AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. KWESI PRATT!

Massa, I shall go straight to the point – you must consider standing for the position of presidential candidate for the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) when the time comes to elect one in 2012. It is obvious that the ordinary people of our country do not want the bourgeois-types who have regarded the party of Nkrumah, much as they see takeover targets in the business world they excel in, to lead the party that is supposed to be the vanguard of the Ghanaian masses – which is why the CPP has failed so abysmally in all the elections in the 4th Republic. You must put aside your sense of modesty – and come to the rescue of our country, at a time when it needs a true Nkrumaist to be at the helm of affairs in Ghana: to ensure that our oil and natural gas deposits do not also end up enriching the shareholders of foreign companies, just as our gold deposits have, over the years. The power of the Ghanaian nation-state must be used to improve the living standards of all Ghanaian – not just a privileged and politically well-connected few and their foreign collaborators, as has been the case in the immediate past.

It is unfortunate that you seem so reluctant to consider this suggestion. The question is: If you love Mother Ghana, how can you possibly refuse standing for the presidency, when she is being so brutally gang-raped by our political elite? Do you not see that it is important, if every one in our society is to benefit from the growth of our national economy, that the crony-capitalism that is cloaked with the innocuous-sounding phrase “private-sector led development” is exposed for what it truly is: a license for our ruling elites to rip our nation off, legally? Did you not hear of the outrageous case of insider-dealing that enabled the son of a sitting president, using a special purpose vehicle to obtain a contract to supply a state-owned entity with electricity meters, to make the staggering profit of over US$ 2 millions? In the internet age, could the officials of the Energy Commission (and other state organizations needing products from overseas, incidentally) not simply have gone online, to find the best value-for-money source for the supply of electricity meters, directly from the manufacturers of such products – and saved the over two million dollars that went into the pockets of a pair of politically well-connected individuals: that could have been used to refurbish some of the many schools and hospitals that cry out for help, in the endless news reports of that nature, from across the country, which we see regularly on our television screens?

Today, when even the leading capitalist nations are stepping out of the shadow of conventional economic thinking, in order to secure their national economies, and are using taxpayers’ money to rescue private entities by partially-nationalizing them (so as to save jobs and ensure the long-term survival of those entities), surely, our nation would be better off being led by someone such as yourself – who understands clearly why a poor developing nation with aspirations, cannot, for example, afford not to provide free education, up to tertiary level, for all those who have the aptitude to study to that level, but whose families cannot afford to pay for their education? Would our country not be better of being led by someone who understands that any democracy, in which there are glaring disparities of wealth, and in which there is a growing underclass (consisting of an ever-burgeoning army of disaffected youth), who have no hope of ever escaping from the poverty trap they are caught in, cannot possibly endure for long? Massa, you are the perfect candidate for the presidency of Ghana, for the CPP – and I humbly appeal to you to seriously consider devoting your energies to the task of becoming Ghana’s next Nkrumaist leader, when President Mills comes to the end of his tenure. Clearly, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has no intention of ever stepping out of the shadow of conventional economic thinking – which is why at a time when China is happy, and able to, fund our development plans (up to even some US$20 billions), in exchange for our sovereign bonds, they are rushing to embrace the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Massa, who in Ghana does not know that you abhor corruption – which is why you have consistently said that elected politicians, and their spouses, should publicly publish their assets: both before and after their tenure? Are you not also one of the few figures in this country who has enough self-belief not to be mesmerized by the much-compromised hero of June 4th 1979 – who gets away with so much because he is a half-caste in a nation full of moral cowards with a slave-mentality: who think that somehow he is a superior being on account of his lighter hue, and put up with his pure nonsense on bamboo stilts? Massa, you must put aside your sense of modesty and start seriously considering working towards the goal of becoming the next Nkrumaist leader of our country. Ghana must transformed into Africa's equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia - and only a leader who thinks like you do, can make that happen – which is why Posterity will never forgive you if you continue to refuse to consider the idea. A word to the wise...

Telephone (powered by Tigo – the mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): +233 (0) 27 745 3109 & the not-so-hot and clueless Vodafone wireless smartphone number: + 233 (0) 21 976238