Reducing political tension: Africa must do away with winner-takes-all - Dr Kojo Asante

The Director of Advocacy and Policy Management at CDD-Ghana, Dr Kojo Asante, has urged African governments to abandon the winner-takes-all governance system on the continent to ease the tension in the political space.

He said African countries must rather vigorously promote policies of inclusion to reduce marginalisation.

He made the suggestion when he delivered the keynote address at the 10th-anniversary celebrations lecture of the Leadership Diary Training Programme, an initiative of the Youth Arise Organisation (YAO), a youth-focused group that seeks to build the capacity of young people to be ready for life and prepare them for leadership roles.

The celebrations included an anniversary lecture, the launch of a sanitation essay competition and the outdooring of a new flag.

African Ideology

Dr Asante said Africa must develop an ideology to push its development agenda to consolidate independence.

In order to achieve that, he said, Africa must leverage its human and natural resources in a way that reduced poverty, judicial and constitutional manipulation.

At the same time, the continent should be addressing security threats and expanding social responsibilities to address inequality and create opportunities.

Future

Dr Asante said African countries must show urgency in taking the future into their hands to solve the challenges that affected its growth.

He said it was the responsibility of the next generation of Africans to shape and develop the continent while acknowledging their colonial past and legacies they inherited in order to appreciate their challenges.

Dr Asante urged Africans to be alert to the changing global, political and economic dynamics while taking advantage of the emerging global interests that the continent had attracted through multiple economic and political partnerships with many blocs, as a result of its substantial natural and human resource endowments.

Africa’s problem

For his part, the President and Founder of Palm Institute, a Liberal Arts University College in Accra, Dr Peter Carlos Ocantey, said the problem with Africa was the lack of the right leadership.

He said African countries must invest in the youth and prepare them for the future.

Mr Ocansey added that tertiary institutions must develop curricula, programmes and activities to train ethical, skilled, competent and excellent leaders for both Ghana and Africa.

“They must also invest in technology and innovation to enable the youth to compete with their counterparts all over the world,” he added.

Sanitation

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Youth Arise Organisation, Mr Moses Baffuor Awuah, said if the issue of sanitation was to be resolved on the continent there was the need to engage the grassroots of society.

“It is about giving young people the opportunity to develop the culture of keeping a clean society and a clean Ghana and that will be the solution to our sanitation problems,” he explained.