IS THE NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY AS PRESENTLY CONSTITUTED FIT TO RULE NKRUMAH'S GHANA?

The nature of the type of society envisioned by the leadership of Ghana's political parties - with the exception of Nkrumah's Convention Peoples Party (CPP) - seldom features in the narrative told to the generality of Ghanaians, in the never-ending propaganda war, waged in relentless fashion on our nation's airwaves, and in the columns of newspapers, by political parties.

For example, should the Ghana of today, not be an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia - one in which the resources of the nation are, amongst other common-good projects, devoted to building planned new modern communities of well-designed and well-built affordable rental housing units to house ordinary people?

Would the offer of long tax holidays for the rental income earned by private-sector companies building and renting out such affordable housing to ordinary people, not attract such real estate companies in droves, to house ordinary Ghanaians, at reasonable rental rates?

Will that not deal effectively with the huge housing deficit, which unfortunately has left millions of ordinary people at the mercy of Shylock landlords, nationwide, I ask?

And should the Ghana of today, not be a nation led by imaginative leaders, clever enough, for example, to leverage the granting of oil exploration licenses, to attract the best-resourced state-owned Chinese railroad-building companies - to pre-finance the building of that vital Accra to Paga railway line: because such creative leaders understand that the power of the nation-state can be harnessed for such positive ends?

And would long tax holidays for the revenues earned from freight and passengers, not be incentive enough for such state-owned Chinese companies, to agree to build and operate the Accra-Paga railroad for a specified number of years, before finally transferring same to our nation?

And could we not use that same public private partnership model to build Ghana more gas-fired power plants and some of the world's biggest wind-power farms; have vital bridges built to span more points across our major rivers; and build new airports in all our regional capitals - ditto link up all our regional capitals with world-class motorways, I ask, dear reader?

And if our leaders approached Liam Casey (aka Mr. China), could he not find them ten large and well-resourced, class-leading world-class companies from South Korea and China, which would happily accept the same terms - and enable us link up all our regional capitals by rail: and finally give Ghana a modern and nationwide rail network? And would all such public private partnership schemes not create real jobs and generate tangible wealth across our nation?

Should Ghana not be led by leaders who understand clearly, for example - just as our nation's founding father, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, did - that a poor developing nation with aspirations, cannot afford not to provide free education for all its citizens, who have the aptitude to study - from kindergarten to tertiary level?

So why do our current crop of politicians not decide, on a consensus basis, that that ought to be a national policy that has cross-party support - and instead of allowing our oil deposits to eventually end up in the hands of well-connected rogues fronting for crooked politicians, rather leverage them to fund the education of Ghanaians? And do same for healthcare provision for ordinary people, too?

Is that not the sort of vision that ought to motivate and guide those who elect to offer themselves for leadership positions in our nation, dear reader?

Yet, what invariably motivates most of the leading lights of Ghana's political class, who fight in the front-line, in that no-holds-barred propaganda war, now being waged on our nation's airwaves and in Ghana's print media, is the unfathomable greed that drives those mostly-unprincipled and amoral individuals - who cloak the selfish ends that lead them into politics in the first place, as concern for ordinary people and our homeland Ghana: merely in order to enable them get into power successfully, off the backs of ordinary people in our country.

Does the dramatic change in fortunes for Kufuor & Co., who, by the end of the 8-year tenure of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime, had become some of the wealthiest individuals anywhere on the surface of the planet Earth, not illustrate perfectly, how those clever members of Ghana's educated urban elite, who venture into politics, have ended up ruthlessly exploiting our national economy for themselves, members of their family clans and their cronies - at the expense of ordinary people and the well-being of the Ghanaian nation-state?

Surely, we do not want to experience a situation in which a Mk11 version of such a greedy and dishonest tribal-supremacist cabal, dominates our country and ruthlessly exploits our national economy, so as to enable them send their personal net worth and that of family and friends into the stratosphere, yet again?

Ghana is a nation of diverse-ethnicity, in which no one tribe is superior or inferior to another. That is a scientific fact of life in 21st century Africa. So, does it not follow a priori, that if we were a wise people, there would be no place in the Ghanaian polity, for a political party, which is dominated by tribal-supremacist individuals - who, in this day and age, are so arrogant and backward in thought, as to believe that members of their particular ethnic group's traditional ruling elites are superior to that of all other ethnic groups in Ghana, and therefore ought, as their birthright, to dominate Ghanaian society permanently?

Did we all not painfully witness how during the eight long years Kufuor & Co. ruled our country for, they harnessed the entire machinery of state, in single-minded fashion, to promote their tribal Chieftain, as a de facto sovereign and the ruler of a state within a state - in Nkrumah's unitary Republic of Ghana? Do we want to experience a Mk11 version of that abomination?

That is why the question that must exercise the minds of those discerning and independent-minded individuals, whose crucial swing-votes now decide who becomes Ghana's elected president, ought to be: Should the ordinary people of a modern African nation-state, which aspires to become a metritocracy, tolerate the hijacking of their country, by the amoral and unprincipled descendants, of a pre-colonial traditional ruling elite?

And is it not the case that those tiresome and arrogant individuals, instead of being loyal and devoted to Mother Ghana, are invariably slavishly devoted to, and see themselves as owing allegiance, only to their sodden tribal Chieftains, whose brutish predecessors, were, if truth be told, the equivalent of today's Joseph Koneys - triumphant Hitlerite marauders, whose murderous and ruthless nature assured them of conquest upon conquest: during the dark days of slavery, endless pillaging and scorched earth wars-of-conquest in the Africa of old?

If such backward and arrogant tribal-supremacist and elitist individuals, then constitute themselves into a political party (as perfect legal cover), in order to pursue their absurd secret agenda of perpetual ethnic-dominance, why should ordinary Dagombas; ordinary Fantis; ordinary Brongs; ordinary Ewes; ordinary Asantes; ordinary Nzemas; ordinary Frafras; ordinary Ga Dangbes; ordinary Guans; ordinary Kusasis; ordinary Gonjas; ordinary Sisalas; ordinary Kokombas; and the ordinary members of all the other ethnic groups I have not had the space to mention here, vote for the political party "owned" and dominated by such dangerous and selfish individuals, I ask?

Is inherited privilege not the worst enemy of meritocrcy? If it is, then surely, those Ghanaian patriots and nationalists, who insist that the NPP, as presently constituted - dominated as it is by those who believe in rule by elites, and are themselves mostly the beneficiaries of inherited privilege - does not deserve to rule Nkrumah's Ghana, may indeed have a point after all, do they not, dear reader?

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