A New Political Movement For Libertarians In Ghana?

"Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit."
                                  - Mahatma Ghandi

Listening to the noble and uber-respectable elder statesman, Mr. C. K. Tedam, trying to justify the decision of the New Patriotic Party's (NPP)  national executive committee, to suspend Mr. Paul Afoko, the party's national chairperson,  one could not help having a sense of deja vu - and remembering the spin-doctors who tried so hard to justify the unjustifiable sacking of Mr. Martin Amidu by President Mills.

The idea that a few powerful, influential and highly-intelligent individuals, and their allies in the NPP,  think that they can actually manipulate a large political party with a nationwide footprint, as if it were a mere family enterprise, and get away with it, is baffling.

There are those who posit that the NPP now has far too many individuals who are intolerant of divergent opinion - and are criticism-averse to the point of paranoia - in it, for its own good.

Those critics  blame that culture of intolerance, and the uncompromising attitude of some of the NPP's plutocrats, for the fault-line that has now opened up in the party.

It is said that out of every disaster, is the possibility of renewed opportunity, for its victims.

Perhaps the time has now come for the creation of a new political movement, which will provide a home for the millions of hardworking, non-tribalistic, one-nation Ghanaians, who believe in individual liberty and want to live in a  low-tax, fiscally responsible and economically well-managed free society, in which hardworking individuals get to keep virtually all the rewards of their honest endeavours.

Alas, for many in our country, today, the NPP no longer provides an attractive home, for libertarians in Ghana.

Some of the party's critics make the point that it has allowed itself to be hijacked by bad-faith politicians who never accept electoral defeat - and who are not interested in compromise: and hound their opponents (both inside and outside their party), by demonising and vilifying them. That is simply intolerable.

Furthermore, some of the party's critics also question why politicians who want to govern Ghana, should resort to activities that amount to sabotaging the nation-building effort - as a strategy to win power for the NPP: and expect ordinary people to vote them into power, at the same time.

Have such perfidious politicians become so ruthless and callous that the misery their abominable and unspeakable actions cause to millions of families across Ghana, does not mean anything to them at all - in their ruthless, tunnel-vision quest for power?

Worst of all, are those NPP politicians, and their assigns, who constantly threaten mayhem in Ghana, if they do not have their way. Just who do they think they are, one wonders?

Do they think Ghanaians are serfs with no rights - who they have a divine right to govern come hell or high water?

What Ghana needs are creative and patriotic opposition politicians who always offer alternative solutions to the challenges our country faces, every time they criticise government policies. Politicians always beating metaphorical-war-drums are of no use to ordinary people - who refuse to dance to their discordant rhythms.

The NPP's Sammy Awukus must be very careful - for it is not entirely out of the realms of possibility that it will get to a stage when some frustrated Ghanaians will begin targeting politicians threatening the stability of Ghana, for elimination, one by one: if that is what will keep Ghana peaceful and stable.

The Sammy Awukus in our midst must understand clearly that democracy is not only just about constitutional arrangements to do with institutions of state, and the checks and balances designed to ensure that tyranny never returns to Ghana again.  Neither is it just about upholding the concept of the rule of law - that outline laws governing relationships between individuals, and between individuals and the State,  etc., etc.

They need to understand that democracy is also a way of life based on tolerance and the preponderance of a culture of compromise amongst the citizenry. In case it hasn't dawned on the Sammy Awukus yet, that is precisely the nature of the society the vast majority of ordinary Ghanaians want to live in.

Perhaps that yearning for a tolerant society in Ghana, provides the besieged Paul Afokos and Kwabena Agyapongs of the NPP, with an opportunity to work with others to form a new political movement, for Ghana's libertarians. One without any of the NPP's dreadful baggage-of-negativity.

Liberal Democratic Party would make a perfect name for that new party for libertarians in Ghana, would it not? It has a nice ring to it for libertarians. Cool.

The time has definitely come to form a new political movement for fair-minded, one-nation libertarians in Ghana.