Ignoring #OccupyFlagStaffHouse Protesters In Ghana Could Be Politically Disastrous

When  I asked an old acquaintance of mine what he made of the demonstrators who said they wanted to occupy the front lawn of the Flagstaff House, to show their concern for what they say are deteriorating conditions in the country, I was astonished by his response.

 He responded derisively: "Many of them are hypocrites who grew super-rich during the golden age of business for Kufuor & Co and their  favourites. At that time, they chose to close their eyes firmly to the selfsame conditions that they are now complaining about. They are only complaining now because opportunities to make easy money at Ghana's expense through their political connections have dried up."

Amazing. Did he miss that toxic "The King is naked" placard, one wonders? Those in power need to take #OccupyFlagStaffHouse more seriously. They, not the loud Antwi Boasiakos, have the potential to start a Ghanaian equivalent of the Arab Spring. When middle-class Ghanaian fence-sitters get off the fence, those in power in our country, had better sit up and take notice.

 I am not so sure that my old acquaintance is right about the motives of many of those who defied the rains to join the Republic Day demonstration by the #OccupyFlagStaffHouse protesters.

 The question is, what if they represent a siesmic shift in Ghanaian  politics? In any case the publicity they generate redounds to the benefit of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) - so ought to be of concern to the current regime. Hopefully the Mahama administration will see the writing on the wall that  the protesters represent.

My humble view, is that instead of scoffing at them,  the president and senior members of his administration would be wise to find time in their busy schedules to have lunch or dinner with the leaders of #OccupyFlagStaffHouse one weekend - and engage them in a conversation about the need for Ghanaians to unite to move the country forward. The Peduase Lodge would be a perfect place for such a meeting.

 The president and his administration must find out from the leadership of #OccupyFlagStaffHouse what their ideas for resolving our nation's many problems are. They might learn a thing or two from them. After all, more than most in Ghana, they are keenly aware that zero-taxes-collected, equals zero development - and thus perhaps are patriots who are ardent taxpayers for that reason.

And for all we know, perhaps many of them actually care about our nation and its fate - and care about the welfare of the masses of the Ghanaian people too. At the very least, perhaps they could be persuaded to collaborate with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA),   to start a joint-campaign to get private-sector businesses to pay all their taxes - as their contribution to the nation-building effort.

It is a far better way to proceed, strategically, than to dismiss all of them as self-seekers who are bitter about no longer being politically well-connected enough to  enable them prosper from crony capitalism - as my old acquaintance did.

 One doubts if there is any objective and patriotic Ghanaian who does not feel concerned about the fate of Ghana, when he or she hears media reports of state-owned entities  paying astronomical sums to private  landlords as rent for office accommodation. Ditto public officials dishing out blocks in oilfields off our shores like confetti in opaque deals.  Accountability is lacking in most of officialdom, it would appear -  and most Ghanaians resent that.

And who in Ghana isn't inconvenienced by the frequent power outages and lack of  treated drinking-water for lengthy periods - basics of modern life which should not be lacking in a nation such as ours? Those are quality-of-life issues that are of importance to all who live and work in Ghana.

Those of us who called on President Mahama to publicly publish his  assets, as well as those of his wife, feel so sad that that advice was ignored. Alas, we are now witnessing what some of us feared would occur, if he failed to heed that advice, at the beginning of his tenure after the 2012 presidential election: Today, instead of occupying the moral high ground, he is seen by many Ghanaians as the leader of a very corrupt regime.

Yet he is doing a lot to fight corruption.  For example, as a result of measures taken by his administration,  no future president of Ghana will be able to asset-strip Ghana, the way President Kufuor did - and in such egregious fashion too.  In the end, those who benefitted from that outrage were: members of Kufuor's own  extended family-clan; sundry cronies like his oil-sector smoke-and-mirriors-frontsmen behind the E.O Group; close party colleagues such as the Jake Obestebi-Lampteys; and a bevy of fetching "bottom-power" ladies. They all prospered mightily - but it was at the expense of our nation, unfortunately.

And despite the many wealthy and powerful individuals involved in it, the Mahama administration is tackling the scourge of illegal gold mining (and the  illegal logging that funds most of it), which is poisoning soils, the underground water table  and rivers - as well as destroying ecosystems across vast swathes of the Ghanaian countryside. Before President Mahama, no previous president in the 4th Republic had been able to take active steps to halt illegal gold mining across the country - because the powerful and influential criminal-minds behind it successfully lobbied against any such measures.

 Finally, one hopes that President Mahama's hard-of-hearing adminstration  will not make the same tactical error it made when it first came into office - in ignoring advice to publicly publish the assets of government appointees at the beginning of their regime's tenure - in its response to the #OccupyFlagStaffHouse protesters, by choosing to ignore them too. His beleaguered administration must engage with them directly - and the sooner the better. The blowback from ignoring their concerns could be politically disastrous in 2016.  A word to the wise...