How Well-Prepared To Govern Ghana Are The Opposition Presidential Candidates?

One's prayer, as our nation's politicians step up their campaigns for this year's presidential and parliamentary elections, in November, is that all the opposition political parties are putting together solid transition teams  - and, most important of all, are also actively preparing to actually govern the country after the elections.

During the campaign for the December 2008 presidential election, Professor Mills, who was the candidate of the then biggest opposition party, the  National Democratic Congress (NDC), told Ghanaians that he would 'hit the ground running',  if elected President.

Yet it took quite some time for his administration to find its feet - and fill many positions that should have been quickly filled if much thought had been given to the actual governing process: and there had consequently been prior preparation for administering the nation.

Why weren't capable people pencilled for various positions, and vetted well beforehand by the NDC, itself, at the time, one wonders?

The question independent-minded and patriotic Ghanaians ought to ponder is: How well-prepared to govern Ghana are those opposition politicians currently seeking the presidency - should one of them win power after the presidential election this November? 

Should opposition politicians serious about winning power and governing Ghana still  be at each others throats' for control of their parties even at this late stage of the game - when they need to be  actively preparing to govern the nation?

What kind of an administration will a presidential candidate, seemingly incapable of uniting his own party, form, when in power? Who is pointing out the  potential for never-ending tension and paralysis in such an administration to Ghanaians?

Having listened to the many promises made by some of those seeking power, ordinary people need to know just how well-prepared for governing the country, the various presidential candidates actually are.

The Ghanaian media can ensure that by demanding solutions for resolving our nation's many challenges, from opposition politicians, each time they criticise the present regime.

Being able to clearly outline sound alternative policies, to resolve the myriad of problems our nation and its people are currently grappling with, is proof-positive that a politician vying to be president, is indeed well-prepared to govern our nation.

There is a world of difference between making countless promises in order to win votes, and being well-prepared to govern the country, after winning power and becoming president - in a nation that faces the conundrum of having to fund its development itself whiles spending nearly 70 percent of total tax revenues on about 600,000 or so  mostly-unproductive public-sector employees.

By what magical process is a debt-distressed nation that currently imports virtually everything under the sun, instead of manufacturing such goods itself, and which is said to be virtually bankrupt (according to some opposition politicians), going to be turned into a prosperous one within four years - when all its traditional cultures kill curiousity in the young and its educational system seldom produces innovators who can effect dramatic change in society?

Can our commodity-based national economy - the health of which is at the mercy of the volatility of international commodity prices and realistically will take nearly a decade to be transformed - really be turned into a booming  economy producing wealth and jobs within four years by any political party in Ghana, today?

And will politicians whose inner circles  are criticism-averse, and frequently resort to the Machiavellian controlling-tactic of intimidation-by-proxies, to cow free-spirits and the independent-minded within their own parties, guarantee the freedoms needed to spur the creation of an entrepreneurial culture that will bring about  prosperity in Ghana?  Food for thought.

Be that as it may, at least one hopes that as we speak, all the opposition politicians vying for the presidency in the November elections, are at least actively preparing to govern Ghana effectively - even as they criss-cross the country campaigning to be elected to the very important position of President of the Republic of Ghana. They have their work cut out satisfying a disgruntled and disillusioned populace. For Mother Ghana's sake one wishes all of them well.