Re: “DFP opposes election of DCEs”

Quote: “Yendi (N/R), Nov. 18, GNA – Mr. Emmanuel Ansah-Antwi, Presidential candidate of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) has stated that he was opposed to the suggestion that the position of a District Chief Executive (DCE) be elective. He said the current system of nominating DCEs only needed some few amendments to make the system function more efficiently. Mr Ansah-Antwi noted that the election of DCEs as proposed by the presidential candidates of the NPP, CPP, NDC and PNC at the just ended Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) debate in Tamale, would spell doom for an already polarized country.” End of quotation from GNA report.

With respect, in making that asinine statement, Mr. Emmanuel Ansah-Antwi, has just shown why he is not fit to be elected as president of Ghana. Grassroots people deserve to elect those whose actions impact directly on their lives in rural Ghana.

Just what makes some members of Ghana’s educated urban elite think that the love of freedom and the desire to live in a constitutional democracy (in which one elects those who lead the country: and at all levels!) beats any less strongly in the hearts of rural people than it does in that of our educated urban elites? What arrogance!

Democracy is not about creating a mutual admiration society, free of “polarized” positions of individuals and groups. It is, amongst other things, about competing for dominance, in a given society, of the different ideas held by political parties, about their view of the nature of society, the best means of creating and distributing wealth in that society and the ends for which political power ought to be exercised. Period.

Electing district chief executives, will, on the contrary, lessen political tensions in our country - because power will be more widely diffused in society: and the parties in opposition at the national level will feel that they too have a stake in the running of our country: since their parties will hold power too in some of the districts. What can possibly be harmful about such a development in any democracy?

Far from parties in opposition at the national level (but who wield power at the district level), sabotaging the party in power at the centre, they will rather try and turn the districts they govern, into model communities - so that they can point to those areas as examples of what they can do at the national level if they were elected to govern our nation at the centre. What can possibly be wrong with that?

Furthermore, it will create a large pool of young Ghanaians with years of executive experience, in elective office, for our nation. Is that not a plus for entrenching democracy even further in our country?

In any case, if we do not ever try it, how can we possibly say that “it will not work in Ghana, because we are not ready for that yet” (as the cynics who say they believe in democracy, but don’t think grassroots people deserve democracy too, keep telling us)? When such people say that “it will not work” - not work for whose benefit, precisely, do they mean, I ask, dear reader?

The 1992 constitution was specifically designed to enable a military dictator to metamorphose into an elected civilian president - and continue wielding the same extensive powers he had as a military dictator: and dominate our country completely, as he had done before the advent of constitutional rule.

It was not created with the democratic right of ordinary grassroots people to elect district chief executives and district assembly members, in mind. Those for whom it was created, tailor-made it, to give legitimacy, to an elected and continuing dictatorship. Period

Finally, if the Ghana News Agency (GNA) quotes him correctly, when its reports that : ”Mr. Asante-Antwi said he would place the Department of Births and Deaths under chiefs and give them the mandate to register all births in the country”, then he simply is not fit to be elected to run even the smallest hamlet in our nation.

Inherited privilege, in any society, is the greatest enemy of those seeking to create a meritocracy in their nation - which is why all the societies of the developed world, got rid of feudalism, in their march towards progress. We must aim to rid ourselves of the baleful influence of traditional rulers in Ghanaian society - not empower them to mess up our country.

Chiefs owe their positions to inherited privilege and are part of a traditional system that thrived in a milieu steeped in superstition and which deliberately kept the masses ignorant - so that they could serve their rulers as hewers of wood and drawers of water.

It was a system deliberately designed to provide the ruling elite with a large pool of ignoramuses - from whose midst some young men could be used and abused, by being deliberately plied with alcohol to numb their brains, so that even when sober, they would still be happy to serve others as “Ahenkwas”: forever willing to carry their fellow human beings (dressed up to the nines!), in palanquins.

Ghanaians are a people who aspire to use their country’s new-found oil and natural gas wealth to transform their society into Africa’s equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia - not return to the pre-colonial days of slavery: when traditional rulers held sway and were the top-dogs in a feudal society in which ordinary people were groomed to have the mentality of serfs - to ensure the continued dominance of those who believed they were born to enslave others less privileged than themselves.

The elitist, retrogressive and outrageous views held by the Asante-Antwis of this country, must never be allowed to prevail in Ghanaian society, ever - not in the modern African nation-state founded by that great pan-Africanist and visionary, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah: who believed in the good sense and heroism of the common people of our country.

Ordinary people demand to elect their rulers at all levels, and on a party political basis, including district assembly members and district chief executives. Period.

Hmmm, Ghana - enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!