Nineteen attempts on the life of one African President!
Why? More directly, the question is, why must Ibrahim Traore go?
To want Traore out is the same reason Sankara had to go and the same reason why Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi had to go.
Their sin? They tried too hard to take their masses out of poverty and make Africa less dependent on loans and “free” aid.
Yet, thank God, the murder of Africa’s ‘prophets’ only hastens their immortality and their beautification as saints.
Check the developmental track record of Sankara.
He built roads and a railway to tie the nation together, without foreign aid; sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of ministers; reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and first-class airline tickets.
Sankara was incorruptible
Check Nkrumah’s track record.
He did not own a house (not to talk of mansions).
Everything he had, including his clothes, was owned by the ‘Republic of Ghana’.
They were stamped as such.
By 1966, there was a factory in almost every region of Ghana, converting local raw materials into finished industrialised products.
Ghana was even manufacturing glass!
Nkrumah was incorruptible
Under Muammar Gaddafi, electricity was free for all citizens, there was no interest on loans, the home was considered a human right in Libya, all newlyweds in Libya received 60,000 dinars (US$50,000) from the government to buy their first apartment, education and medical treatments were free in Libya, Libyans taking up farming as a career received farmland, a farming house, equipment, seeds and livestock to kick-start their farms – all for free.
Where would he have come by the money if he and the system had been corrupt?
And now, Traore.
He has inaugurated a national gold refinery expected to process 150 tonnes annually, he reduced the salaries of ministers and parliamentarians by 30 per cent while increasing the salaries of civil servants by 50 per cent.
He banned legal wigs and gowns in local courts and introduced traditional Burkinabé attire, he opened Burkina Faso’s first dairy factory, producing a range of dairy products; he launched the Sino-Burkina cement factory, with an annual production capacity of 750,000 tonnes.
Under him, Burkina Faso’s GDP grew from approximately $18.8 billion to $22.1 billion.
His most unpardonable sin is that he has rejected financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Where did the money come from?
Ghana
In Ghana, John Dramani Mahama has set up the Ghana Gold Board (GOLDBOD) to which he has allocated US$279 million as a revolving fund for the purchase and export of at least three tonnes of gold per week from artisanal small-scale miners.
Already, the management has announced the Board’s target of $12 billion annually in gold revenue starting next year, as it aims to increase its weekly gold purchases from 1.5 tonnes (in January) to over three tonnes by year-end.
With this, it is not over-ambitious to promise a $10billion “Big Push” - described by economists as “one of the most comprehensive blueprints for tackling the country’s deep-rooted structural challenges.”
The “Big Push” project is predicated on the FACT that Ghana’s Infrastructure deficit is a barrier to development: a housing deficit of over two million units, a transport sector where over 57 per cent of urban roads are classified as poor and where road contractors are owed some GH₵20 billion, resulting in hundreds of stalled projects.
Mahama’s shopping list – including dualisation of critical highways such as Accra-Kumasi, Accra-Aflao and Accra-Takoradi, coupled with the construction of bridges and rural feeder roads – sounded like promising beggars horses to ride.
In the rail and urban transit sector, he has promised to revitalise the Eastern and Western rail corridors and introduce light rail systems in Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi.
In the WASH sector, his promise goes to people in under-served cities and towns, namely Ho, Tamale and Yendi.
For people who have become acquainted with failed promises and extended poverty, these sound like an unachievable utopia.
But, dear reader, how can we earn US$12 million from gold and lose US$3 billion every year to corruption? Do we necessarily need a military leader or strong-arm super-honest civilian to achieve incorruptibility?
I am not in love with our type of parliamentary democracy and all-powerful President, but if we must continue to endure this pain on our neck, my suggestion is that we adopt the system under which every project must be subjected to corruption-risk assessment before it is laid before Parliament.
See how Ghana benefited when OSP Martin Amidu did this for the Agyapa project.
Can we imagine Ghana in 10 years if we allowed ourselves to proceed and continue on this path without allowing corruption, born of selfish greed, to get in the way?
The writer is the Executive Director,
Centre for Communication and Culture.
E-mail: ashonenimil@gmail.com
