Ghana: an Incomplete Independence or a Dysfunctional Democracy?

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© 2013 by Kwame Insaidoo. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 12/12/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-6760-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-6761-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-6762-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012916408

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.   Prefatory Commentary

2.   A symbol but not the substance of Independence

3.   Incomplete Independence or a Dysfunctional Democracy?

•   Dysfunctional Democracy: Imposition of Statism or Democratic Centralism on the Nation.

•   Did the Demise of the CPP Government end Statism or Democratic Centralism in Ghana?

4.   A Case Study of Dysfunctional Democracy: The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana

•   The Issue of Electoral Commission

•   Dysfunctionalism in our Auditing System?

•   The Issue of the Governor of Bank of Ghana

•   Police Powers of the Presidency

•   Supremacy of Executive over other Branches of Government?

•   The Independence of the Judiciary?

•   The Results of out of Control Presidency: Harassments of Political Opponents and Former Government Officials

•   Our Super-Presidency and the Joke of Decentralization

•   Anatomy of a Hybrid Democracy-the Issue of the Council of State

•   Emergency Powers for the Council of State and not Parliament?

5.   The New Revolution: Making our Democracy Work to Complete our Independence.

•   Free & Fair Elections

•   Party-Foot Soldiers, Violence & Democratic Dysfunctionalism

•   Sharing the National Booty, an Element of Democracy Dysfunctionalism?

•   Revisiting the Issue of Rejected Votes

•   Seperating the Powers of our Government

•   Vertical Power Structure

•   Electing Regional Governors:

•   Electing Mayors and Town Managers:

6.   Real Independence or Raw Deal?

•   The Issue of the Ghana Armed Forces

•   The Role of Ghana Armed Forces in our Democracy

•   The Issue of Overseas Missions

•   Nkrumah’s failed industrization policies: The source of our foreign debts?

7.   A New Vision To Completing Our Independence & Creating A Functioning Democracy

•   Vision Of Economic Freedom

•   Completing our Independence Through Effective taxation

•   What To Do

8.   Incomplete Mental Independence?

9.   Dysfunctional Democracy & Incomplete Independence Breed Unfettered Corruption

•   Dysfunctional Political System Breeds Corruption?

•   Practical Measures to Minimize Corruption:

•   Formation of Independent Supreme Audit Board.

•   Institutionalizing Independent Anti-Corruption System

10.   Epilogue: What Ghanaians are saying about their Nation

•   A Ghanaian Resident in New York State for More Than Two Decades: Mr. K. Anim

•   Post Graduate Student at University of Ghana

•   Ghanaian Accountant Living in New York City

•   An American Medical Practitioner Living in Ghana

•   A Ghanaian Student at Valley View University: Martin Ofosu Debrah

•   A Ghanaian Student, Robert A. Insaidoo, at Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration

•   Goldminer in Ashanti Region:

•   My Grandmother, Afua Nimo Owusuaa

11.   Empowering Ghanaians—Issues For Discussion

•   Situtation One

•   Implementation of Effective & Efficient Record Management System:

•   The Issue of National Service

12.   Appendix

13.   Notes

If men were angels, no government would be necessary, if angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls in governments would be necessary.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself… . James Madison

Once upon a time in West Africa, two kings named Acqua and Bell made a memorable request of British Prime Minister William Gladstone. ‘We are tired of governing the country ourselves, they wrote in a letter dated Nov. 6, 1881. Every dispute leads to war, and often to great loss of life, so we think it is the best thing to give up the country to you British men who no doubt will bring peace, civilization and Christianity in the country. Do for mercy’s sake please lay our request before the queen… . We are quite willing to abolish all our heathen customs.’

The colonialists of yore may often have been bigots, but they may also, just as often, doers. Their colonies were better places than the shipwrecked countries we have today.

One day, some later-day King Acqua will come to the West with a similar plea."

[Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2011 Vol. CCLVII No. 8 pg.A15]

Are we Ghanaians going to allow such insults which are an affront to our dignity to happen in this modern era? We must wake up and make our country strong, so no later-day King Acqua will go to the west with such a disgraceful plea!!!!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Can anybody tell us why profound poverty continues to plague our nation of barely 25 million people in this modern era of globalization in 2012? Why do you think the vast majority of our beloved people live on less than a dollar a day and struggle from cradle to grave living in near squalor, and eking out near subsistence existence? Ask yourself why in the midst of this profound abject poverty less than five percent of our fellow countrymen and women live in opulence and wallow in untold riches with their mansions encased in six-foot walls, seek medical attention in luxurious medical facilities abroad? Are the vast majority of our people in poverty ignorant and stupid, while the few wealthy ones are perceived as more intelligent and wiser than all of us?

Can you also imagine that in the midst of this uneven distribution of wealth our nation is richly blessed by Almighty God with abundance of natural resources consisting of gold, diamonds, minerals of all sizes and shapes, petroleum, cocoa, timber and peace loving, and good natured people?

This book reveals the dynamics of two societies in our nation which was captured in a statement made by the famous Jamaican Reggae star Jimmy Cliff who bemoaned that too many people have nothing, while the few have everything. His statement should inspire us all to remake the world more fair and just for us all.

Our tragedy began at the inception of the imperial governance imposed on our nation which empowered few alien bureaucrats to rule our society as their personal fiefdom. The absence of vital checks and balances on their governance, and the lack of transparency of their administration meant that they were not accountable to our people, and therefore dominated the totality of our people creating inequality in power and wealth.

After independence our succeeding Ghanaian rulers should have abandoned this personalization of political power and ceded sovereignty to the masses of our people. Their failure to embark upon Institutionalization of political power by decentralizing power to the masses meant that our new Ghanaian elites continued to replicate this odious personalization of political power.

The abnormal nature of this political patronage system is responsible for the fierce and often violent political battles involving wrestling of power at the ballot box or with violent military coups as executed in the past. Once in power, the elites surround themselves with their personal clients, family, friends, and party apparatchiks and become the new government and state officials of the nation who have access to the untold wealth of the nation. Indeed corruption becomes institutionalized because it is the glue that cements the system together.

Once a party ascends into political power they gain extraordinary coercive police and paramilitary powers at their disposal and begin to intimidate and cow down any criticism or opposition to its policies and ubiquitous corruptive practices, and often employ the so-called Fast Track Courts to put their perceived enemies or competitors behind bars.

The truth of our shameful situation is that our elitist government has no genuine interest in creating real economic development for our people, because it will ultimately threaten or undermine their grip on power and their hold on the wealth of our nation.

This book argues that our nation’s independence is incomplete because our governing elites have hi-jacked our independence for their personal gain and greed; and our democracy is dysfunctional because it enhances the power of the few entrenched elites to the detriment of all Ghanaians. This explains the profound inequality of wealth and power in our nation.

Additionally, the underpinnings of this book gravitates around the philosophical pronouncements of James Madison that: in framing a government, which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. Our government must be able to govern by maintaining adequate Law and Order, protecting individual liberties and property rights, reducing endemic and pervasive poverty, minimizing crime and controlling the burgeoning drug trade and use in our nation.

Above all our government must place limits on its power by ceding sovereignty to the custodians of power, the masses, by decentralizing political power to the people. The goal of our government should be to create an effective governing system which should embody checks and balances, accountability and transparency while promoting good governance.

Finally, our government must reform and build upon our emerging middle class so that they can accumulate wealth independent of the government by removing unnecessary restrictions and regulations on our people. Our government must work to empower Ghanaians in diaspora and those at home to create businesses and industries to act as locomotive to spur future economic growth.

Also by KWAME A. INSAIDOO

•   Moral Lessons in African Folktales

•   Ghana: A Time to Heal and Renew the Nation

•   Can The Black Man Rule Himself?

•   Is the Bible a Woman’s enemy?

•   The African Meets the Black American with Roxanna Pearson Insaidoo

Special Thank you

I also want to thank Mrs. Roxanna Pearson Insaidoo for her valuable and insightful suggestions, and her profound intrest in helping to elevate the standard of living of the average Ghanaian. She is definitely commited to providing health education and clinics to improve the health and longevity of the average Ghanaian.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the valiant unarmed ex-service men: Sergeant Adjetey, Private Ordatey Lamptey, and Corporal Attipoe who felled at the hands of the colonial British Police Superintendent Imray on February 28, 1948 at the Christianburg Castle crossroads.

Their only crime was to present a petition to the colonial Governor about their poor and miserable financial conditions. The people of Ghana owe them a debt of gratitude for their selfless sacrifice that sparked our independence movement.

We promise that we the people of Ghana WILL complete our independence and create a government of our people, by our people and for our people, and make their sacrifices more meaningful to all our people.

ONE

PREFATORY COMMENTARY

Take a good look at our great nation of Ghana from the peaceful rolling coastal landscape, the luxuriant tropical forests, the beautiful grasslands tucked in the midst of our nation, and the large expanse of virgin soil in the upper fringes of our nation and you know that the Almighty God, the pantheon of heavenly angels and our traditional ancestors so greatly loved our nation and richly blessed its people. The Almighty God further demonstrated his unconditional love for Ghanaians by protecting our land from the vagaries of unstable climatic conditions, by providing our nation with bright sunshine throughout the year. Our people were shielded from the horrible bitter cold and long nasty winter weathers that have become the norm in other nations. Look again and you will see that the Almighty Providence has ensured that his people of Ghana will not endure nor suffer constant chaotic climatic hazards of tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis and typhoons which claim the lives of thousands of people in other lands.

To those of you who are blinded and have no faith in Ghana look at the immensity of mineral wealth bestowed unto our nation by the Almighty God. If you go to most villages in Ghana you will see the littered remains of barely scratched bore holes of gold excavations. Our land is richly blessed with gold. Do you also know that paper currencies around the world are just mere paper supported by the various governments around the world, and all of them are convertible to the real natural money, GOLD? Do you see the mighty handiwork of our loving God and his immense and unconditional love for the people of Ghana by richly endowing us with the real money, GOLD?

We must never forget that it was this great blessing of our gold that attracted most of the Europeans to our nation. The Portuguese arrived in the 15th century and named the first town they settled El Mina, literally in the Portuguese language the mine, because of the immensity of Gold they found there. These huge and abundant gold resources stirred the greed of King John II of Portugal to instruct his protégé, Don Diego d’ Azambuja to construct the immense castle in El Mina for the ostensible reason of exploiting or stealing these gold deposits to Portugal. This natural blessing of gold in our land further attracted many other Europeans, who were not so blessed, to our land. Thus we saw expeditions of various people like the Dutch, British, Swedes, Danes, Spanish, and even the Prussians to our coastal areas in search of the gold.

The English Merchants were so astonished to behold such enormous endowments of gold in our land they named it the Gold Coast, and despite the hundreds of years of European pillage, exploitation and ‘thieving’ of our gold they have barely scratched the surface of our rich gold inheritance, because this blessing is so immense that huge deposits still lie buried underneath our land.

Look again around our nation and you will notice that God loved our land so much that he insured that his children will not suffer for anything, God continued to bless our land with other wealthy minerals like diamonds, bauxite, manganese, copper, phosphate, nickel, chromium, uranium, petroleum and others. Furthermore, for God being so good to our nation he endowed his children with various forest resources, like the sweetest and the best pineapples in the world, various high grades of natural timber and abundant amount of fisheries in our waters. We should not also forget that because Ghanaians are among the favorite children of God when our illustrious son Tetteh Quarshie brought only a handful of cocoa seeds from Fernando Po, and planted them in his native soil of Ghana, God blessed his efforts, and for many years our nation became the world’s leading producer and exporter of these precious cocoa beans.

Above all, the most significant blessing of our nation is the peace-loving, good natured, beautiful and happy people of Ghana. Our people are by nature so trusting and friendly to foreigners that the Europeans began abusing their trust by hurling them into the odious trans-Atlantic slave trade to exploit their labor for wealth in the so-called new lands. Additionally, these untold blessings of natural wealth, coupled with the good-natured people that inhabited our land, led the Europeans to eventually settle and colonize our society for the expressed purpose of exploiting this natural wealth and the labor of our people.

It is instructive to mention that our good natured people did not merely lay down for the Europeans to colonize them. The most powerful nation in our society, the Asante-nation attacked the Europeans in 1807, again in 1811 and 1814 which forced the British, Dutch, and Danish authorities to come to some form of accommodations with the Asante-nation, and signed a treaty of friendship that recognized Asante’s claims to sovereignty, over large areas of the coast and its people. [See Library of U.S. Congress country studies: Ghana]. Furthermore, when the British Governor of Sierra Leone, Sir Charles McCarthy, sought to abrogate these friendship treaties with the powerful Asante-nation, war ensued. At the Battle of Nsamankow in 1824, the Asante soldiers chased, executed and decapitated Sir Charles McCarthy and paraded his head throughout the length and breadth of their capital, Kumasi. Finally, in their determination to resolve the Asante menace permanently, the British mounted an expeditionary force of nearly 3000 British soldiers and a large contingent of African troops under the command of the fierce Sir Garnet Wolseley and eventually succeeded in occupying and burning down Kumasi, the capital of the mighty Asante-nation.

The powerful Asante-nation did not entirely accept defeat until 1896 when the British mounted yet another military expedition to Kumasi and exiled the mighty King of Asante-nation, Nana Prempeh I to the Seychelles Islands and forced the Asante-nation to become a British protectorate. But in 1900, the Asante-nation under the Queen mother of Ejusu, Yaa Asantewaa mounted a fierce military campaign to prevent the illegal colonization of the Asante-nation, but the British prevailed, and succeeded in imposing their colonial rule on our nation.

Our people’s indomitable spirits to liberate their motherland from British colonialism did not lay dormant, as gallant men formed the Aborigines’ Right Protection Society in 1890 to fight against the British encroachment on our traditional land-tenure system. This brilliant political protest laid the ultimate foundation for political action which eventually culminated in the nationalist movements that led to our independence.

Despite the British domination of our land, political agitation for increased elected native representation to the Gold Coast Legislative Council continued when Joseph Casely-Hayford organized the National Congress of British West Africa in 1920 to demand such representation. These gallant and noble Africans who forced the British to practice the democracy they preached about included John Mensah Sarbah, Africanus Horton Jr., and Attah-Ahoma. Through their gallant efforts, the British grudgingly began to democratize the Legislative Council with elected native representation.

In August 1947 Dr. J.B. Danquah, Pa Grant, Edward Akuffo-Addo and others formed the U.G.C.C., the United Gold Coast Convention [UGCC] to demand self-government in the shortest possible time. Because they were generally British trained scholars they pursued the process of independence by employing British elitist conventions, styles, mannerisms preferring a gradual approach in their quest for self-government.

Kwame Nkrumah who was invited by Dr. J.B. Danquah from London to become the general secretary of the UGCC became at odds with their conservative and elitist approach to independence. He broke away and formed his own political party, the Convention People’s Party [CPP], to vigorously demand self-government ‘now’. Thus began the fractured and acrimonious political campaign by two hostile, warring and antagonistic political parties with different philosophical and ideological approaches to attaining self-government from the British.

When Kwame Nkrumah and his victorious CPP ascended into power and attained independence, they alienated their political rivals in the opposition party, who were also bent on the destruction of Nkrumah and his CPP allies. Kwame Nkrumah in his haste to consolidate his political power away from his hostile and antagonistic political foes unwittingly created an incomplete independence and a dysfunctional democratic system, where compromise, the key ingredient of democracy, became an ugly word.

Our independence was incomplete because as Kwame Nkrumah and CPP regime centralized all government and economic activities only CPP members and party officials were truly independent because channels for upward mobility, corporate jobs and lucrative business ventures were open to them and their cohorts. Anyone who dared challenge Nkrumah’s policies, especially members of the opposition party, tasted the bitterness of a nation with an incomplete independence, because they were thrown into detention camps without trial.

Ghana became an incomplete independent nation because Nkrumah and his CPP members maintained the political power structure of the oppressive colonial administration. Nkrumah, like the colonial Governor retained the awesome power to appoint his cabinet ministers and deputy ministers from parliament, which further subordinated the parliament to the executive branch of government, much like the colonial power structure. The judiciary, under Nkrumah was also much like the colonial system because Nkrumah packed his CPP cohorts and adherents into all the courts system and the rest of the judicial branch. Additionally, Nkrumah emulated the colonial Governor by appointing all Regional and local commissioners, thereby depriving the people of the various regions and localities the complete freedom to enjoy and practice the independence they have attained by electing their own regional and local officials to manage the affairs of their localities. Sadly, Nkrumah’s style of governance,

the democratic centralism, has dominated our political landscape till this day.

It is instructive to reiterate that the 1992 constitution which created our current democratic system unfortunately replicated the oppressive colonial political structure and the imperial presidency of Kwame Nkrumah. Like the colonial political structure, and the super-presidency of Nkrumah, our current president has absolute control of both the horizontal and vertical political structures, and so dominates the entire political spectrum of our nation. Our imperial presidency, much like the colonial masters, has absolute control of our horizontal political structure because of his power to appoint cabinet and deputy ministers from parliament, the people’s representative assembly. Under such patronizing system the members of parliament are tempted to dance to the whims of the president as they maneuver and position themselves to attain lucrative cabinet positions which bring them wealth, popularity, and national prestige to further their political ambitions. We must realize that under such a patronage system, no parliamentarian appointed to either cabinet or deputy cabinet position has any real motivation or incentive to challenge presidential decisions or policies for fear of possible cabinet reshuffle that will demote him and be replaced with a more pliable and manageable parliamentarian. We should bear in mind that human nature being what it is, there are many parliamentarians waiting in the wings or shadows to seek such prestigious cabinet positions and would not dare challenge the president whether he is right or not.

Additionally, a plethora of reputable international organizations routinely and objectively classify and rank the qualities of democracies in the global system. Such organizations include: Freedom House, Global Democracy Ranking, World Economic Forum, Transparency International, the Ibrahim Index of African Governance and many others. These organizations employ several methods or indicators to measure and determine the quality of democracy in various nations, among which are: political rights, press freedom, civil liberties, corruption perception index, electoral freedom, increase voter participation, the level of crime, electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of the government, methods of financing political parties, supremacy of the legislature, checks and balances in government, independence of the judiciary, bureaucracy’s ability to implement government policies, treatment of tribal minorities in the nation, separation of state and religion, mechanism to promote voting among the diasporas, are women sufficiently represented in government, etc.

Between 2005-2009 Global Democracy Rankings ranked the quality of Ghana’s democracy on the scale of 0 the lowest score to 100 the highest score out of a total of 100 countries. The results are summarized in the diagram below:

Global Democracy Ranking of Ghana

Source: http://www.democracyranking.org/en/ranking.html.

The conceptual framework of Democracy Ranking hinges on its definition and measurements of the quality of democracy as: Quality of Democracy = (freedom & other characteristics of the political system) & (performance of the non-political dimensions). Of course those freedoms implicit in a democracy refer primarily to the much celebrated political terminology, civil liberties, which has its origins in the English Legal charter of 1215, the Magna Carta.

Civil liberties in a democracy guarantees fundamental human rights which insist that all human beings are created by the Almighty God and hence possess certain inalienable rights that cannot be arbitrary violated by any government, church, traditional chiefs, individuals, and other powerful entities in the nation, among which are: the rights to live in peace, right to life, to liberty, to a fair trial, freedom of speech, of religion, to own private property, freedom of movements, of association, to vote, to defend yourself, to protect individuals from arbitrary government actions, cultural and rights to educate children etc.

By far the most authoritative and comprehensive ranking of the quality of our country’s democracy was conducted by the London based Economists Magazine Intelligence Unit’s Index of democracy in 2007 [See: The Economist Intelligence Unit Index of Democracy by Laza Kekic, Director, Country Forecasting Services, the World in pages 1-11]. The Economist highlighted the essential sine-qua-non of the features of democracy by asserting that, the fundamental features of a democracy include government based on majority rule and the consent of the governed, the existence of free and fair elections, the protection of minorities and respect for basic human rights. Democracy presupposes equality before the law, due process and political plurality. The Economist applied these objective criteria to rank the quality of democracies in 167 nations in the global system. On the scale of 0 lowest score to 10 highest score, the results of Ghana’s democratic score is summarized below:

Economists Intelligence Unit of Democracy Index score of Ghana 2007:

Source: Economists Intelligence Unit: Democracy Index 2007

Ghana’s democracy was not developed enough to earn honorable status as full democracy not even as flawed democracy, but was rated hybrid regime. When I consulted my dictionary, the word ‘hybrid’ was described as: ‘two different types of components; blend of two diverse cultures, or traditions; consists of combinations of . . . The Economists ranking of Ghana’s democracy as hybrid" is what I have been referring to as dysfunctional democracy because a ‘hybrid regime’ presupposes that our democracy is a combination of freedoms and authoritarian regimes in the governance of the nation. A cursory glance at the quality and practice of our democracy reveal certain glaring inadequacies:

Our electoral process is still not free from coercion and intimidation, and in some polling stations the party-foot soldiers from the dominant parties of NDC & NPP continue to intimidate voters. This significant threat to the security and well-being of voters prevents many voters from going to cast their votes, hence reducing the level of electoral participation which can significantly affect the outcome of our elections. The Center for Democratic Development noted, The use of violence and violence-prone tactics is become almost habitual and routine in our elections. The mouthpiece of the center, Democratic Watch further observes that in the Akwatia re-runs gunshots were frequently fired from various parts of the town… . and several people were badly injured all because these voters were exercising their legitimate right to vote in a so-called free elections. The paper finally informed us that, reviews of newspaper reports on Ghana’s election in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 indicate varying degrees of election-related violence in the period before, during and after polls in many places across the country. Worst still, the incidence and levels of election related violence appears on the increase.

The leaders of all political parties must educate their party foot soldiers and other sympathizers to refrain from violence, intimidation, coercion, fraud and abuses during elections. Since all political parties are interested in gaining power to lead our nation they owe it to the people to demonstrate high leadership qualities and strict internal control mechanism to arrest, prosecute, imprison and bar any violent behavior of their members particularly during elections. Furthermore, the Electoral Commissioner should make it openly clear to all Ghanaians that he will refuse to certify any election results that are mired in fraud, intimidation and violence. The quality of our democracy will continue to be characterized as ‘hybrid’ and dysfunctional if these elements of violence at election time are not purged from our system.

Another problematic and dysfunctional element of our democracy is the process of peaceful transfer of political power from one administration to another. There must be clear, unambiguous, established, orderly and I dare say constitutionally accepted method of power transfer to the incoming administration. Any deviation from such orderly transfer of power is an indication of our immaturity in the practice of democracy. Once again the reputable Democratic Watch indicated that, the drama surrounding the impounding of cars and other public assets from officials of the departing Kufour administration, does not bode well with a mature democracy. Our democracy will continually be characterized as dysfunctional or ‘hybrid’ as long as we refuse to follow our established guidelines of orderly and peaceful transfer of political power and resort to some form of quasi-military intimidation like the use of force in seizing state automobiles and other government assets from out-going administration. The ideal method of power transfer, as most Ghanaians will agree with me, is the formation of transition committees by both the outgoing and incoming administrations to meet right after elections to iron out the modalities or the logistics of smooth, and orderly transfer of power.

It is significant to reiterate that the electorate vote for our leaders to create transparent political institutions that are accountable to the people who sent them to their higher offices to help develop our nation. Transparency International observes: The message is clear transparency and accountability are critical to restoring trust and turning back the tide of corruption. For our democracy to be meaningful and beneficial to our people and reduce the vicious circle of poverty,

our leadership class should strive to create healthy political administration and civil institutions whose decisions, dealings and activities would be transparent and accountable to the public. Such transparency and accountability will help to reduce the prevalence of corruption, bribery, kickbacks, money laundering, and other nefarious financial activities in our society. The vast majority of our people will continue to suffer as long as our public officials and politicians in responsible positions continue to use their privileged positions for personal gain. What kind of democracy will our children inherit when some of our leaders secretly proclaim that it is their turn to plunder and get all they can get and rob the nation because four years from now their time