Needed: A ministry for discipline

The English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, advocated the idea of the social contract in order to cure the danger posed by what he called the “state of nature”, that is the condition in which humans would live without the protection of a state and its laws.

In this state of nature, he concluded, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short... a state of war of all against all” where man lives in constant fear.

Ever been to Agbogbloshie or the area in front of the Kaneshie Market, both in Accra? Have you lived with those street-children for even one day? Not an hour passes without the spilling of blood resulting from a fight. That is a state of nature.

Remember 2012 when some hoodlums assaulted Ursula Owusu in the Odododiodoo area? They did so because they KNEW that they would not be punished. In the run-up to the Chereponi by-election in the Atta Mills era, the picture of someone who had committed murder, in the run-up to the by-election, was shown in the media, yet till this day, nothing has been done to him. This inaction by our law enforcers must have emboldened the brother of that NDC Minister of State to boast openly on radio that he had been killing his political opponents all the time. He knew nothing would happen to him.

That is state of nature.

Back to Accra (from where I am writing this piece). The NGO, Ecocentric, conducted a survey a few years ago on the most polluted cities of the world. Agbogbloshie, in Accra, ranked Number One. At a dump site in this area of Ghana’s national capital, junk electronics are processed openly. The NGO saw “the burning of sheathed cables to get to the copper material inside, often using Styrofoam packaging as fuel”. Their report points out that “those cables contain heavy metals such as lead, which can migrate from the smoke into the soil. Samples taken from around Agbogbloshie indicate lead levels as high as 18,125 parts per million”.

That is “state of nature” – a community or nation where no law applies to human conduct. In Ghana, this state of nature persists for one and only one reason: if you touch those boys, you will lose an election.

The prescription of Hobbes and Locke, among others, was simple: the creation of a state with absolute power to enforce the laws.

Others, especially some social psychologists, argue that the use of force or external influence to obtain compliance amounts to "negative discipline." In its place, they advocate discipline that is internal, what they call “a mental attitude” to obtain a habit of obedience”.

This is the ideal, to which I subscribe, and which forms the reason for my column this week. I am arguing for a state of affairs where the Ghanaian would, by a gradual process of education and human re-orientation, readily obey the laws, willingly and consciously refuse to litter or engage in indiscriminate dumping of waste and willingly refuse to engage in open defaecation, that is to say, “a habit of obedience”.

Paul Kegame of Rwanda, an African country, achieved this in five years – and we can. It will take the use of powerful, creative and subtle communication to apply socio-psychological methods. We will have to communicate with images on TV and sounds/voices on radio; it will take the use of men and women of influence such as the Kwame Sefa Kayis, the Professor Opanyin Agyekums, the Bola Rays, the KSMs, etc.  perhaps a few of the very respectable MPs, the Chief Justice, the Mensa Otabils, Palmer Buckles, among others.

Before then, however, or along with the psychological operations, I advocate the creation of a Ministry Responsible for Discipline. I know someone will remind me that President Kufuor’s Ministry of National Orientation failed. I will not argue, except to point out that attitude change does not happen in a year. Patience, my brothers and sisters, patience.

In creating a Ministry for Sanitation, President Akuffo Addo must have had in mind the above dangerous state of affairs at Agbogbloshie and Kaneshie. I do not know.

For the Ministry of Discipline I have in mind, I would suggest as its Minister, Professor Agyemang Badu Akosa. Perhaps Professor Frimpong Boateng would have been the first choice (because he is NPP), but he has something on his plate for now.

I do not know Dr Kofi Adda, the man designated for the Ministry of Sanitation, but I know that a Minister for Sanitation should have the Akosa gift for advocacy. Sanitation goes beyond declaration of Sanitation days. It requires attitude change among a disciplined citizenry, the type achieved when Akosa, within 24 hours, changed the breakfast habits of hundreds of Ghanaians. He was on air one afternoon advocating the eating of Hausa Koko and Kose for breakfast. The following day, there were long queues of people, including car-fuls, at all the Hausa kooko joints in Accra. This was achieved without force, without insults.

Why not the police? They don’t come in when what is at stake is attitude change as a means to spread  discipline. Besides, although Ghanaian policemen and women are some of the sharpest around, their boss, the IGP, is a political appointee. That is the only reason why nobody was arrested at Chereponi and Odododiodoo.

I tell you, folks, if we cannot solve sanitation/indiscipline, we cannot solve anything in Ghana.