “small government”. The worry in and outside of his party is that the pressure is on in ‘jobs for the boys’ in “Akyem Garb Boys”, [loaned from book title by Cameron Duodu, an Akyem co-incidentally], it is said.
I object for its racist-quarrelsome potential, also regret the ethnicity connotation; but I am obliged by the historical imperative and a Political Recorder’s duty not to compromise telling. Reportedly, the hottest is coming from the direction of persons who claim to have been high-rolling NPP donors. But there is a basic principle in the “winner takes all” theory at the practical level. It is that ‘political debts are not paid in perpetuity’. So far, these are the earliest signs which portend uneasiness ahead—not openly admissible as ruffling for now.
For examples, the quality of vetting looks like two desires are pivotal: rush to steamroll approvals, play-repeating the old numbers game. It seems enough to hear the nominee say something sensational—‘we shall review this and that’ laced with advocacies which are all controversial nationally and internationally. Refer to “Special Prosecutor” and the “GITMO”. You would have expected in-depth questioning—meaning, goal, why there is no alternative [economies] and impact. The parade of policy indicators seems play-acting, each one reciting their part in accordance with script except for Ken [Ofori-Atta—Designate Finance] and sure-footed novelty. I have no inhibition for being invidious. The hole in the manner and conduct of the exercise show the absolute importance of the schooling as recently established Training Institute for Parliamentarians et al.
Meanwhile, nothing really appears to have changed or be changing, contrary to the ‘at once” and “immediately” promised. The bad behaviour is widening: the market or shopping basket bill, drivers seizing BRT special lanes, Tatale, the auto industry and tax cuts and the imminence of “Dumso” and this: “…we need to change our mindset if we are to make a headway…” [Daily Graphic Editorial 23 Jan.2017]. Sincerely, “change” is substantively evolutionary. It takes time per unrelenting effort. However, the reason for the present is the result of the campaign presentation. All said though, there is change—a new President and shadows of fresh policies and this is very instructive despite its being advisory essentially gleaned from a contributing article in the Daily Graphic [pg 10 by E.E.Ackah-Nyameke Jnr].
“President (elect then) Donald Trump has started revising his campaign promises… I expect President Akufo-Addo to do same by revising and presenting realistic goals based on the reality on the ground….within his first hundred days in office.” It is going to be tough re-negotiating the promises. However, Britain’s R.A.Butler’s “politics is the art of the possible” makes the hope.