An Open Letter To Ghana's National Security Coordinator

Sir, I shall go straight to the point. Whiles being interviewed on Radio Gold FM not too long ago, you said you had your “eyes on the prize.” Given the context within which you made that statement, one presumes that you meant that you are focused on what will get the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime of President Mills re-elected, in December 2012.

As a gentleman with a distinguished military background, I am sure you do not need an ignoramus and an old fool from Civvy Street like me, to tell you how to achieve that objective. More so, when like the New Patriotic Party (NPP), your NDC party too can rely on its share of Ghana’s teeming “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types –– who support political parties blindly: because so many of them are incapable of independent-thought.

However, at the risk of sounding presumptuous (and perhaps raising your ire!), may I humbly point it out to you that the outcome of the December 2012 presidential election, will hinge, once again, on the way a relatively small number of independent-minded Ghanaians decide to vote?

The real kingmakers in that election, will be the seventy-thousand or so fair-minded Ghanaians whose crucial votes were cast in favour of the then candidate Mills – and won him the presidency in December 2008. 

Alas, Sir, if those selfsame decent-minded and patriotic individuals were to gain the unfortunate impression, however, that the brutality, impunity, and abuse of power, associated with much of the Rawlings era, are resurfacing again in our national life, then even if the regime of which you are such an important member, succeeds in turning Ghana into Africa’s most prosperous nation by the end of its tenure, they will still vote it out of power in 2012.

Please, always bear in mind that discerning Ghanaians prefer living under the rule of law to being trampled on under the jackboots of lawless and tyrannical mobs. 

Consequently, you and your team must take the necessary steps, to ensure that those orchestrating the acts of lawlessness being carried out across the country; end their perfidy – before they do permanent damage to your regime. Whatever happened to discipline, I ask, Sir?

Or, more to the point, perhaps the question we must ask is: Do the so-called “foot soldiers” of political parties not know the meaning of personal sacrifice in the national interest – particularly at times of extreme difficulty for Mother Ghana? Sir, if it is any consolation to you, there is one simple thing, which if done, can guarantee the re-election of President Mills’ regime – even it does not succeed in turning Ghana into paradise by the end of its tenure in December 2012.

If you can persuade President Mills and all his appointees (from the president himself down to the very last district chief executive!) to make public the assets they declared to the Auditor-General, it will put clear blue water between the present NDC regime and that of the regime of the profligate President Kufuor.

It will be a clear signal to Ghanaians that unlike all the past administrations of the 4^th Republic thus far, members of President Mills’ administration did not come to power to line their pockets at Ghana’s expense. It is still not too late for the president to make such a bold move.

The added bonus is that were that to happen, it will permanently silence yesteryear’s silver-tongued white-collar criminals within the NPP (those past masters of the nation-wrecking art and science of creative-accounting – which made it possible for them to milk our country dry whiles they were in power!).

They are the same cynics who are funding and directing the “enkoyie” propaganda war being waged against the honest and principled President Mills. Their aim is to create disaffection in the minds of Ghanaians against the Mills administration – in the hope that it will result in the NPP returning to power 2012: thus enabling them to hold on to their ill-gotten wealth. 

Do not let them succeed in their aim, Sir: persuade President Mills and the members of his regime to publicly publish their assets. It may not be a constitutional requirement – but there is nothing in the constitution that prevents them from doing so either. 

The president will be on the right side of history if that were done – and posterity will commend him for establishing such a good governance convention: as his contribution to the fight against the insidious corruption that is slowly destroying our democracy.