A GNA Feature by Nathaniel Glover-Meni
Accra, April 20, Ghanadot/GNA
- Like many Ghanaians, this Writer thought he knew Vice
President John Dramani Mahama quite well. He later
discovered that he was wrong.
The savoir-faire and ebullient Politician John that
Ghanaians are accustomed to on television is
surprisingly not the flat character that the news media
cuts of him.
The media often portray Vice President Mahama as a
person with one prevailing trait; that of a “nice”
politician.
Yes, he is a nice person. But he is also a round figure
with an engaging mien, which is as vast as the ocean.
Nonetheless, unlike the deep-sea, which can sometimes be
rough and unwieldy, Vice President Mahama has
demonstrated so far that he would be a steady pair of
hands, a trusted head, and a Vice President with
humanized heart. Vice President Mahama, in essence, is a
person with many traits and characteristics; he is
multi-dimensional.
One of the many traits of the Vice President is a
propensity to use his heart. He is someone who can feel
the pain of others. Hitherto, this Writer thought he was
someone, who engaged in overgenerous pity, as typical of
most Ghanaian politicians. He is the reverse.
The ability to identify with and be sensitive to the
needs of the disadvantaged is a value most Ghanaian
politicians lacked.
They are good at describing problems, but invariably are
wobbly in finding answers to them. Ghanaians are used to
politicians patronizing them in coarse terms, without
long term solutions to long standing problems. Of course
this depicts a certain level of dearth in political
leadership.
The unequivocal point, however, is that to solve
problems of the average Ghanaian, politicians must make
an effort to feel their pain and have the impulse to
measure the hassle and bustle they go through each day
in their torturous lives.
This is what Vice President Mahama has demonstrated over
the last three months; that he can identify with, or in
other words, empathize with the woes of the people.
To empathize is to have a feeling of compassion and kind
heartedness. One could only genuinely attend to the woes
of a people when one felt touched by their plight. The
Vice President seems to have such a heart. He does not
merely sympathize. He has shown that he can make
drooping hearts cheer.
A few illustrations would distil this fact. An example
is how he handled the tomato glut problem in the North.
While on a visit to Bolgatanga, word reached him that
the tomato price in the area had dropped considerably
from GH¢120 cedis per crate of 40 kilograms to as low as
GH¢20 per crate, yet the farmers were not able to get
traders to purchase their produce.
Most of these farmers, as it turned out, had taken bank
loans to undertake their venture. Things came to a head
when three of them reportedly committed suicide.
Vice President Mahama met with a section of the affected
farmers at Navorongo and later inspected their farms to
have a feel of what their problem entailed. A typical
Ghanaian politician would have stopped there or used the
platform to make some high sounding promises which are
never implemented anyway.
Away from the media glare, the Vice President got a Tema-based
company to intervene and succeeded in bringing smiles to
the distraught farmers.
Similarly, Vice President Mahama is working hard to
transform the shea industry in the North. When he first
broached the idea of revamping the shea industry to make
it a big money grosser like cocoa, this Writer thought
it was just another political ruse but he was wrong.
Indeed, Vice President Mahama has demonstrated that the
people in position constituted avenues that ordinary
folks could unload their burdens. Equally,
they must demonstrate that they
have the presence of mind to pay attention to the needs
of the marginalized. This is what Vice President Mahama
is attempting to achieve using the shea industry.
The shea sector, which has been in the lull for the past
nine years, has suddenly been jolted. Mind you, the
global shea industry is projected to generate some 500
million dollars in the next five years and thus could
become a veritable source of reducing poverty among the
many hard working women, who depend on this wild crop
for their succour.
Through the Vice President’s efforts, the Produce Buying
Company (PBC) has signed an agreement with a Brazilian
company for the installation of two plants in the
Northern Regions for the processing of shea nuts into
butter. Per PBC’s own acknowledgement, it was as a
result of the Vice President’s leadership that the deal
came about.
As it turned out, the Vice President was not talking for
an eager media to churn out some good news about him
when he spoke about the need to revamp the shea industry
at a programme in Bolgatanga. It was not the
“pork-barrel political talk” Ghanaians are used to.
By this feat, the Vice President has proved that he
won’t be part of the desultory governance we are used to
in Ghana.
Mr Dan Botwe, Member of Parliament for Okere, had also
been enunciating such ideas.
As one can gather from the examples cited above, having
a heart is crucial, not only because such heart filled
politicians are much better, but they also tend to love
humanity and seek its greater good.
God resides in peoples’ heart and radiates his love
through that vent. Political leaders, who employ the
heart, therefore, tend to elucidate the love of God and,
therefore, are better placed to use their position to
turn the peoples’ sorrows into bliss.
The Vice President uses his mind equally well. While the
heart helps him to feel, it is the mind that provides
the step that ought to be taken in getting what the
heart wants. For instance, challenged by the unremitting
destitution in the Northern Regions and the contiguous
areas in the Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions, Vice
President Mahama has been working quite hard at bringing
some economic respite to these people, the majority of
whom are women.
The pride and joy of his dealings has been the
government’s creation of the Savannah Accelerated
Development Authority (SADA), billed as perhaps the most
aggressive effort ever by any government in Ghana to
close the development gaps between the Southern and
Northern parts of Ghana.
SADA would have a number of development tiers; the
principal ones being transforming the agriculture sector
and providing the requisite infrastructure to support
it.
The Vice President is the lead light of SADA. He is not
only buoyed by his heart; the statistics on poverty in
the selected areas are dire and require critical
thinking to reverse the blot.
If government becomes successful in implementing the
SADA, it would not only have corrected past policy
failures with regard to the development of the Northern
parts of the country, it would also be a far reaching
policy that addresses failures with regard to
development of a sustainable shea, cereals and tomato
industry in Ghana.
Alongside other development oriented personalities such
as Dr Sulley Gariba; Dr Charles Jebuni; Mr Emmanuel
Bombade; the late Cardinal Dery and a few others, Vice
President Mahama would be remembered as the Vice
President who effectively used his tenure to grapple
fully with impoverishment of the areas in question.
In terms of the use of his hands, one can describe Vice
President Mahama as a consummate worker. For him, work
is another labour of love.
However, it is the result of the work that matters and
it is the hope of this Writer is that whatever policies
he is engaged in would have a far-flung effect,
especially on citizens living in those places.
These people are often neglected in the national
development strategies, although they needed such
interventions most. Many of such people now feel jaded
about the ways things have gone.
All in all, one cannot be an effective leader if one did
not suffer anguish. One cannot be a good leader if one
were not sensitive to the morass that confronted the
people. Unbelievable though, many political leaders tend
to behave like automatons, with little or no
demonstrable sensitivity to the plight of the people.
For now, Vice President Mahama has sufficiently shown
that he cares; so far.
His actions indicate that
leadership should not be about the benefits that accrued
to one as a potentate, but how one used the position
occupied to transform people’s lives.
However, for him to continue along this “narrow” path,
he must not, as they say, lose his innocence. He must
continue to radiate the cadence that he is known for.
On the other had if he should lose his virtuousness,
then he would have gone the familiar way many a
politician have trodden. It is the prayer of this Writer
that he would be an exception, which, for the moment, he
has proved he would be.
Mr Glover-Meni is the GNA Correspondent, who covers
Vice President Mahama.
GNA
