Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh : We must grow
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter — Dr Martin Luther King.
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Two issues are worth discussing. These are the Talensi by-election and the lost opportunity initiated by Mr Affenyo Markin to have our Parliament give meaning to provisions in its Standing Orders for a number of Ghanaian languages to be used in discussions on the floor of the House.
The Talensi Constituency by-election has become part of history. But it clearly established a fact that as a country, we have not grown. It equally brought to light that there are some of us in high public offices who do not understand or appreciate our responsibilities to our people. Was it worth the violence that was recorded and the well-armed security personnel? We should be thankful to God that no fatality was recorded. Maybe, government functionaries and political activists, beyond agents, must be banned from touring polling stations during elections.
Was it the best means of dealing with a potential crime the way the Minister of Communications handled what he considered a plot to cheat in the election? How did the mobile phone number get into the public domain? Was it a ruse to cause disaffection for an individual or create a means for bugging or tapping that phone or in fact, there was a national interest to be protected?
Apart from the legitimate expenditure of the Electoral Commission, we need to know how much was taken from the Consolidated Fund directly and indirectly to finance per diem and transportation of security personnel, public officials, including government appointees who left their public responsibilities and travelled to campaign in the by-election, from the President, through the Vice-President, to ambassadors and Ministers of State, as well as other civil and public servants involved in the campaign.
Unless it coincided with the leave period of Ambassador John Tia Akologo, we must know how much the state expended to enable him come down to campaign. His presence was critical for the National Democratic Congress since the rancour between his supporters and that of Mr B.T. Baba, was canvassed as the reason why the NDC lost the parliamentary seat in 2012, when its presidential candidate beat the NPP counterpart by a wide margin.
Twenty-three years into the Fourth Republic, our governments must ensure that development projects are carried out on a sustained basis, not only when bye-elections occur. That is not how to strengthen democracy.
But, there is another lesson, the positive one. If we appoint competent , respectable and capable electoral officials and party agents to manage our election processes, we would eliminate fraudulent practices. There would be distinguished individuals in each of the electoral areas who must be deployed to serve their nation. It should not matter the political affiliations of such persons, once they accept that they are there to serve the people, not just their political parties, they would be useful to our democratic journey. We need electoral officers who would not write 27zero or twenty seven0,if indeed the figure is 270.
Turning to Parliament, it is very unfortunate that MPs have not fought for the necessary facilities to give full meaning to provisions in the Standing Orders that selected Ghanaian languages be used officially on the floor of the House. Whilst it is true that English is the official language and must ordinarily be the language for public discourses that should not hamper the adoption of some Ghanaian languages for official use. That is the only way to develop Ghanaian languages for diffused use.
Sometimes when one listens to the English of some of our MPs in debates, one feels uncomfortable because as we say in Ghana, some of them shoot bullets or butcher the English. The House must make it easier for members to express themselves in Ghanaian languages. If individuals decide to speak English, no matter their level of proficiency that will be left to them.
That was the experience I gained as an elected member of the Afigya Sekyere District Assembly. We adopted English and Asante Twi, to enable members choose the language to use to contribute to discussions. Whilst those of us who felt sufficiently educated chose to speak Twi to convince our constituents that we could speak our mother tongue fluently, those not sufficiently educated decided to speak English to convince the same people that they were capable. The district chief executive, who vehemently opposed the idea of English, never presented a sessional address in Twi because he was handicapped in the language.
Fluency in a language is not synonymous with competence or knowledge. Therefore, we must act functionally such that the competencies of our MPs are not measured by how good they are in the use of English.