{"id":2266,"date":"2009-05-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/justiceghana.com\/blog\/?p=2266"},"modified":"2015-05-03T23:10:31","modified_gmt":"2015-05-03T23:10:31","slug":"the-casualties-of-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justiceghana.com\/blog\/about-justiceghana\/feature-articles\/the-casualties-of-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Casualties of Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Warren<\/a>

Warren Harding Gamaliel<\/p><\/div>\n

So Obama Couldn\u2019t Be US\u2019 First \u201cBlack President?\u201d An Overview of Professor Mills\u2019 Presidency<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Some Fantes in the Central Region of Ghana have a proverb which roughly goes like this: \u201clong before the arrival of \u201cBorbor Fantes from ancient Takyiman in the present day Brong Ahafo Region, to their current geographical location, were indeed the Aboriginal Fantes\u201d. If location rather than genealogy was the determining factor in tracing one\u2019s family tree, then historian William Estabrook Chancellor, might have had it all wrong in the early 1920s when he accused Republican Presidential Candidate Warren Harding Gamaliel of covering up his family\u2019s \u201ccoloured\u201d past.<\/p>\n

Republican Candidate Harding, was said to be a great-grandson of a black woman- a blasphemy that if a remark in the concession speech of the recently-defeated conservative presidential candidate Senator John McCain- vis-\u00e0-vis President Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s invitation of a Negro Booker T., to a Dinner in Washington were to be correctly understood, should have carried not only a baggage of political crucifixion at the time but also, racial shame to those who nicodemously or openly, nurtured it in the United States.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding this historical racial arms-twisting in the 1920 election that appeared to have been characterized by Trans-Atlantic slave trade, Harding was lucky to win an election that was seen in part as a referendum on whether to continue with President Woodrow Wilson\u2019s \u201cprogressive\u201d work- dubbed \u201cNew Freedom program of business regulation\u201d or to revert to the \u201claissez-faire\u201d approach of the William McKinley era. He won ((60% of the popular vote)) against Democratic Ohio Governor- James M. Cox, and was crown 29th President of United States. From this premise, Obama could certainly not go to history as US\u2019 first black president, as most \u201cblack writers\u201d made us to believe. Indeed decades since, many biographers, as US\u2019 current political and international relations unfold, have dismissed Harding\u2019s mixed-race family as little more than a political scandal and rumours and discredited.<\/p>\n

Most American historians and biographers are cautiously suggesting that Democrats approach was nothing less than mudslinger and racist ideologue. \u201cBut with the long-denied and now all-but-proved allegations of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s affair with his slave Sally Hemings, they sceptically concede that genealogically, there is still a reason to question Harding\u2019s mixed-race ancestry denials.\u201d But could writers and journalists be trusted in every word? Sierra Leonean writer Karim Bangura may be right in arguing that every election has its own share of myths and perhaps, its own propaganda as we just witnessed in Ghana. According to Bangura, one of the most pernicious of the myths during the recent US presidential election campaign, was that Obama will be the \u201cfirst Black President\u201d should he win. \u201cAround 10:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, every radio and television station repeated ad nauseam the myth that \u201cAmerica has elected Barack Obama as its first Black President in what is its most unprecedented historic election,\u201d the author added.<\/p>\n

In what appeared to be similar in spirit in Republic of Ghana, Presidential Candidate John Evans Fiifi Atta-Mills- of the then main opposition National Democratic Congress P(NDC), was also taunted by his charring supporters that \u201cthe Fantes had never been president in Ghana so he must be given a chance\u201d. The Convention Peoples Party\u2019s 2008 presidential flag-bearer- Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, who sees CPP\u2019s defeat as an internal sabotage and lack of funds, which could have been used for effective electioneering campaign, probably attests to this political rumour that nearly corrupted our current democratic trials?<\/p>\n

In an interview with Times in Accra, not long ago, Dr Nduom said among others that his chances to be president of our republic was shattered because ((his ethnic)) Fantes decided to vote for Prof. John Evans Atta Mills instead of him. “Fante leaders in the Central, Western, Ashanti and Greater Accra regions called me and told me to allow my senior brother, Professor Mills, to go because he has been in the queue for a long time,\u2019 the CPP presidential candidate, is reported to have forcefully, told the Ghanaian Times. But as Akans, could the learned law professor, who hails partly from Cape Coast and Ekumfi Otuam, in the Central Region of Ghana and Dr Nduom from Edina but born in Tarkwa(?), not trace their mixed-ancestral home to our modern day Brong Ahafo Region?<\/p>\n

In terms of infrastructural and human resource development, perhaps, the late President Kwame Nkrumah could not only be seen as the first \u201cNorthern president than Dr Hilla Limann- and if we were to be correct, than Mills. Here, on education and personalities that constituted the Nkrumahist Government. Nkrumah appeared in Batakari- a cherished northern outfit in proclaiming Gold Coast\u2019s Independence. He also spoke Fante rather than his native Nzema or the known Akuapem\/Asante Twi Language? Col Minyila- a Northerner- is known for the phase lift he gave to Eastern Regional capital- Koforidua.<\/p>\n

Applying this to the US\u2019 election, the first answer, per Bangura, is that the media do not know that there had been at least one \u201cBlack President\u201d of the United States, if by Black we mean a person with African blood. \u201cThis is not a plausible answer, since there are many folk in the media, particularly the Black media, who are well read in African American history. The second answer is that the Black media did not want to dampen the excitement of voters who wanted to be part of an \u201cunprecedented historical event\u201d in electing the \u201cfirst Black President of the United States\u201d while the White and other media did not want to acknowledge a very important aspect of American history that is Black. This second answer seems the most tenable. \u201cA related question then is\u2026 Why did Black professors who know better not step forward and nip the myth in the bud,\u201d he puzzled.<\/p>\n

To anyone who tracked the 2008 parliamentary and presidential elections campaign, the condoned ethnocentricities that were hoisted across the country also come as a laughable partisan screed- an amalgam of bizarre ethnic rhetoric, outlandish stereotypes and cheap political insults. While the reader may still be finding it difficult to reconcile the sudden political rebaptism of Ms Grace Omaboe- who contested fiercely on the ticket of NDC as parliamentary candidate in the then Birim North Constituency that we guess, she lost narrowly to Dr Akoto in 2000, the motto: \u201cAdze wo fie oye\u201d to \u201cI will be President for All\u201d and again, the subscription to \u201cI\u2019m free of Drugs\u201d, question the prudence in democracy.<\/p>\n

Here in London, while Kuukua could no longer withstand the unjustified generalities being peddled against Fantes and \u201cUncle Atta Mills\u201d, and for once appearing to have taken a stance in knowing the trends in the Agona Constituencies, in the Central Region, she was dismissive about the idea put up by the former first lady- Mrs Agyeman-Rawlings, at one polling station which captured by OBE TV, that the crucial presidential bid of 2008, was between \u201ca learned professor and a drug addict?\u201d Indeed, some of these worrying accusations which contain a notable trove of political biases- the kind of inter-ethnic gossip and ideological farce that rarely appear in official mouthpiece provide clues to richer insights- the \u201cFante and Northern\/Ewe alliance\u201d had its similarly ugly connotations.<\/p>\n

As for example, whilst the then President John Agyekum Kufuor was overheard on one political campaign platform in Medina, questioning the political credence in Candidate Mills\u2019 over-concentration of presidential campaign in the Central Region, by surrendering the other regions to his vice- John Mahama, Ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, was reported to have advised Fantes in the Central Region, not to be \u201csubservient to Asante hegemony. In the Volta Region, the military strongman, who ruled Ghana for almost two decades, was alleged to have told his kinsmen\u201d to vote to liberate themselves from being a \u201cfourth-rate\u201d citizen under NPP Administration. Elsewhere, NPP presidential candidate-Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, whom Maame Donkon hyped as \u201cAkyem Big Brother\u201d- was hopeful that Kufuor\u2019s \u201cgood works\u201d, will certainly poled him to the Black Star throne.<\/p>\n

But Mills saw it differently. Under the heading: \u201cOil find, God’s honour to Nkrumah\u201d, NDC Candidate Atta Mills, the now president of Ghana, who according to Daily Graphic report, was sceptic about Kufuor\u2019s Good Luck omen about the oil find in Ghana, said that the oil find in the Western Region was the making of God to honour the memory and intentions of the nation\u2019s first President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and that his future government would ensure that people from the area benefited first in terms of development before any other area of the country so that the area would have a befitting status as the area that produced the oil and that illustrious son of Ghana. What if one does not hail from minerals or oil-rich area but had been for example, at the forefront of food or even from an intellectual pool? But had it been ok in living in Tarkwa, Obuase, Akwatia or Prestea?<\/p>\n

Addressing party supporters at Jomoro, where Samia- the Osagyefo\u2019s daughter had been elected parliamentarian, the Graphic quoted Mills, who complicated his earlier position on national development, by saying that by his training and upbringing, he had come to believe and understand that when resources were being shared, those who had nothing or very little must first be taken care of before the rest, alleged that the NPP had squandered state resources and was looking at the revenue from the oil as another opportunity to amass wealth at the expense of the state and that the people must be wary and vote them out of office. He expressed surprise at the manner Ghanaians exhibited their abhorrence at the arrogant, corrupt, and disrespectful, nature of the NPP. The NDC Candidate who according to the report, singled out the Ghana Police Service for their exemplary show of professionalism and “excellent work” throughout the campaign, especially by providing protection for his campaign team and controlling traffic, lamented that after persistent calls, and cries, by Ghanaians especially about the high cost of living, corrupt nature of the NPP government and the need for the Kufuor-led regime to intervene had fallen on deaf ears.<\/p>\n

The electorates, had therefore, shown that they, were the king makers by voting (indeed) massively against the insensitive NPP Administration? It is almost six months since NDC democratically, captured power from the NPP. Yet it is unclear whether the (100 days?) change that the Prof- a better man for a better Ghana, urged the military, teachers, farmers, nurses and doctors, to come out in their numbers to effect, is at hand. At the time of going to Press, the Mills-led Social Democratic Government- which is said to have some Nrumahist leanings and, backed by Rawlingist economics theory- \u201c I\u2019m not an economist but if my stomach is empty then I can feel that I\u2019m hungry\u201d, according to Ghana News Agency report (8 May 2009, Ghanaweb), is having talks with the known International Monetary Fund (IMF), to secure a total of at least, one billion dollars of support to prop up our country\u2019s foreign exchange reserves.<\/p>\n

On this score, this might have been clear manifestation to the reader that none of our political leadership and indeed, the ideologies that we have today in Ghana, could perhaps, be self-reliant. As part of its effort to measure up to it electoral promise- making Ghana a drug-free zone, the New NDC regime, like its predecessor Kufuor-led NPP, is also here in the UK to solicit the needed traditional push if our country were to triumph, President Atta-Mills and his Deputy Chief of Staff- Alex Segebfia- who told a section of Ghanaians that NDC were not given 100 days mandate but four years, had said here in London. But at which terms and conditions ((express or implied)) this logistic support is going to cover, our learned Mills and Segbefia dismissed direct open questions.<\/p>\n

It is the opinion of JusticeGhana that it was not enough for President Mills who told us that he is sometimes baffled about some of the news he reads about himself and so we should not believe everything that we read from the media back home, to say he is not here to answer our many questions but has come just to thank us (all?) for supporting or voting him as president? Professor Mills, who wants his stewardship to be judged by the number of lives he positively impacts, said he yearns for \u201cA Better Ghana\u201d built on the \u201cstrengths and weaknesses\u201d of his predecessors- in that a nation that does not recognise this worth not dying for. Kufuor instituted the Public Assembly platform- which we think offered both friends and foes, to challenge some of his contentious policies and inactions.<\/p>\n

So, for a president who once justifiably refused Christmas presents from the presidency in that perhaps, his car was seized without notice while in Church Service by the operatives of the sitting president, but now telling Ghanaians at abroad, to overcome what he described as bitterness and acrimonies that have characterized the outcome of the fiercely contested Parliamentary and Presidential elections, ought to have grab this opportunity to reconcile and probably, on his own feet, clarify these issues, face-to-face.<\/p>\n

Indeed, in the face of \u201cglobal credit crunch, the learned President, who said he is not \u201csuper human or God\u201d and mentioned \u201cBrothers and Sisters\u201d several times in his short delivery but said everything is achievable, prayed for Ghanaians abroad for secured jobs so as to be able to remit the needed foreign exchange that the Ghanaian economy badly needed. He promises not only equity and rule of law, but also transparent and honest government- leadership that believes in the improvement of the standard of living of its people through infrastructural expansion and job creation. \u201cI believe in fairness but not selective justice- those who broke the law must be brought to justice,\u201d the law professor said. Professor John Fiifi Atta-Mills also is quoted by GNA as emphasising that Ghana could not forever rely on donor hand-outs. \u201cThe time has come to look for home-grown solutions, \u201cour team is capable of putting the economy on a strong foundation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The fundamentals of Mills\u2019 domestic and foreign policies combined with his recent visits- first to Nigeria, followed by Ivory Coast and more recently, to London, in the judgement of JusticeGhana, illustrate perhaps, the \u201cstrengths and weaknesses\u201d of political leadership: in-and-out of government. Unlike Kufuor, who was perhaps, haunted by military destabilization of Busia\u2019s government and therefore, put his brother at the helms of national security, Mills-led government is keen and indeed wary of failure on economic front, so he too has his academically qualified \u201cblood brother\u201d as part of this team. Mills is yet to reduce the taxes on petroleum products, building materials and in the face of falling cedi and, based on how we may define \u201cselective justice\u201d, scatter school uniforms, universities, airports and hospitals, where they may be needed- impossible, we agree.<\/p>\n

Yes, it appears like what President Barack Obama is rumoured to have hinted elsewhere in the American media that his election as President should not be seen by \u201cdie-hard\u201d from both sides, as \u201cBlack and White\u201d affair- but rather, a moment of historical reflection and fairness? By using the words such as: God, superman, brothers, sisters, to overcome bitterness and acrimonies, divisiveness and togetherness, in his speech, President Mills, who said nobody has divine right to rule and while echoing the judicial prudence in pardoning 99 convicts, equally cautioned the dangers of imprisoning one innocent soul, where the crucial evidence is lacking, might have now come to term with Realpolitik.<\/p>\n

Indeed it is not yet sunset, to evaluate the belief that leadership is demonstrated where the number of lives have been positively influenced, JusticeGhana advocates that Mills\u2019 stewardship, would not only be measured on shoe-shine boys, kaya yoos and dog-chain peddlers that get off our highways, but also and yes, as the president disdains selective justice and stands for the rule of law, on the number of Trokosi Child-Girls that he sets free.<\/p>\n

JusticeGhana<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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