Political parables for everyday people
There must be something wrong with me. It is not that I walk on my head, eat fufu with a fork and knife or belch through my ears. It is just that I seem to grumble too much about things everyone appears to find very normal. If I am the odd man out in everything, it can only mean that I am the abnormal one, don’t you think?
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Let me advance a couple of arguments relating to official corruption and politics to prove the point: Most people for example appear to see nothing wrong with the very perplexing issue concerning the Auditor-General; We pay this gentleman who has the requisite skills to take regular peeks into the accounting books of public institutions and to report to us how the institutions are managing and expending our cash.
In one particular year, the Auditor-General tells us in his report that GH¢460,786,338 of public cash has been stolen. Mark you, he does not say “stolen” but comes up with other misleading variants of plain old stealing to describe the financial crimes: Embezzled, misapplied, diverted, misappropriated etc.
The authorities did one thing in response to the revelation: Nothing! Emboldened, those stealing our money hiked up their illicit harvest, helping themselves to GH¢2.538 billion the following year!
If you think that is a lot of money, then here is the real news. Successive biannual reports of the Auditor-General have repeatedly revealed the same level of plunder and squander of public money for the past 30 years and more! The authorities have done one thing about the stolen cash: NOTHING!
Right out of the blue, the Auditor-General recently served notice that he was recommending that immediate steps be taken to make public officials who have helped themselves to public money cough up the loot and face prosecution into the bargain.
All public officials who have appropriated public money for private use through various political administrations up to the Mahama administration should be brought to public account and not a few. It is necessary to go as far back into the archived reports of the Auditor-General as possible, and recover all money misappropriated over the years, starting from the first political administration if possible.
Closely tied to the nagging problem of official corruption in most developing countries like ours are two other questions which may hold the key to a solution of Africa’s problems of socio-economic stagnation, limited progress and instability:
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Two big questions
Question One: What is the precise motive for the pursuit of political power in Africa by people who want to be president or serve in high public office?
Question Two: Why is it that those who seek political power are usually so very desperate to get it, that again and again, the process of choosing leaders is so fraught with bitterness, hatred and violence, with some countries actually going to civil war after elections?
In the run up to and aftermath of some previous elections in our own country, it really got worse than scary: I would stake a wager though, that many of our countrymen and women have already forgotten what happened or nearly happened here after the election run-off in 2008:
The opposition went to court to stop the Electoral Commission from declaring the 2008 election results! What made it even scarier on hindsight is that a purported tape recording was subsequently played over and over again on some radio stations in which someone was heard expressing optimism that the court would indeed stop the declaration of the results since the judge billed to hear the case was opposition-friendly or something to effect.
That is the kind of thing that can start the Third World War from an African country.
Thanks to our ingenious conception of partisan politics, you easily get away with a crime no matter how serious, simply by committing the crime and then running down the road screaming ‘help, help, NDC/NPP goons want to kill me”. In no time at all, so-called party foot soldiers will rush to your aid without knowing the facts at all.
Escaping justice and sanction
It sometimes makes it difficult to tell who is a victim of partisan politically motivated persecution and who is a smart fellow trying so cleverly to escape justice and sanction.
I don’t know about those who seem to find all that normal, but I find the great desperation with which people pursue political authority very highly suspicious. We need to answer this question because the only justifiable reason for anyone to seek political power and authority is that he/she has a natural love and passion for people and the development of people.
Unless this question is answered to the satisfaction of people who queue up typically under a scorching sun to sign off our collective destiny as a nation to people whose sole motive is to enjoy with friends, families and political cronies the trappings of high and illicit wealth and all that come with both.
That too is apparently normal!