Behold, next President of Ghana!

Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng was once asked by an interviewer if he agreed with suggestions to drop History from courses offered in Ghanaian universities.  

For a man who believed in scientific solutions to African problems, he surprised the interviewer by insisting on the study of History.

Reason: that the study of history unmasks and dissects the make-up of intellectual prodigies who turn out to be monsters pulling down society’s pillars of morality.  

Most Ghanaians who have followed me in the Daily Graphic (pre-dating the current regular Friday column) have an idea who I want as President of Ghana. 
One of them is Frimpong Boateng.

Ten years ago, I did a piece in the ‘Graphic’ headlined, ‘Frimpong Boateng, the President we’d never have’.

Another is Kwame Pianim, the economist. A third is Professor Stephen Adei, the former Rector of GIMPA.

Besides their competence and personal vision for life, none of them will ever take a bribe.

 I knew that no matter how hard anybody probed, no-one could rail an allegation of corruption against Frimpong Boateng and sustain it.

O, of course, he is human and like all humans, he errs.

For instance, he doesn’t suffer fools, so in his dealings with corrupt minds, his temper could stand in the way.

Two years ago, at a ceremony at which my NGO honoured 15 Ghanaian media legends, I described Kwame Pianim, Guest of Honour for the occasion, as “The man who should have been President”.

I have a number of female Presidents-who-may-never-be. Watch out for the list. 

Greatest need

I said it last week and I repeat today, that Ghana’s greatest need is not a political saviour: We’ve had saviours who, in the end, have, at the end of their tenure, been found to be in need of salvation themselves.

What we need is a pragmatist like Pianim with a long record of solving institutional problems and leading teams to lift organisations out of hopelessness.

Above all, we need a principled leader (not necessarily religious), who would be on an integrity crusade to create a society where a Minister of State or top Public Servant would behave like the German Ambassador to Zambia (about whom I wrote last week): returning a Christmas gift of electronic gadgets sent to her by a Zambian businessman.  

We need a John Mensah Sarbah who returned legal fees paid to him by the Aborigines Rights Society for representing them in the legal battle against the Lands Bill of 1897.

You may find it utopian but I am praying for a President who would transform Ghana into the type of society which a Raymond Darku wrote about on social media, as follows:

“When I landed in Switzerland, I searched for Christianity ...

I did not find large billboards announcing life changing programmes with pictures of prophets.

I did not find Swiss TV preachers sharing the gospel on Sundays or any other days…

So I decided to change the locations of my search...

I found the values of Christianity living in most Swiss people.

I found most Swiss people keeping to their word….

Many [people] sought to do the right thing and police those who did the wrong thing”.

Yours truly is praying for the society which a friend discovered when he went to Japan. In a bus, the moment he and some other elderly passengers (blacks and whites) got on board, the young ones, en bloc, gave up their seats for them.

Group

I was in Holland in 1982 among a group of journalists from developing countries.

 At the post office, we found postcards arranged nicely, with a box of coins beside them on the table.

People came, picked up cards and paid for them, without supervision.

A colleague Third World journalist (name of country withheld) went up to the table, picked quite a number of the postcards and “cleverly” shook the can of coins, creating the impression that he had dropped in many coins (one card was less than a tenth of a guilder).

He was surprised that no-one was watching: it didn’t cross their minds that any human being could cheat in a personal moral transaction like that. 

Integrity, honesty

We are one of the countries with the largest number of churches and mosques anywhere, and perhaps the largest number of religious broadcasts.

A friend, Captain Andy Sam (retired), says, “Ghanaians are like the devil; he knows scripture”.

In the Western Region of Ghana, a number of young men and women working at a cold store have stolen so much fish from their employer that from their basic post-SHS monthly salary of GH¢ 700, some of them have bought private cars.

They drive the cars to church on Sundays.

Nobody has ever questioned them how they make their money. 

Give me the male or female adult who can help Ghana to attain the level of honesty and life of integrity displayed by the German Ambassador and Mensah-Sarbah.

 He/she is my next President of Ghana.

The writer is Executive Director,
Centre for Communication and Culture.

E-mail: ashonenimil@gmail.com