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Leadership in Ghana and the
next 50 years
Samuel Dowuona,
Ghanadot
Ghana recently celebrated 50
years of nationhood. It has been an ardous journey so far
with constant military interruptions. About six in all. But
the hope of Ghanaians is that the next 50 will be of greater
dramatic growth and development. But many believe that this
leans heavily on strong, dedicated all inclusiveleadership
and the will to participate in government. Ghanadot's Samuel
Dowouna takes a look at the hopes of another 50 years of how
leadership should be for at least the next 50 years.
Accra, June 1, Ghanadot.com - In the run-up to the nation’s
50 anniversary golden jubilee celebrations, a lot was said
about the leadership legacy in this country and how various
leaders and forms of leadership, legitimate and
illegitimate, have contributed to the present state of
development in the country.
A typically unexpected comment was about the actual impact
of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s agitation for “Independence
now”, which led to our epoch making independence on March 6,
1957! Some have dared to say that Osagyefo’s insistence on
“independence now” was a mad rush and was to blame largely
for lots of the woes of the country, in that we were not
prepared for independence then.
Indeed, in his life time he was called a dictator even
though his government was an elected one. But like most
African leaders in the past and now, Osagyefo was known for
subtly running a government of exclusivity, as a result of
which persons who had diverse opinions about his actions
became victims under his infamous Preventive Detention Act
(PDA).
After him, this country has witnessed several de facto
governments who came to power through the barrel of the gun
and a few democratically elected governments, all of which
made some contributions to the present state of the country.
It is instructive to note that quite a number of African
countries identify with the kind of checkered leadership
history that Ghana has had over the past 50 years.
Writing about “Leadership in African States”, may be simple
and complex at the same time. Simple because it is no a
secret what Africans say about the performance of their
leaders – “our leaders have failed us” to put it mildly. But
on the other hand it is a complex subject to deal with
because it demands an attempt to look at the reasons for the
failures and probably hazard some suggestions for the
better.
But hazarding a guess, one would love to explore the
possibilities of what would have become of a 25-year long
plus administration of Kwame Nkrumah. Can you believe what
it would be like? I guess it would be two or three more
Akosombos, more schools, factories and a generally upping of
life as we can see in certain countries such as South
Africa, Egypt, Algeria and perhaps Zimbabwe before the land
crisis came up.
What this does is to bring to the fore the need to make room
for better leadership in Ghana and by extension Africa based
on very profound models put forward by profound and
respected leaders across the world.
At a recent leadership seminar in Ghana Professor John Adair
made what could be described as one of he most profound
suggestions about leadership in Ghana and in Africa for that
matter, Prof. Adair asked “why can’t the government of Ghana
bring together all the religious, traditional, civil
society, students, corporate, media and others leaders in
the country to put together a comprehensive national
development plan for the next 50 years of Ghana’s life?”.
He further queried “why must it always be the a few
political leaders and their close political allies in
society who plan the policies and development agenda and set
the targets for the nation – Ghana can make a change this
time round and make use of the rich religious, traditional,
corporate and other leaders from the scratch in the planning
for the development of this country over the second 50
years.”
John Adair made this profound suggestion in his usually
humble and relaxed posture, but it struck me and others in
the audience, including corporate, civil society and other
leaders like thunder, and you could tell how that suggestion
went down with us when it came to question and answer time.
But yes, Prof. Adair’s suggestion is worth exploring because
lately the gurus and writers of what are considered as the
most modern leadership models, like John C. Maxwell, Myles
Monroe and even some of our own local champions of
leadership change like Prof. Stephen Adei, Rector of GIMPA,
Dr. Mensa Otabil, Head Pastor ICGC, Ken Ofori, Chairman and
CEO, Databank, Emmanuel Dei Tumi, Foundation for Future
Leaders and Albert Ocran, CEO Combert Impressions among
others, all point to an all inclusive leadership style as
the way forward.
Indeed as Adair and his likes would says; there is a
creeping and yet an explosive change in leadership style
going on in the world today and that style opposed to the
bossy management model and is gradually moving towards an
all inclusive teamwork, which Adair calls “Integrated
leadership style”. They have cautioned that this change is
slow but irreversible, even though, some, especially African
politicians as well as civil and public service Directors
and managers would want to wish it away.
For the past 50 years, leadership in Ghana and in most
African countries has been nothing but political; The
politicians alone initiate the policies, they either draw up
the development plans or ensure that their carefully
selected technocrats, who are mainly directors and so-called
experts working in the public service, draw up plans to suit
their purposes. Politicians alone approve of projects before
they are carried out, they alone approve of funds before
they are released for projects. Whatever national leadership
role you think of in African is played by politicians,
competent and incompetent.
Some participants at Adair’s seminar expressed their
concerns about the situations where the policies,
development plans, the projects and what-have-you are all
owned by the politicians; and that in Ghana and in Africa
for that matter, industry, civil society and the masses bore
the brunt of ill-thought policies and economic mismanagement
by politicians and yet it is no secret that politicians and
their families are largely well off.
Prof. Stephen Adei from GIMPA, where modern leadership
styles are lately part of their public administration
curricula, is very popular for his profound statement that
“leader is cause and everything else is effect”.
Prof. Adei insists that leadership and leadership alone is
responsible for whatever goes wrong or right in a family,
organization and a nation, in that followers act based on
leadership directions and actions.
Prof. John Adair agreed with Prof. Adei in saying that the
masses only observe the actions of leadership and that
determines their (the masses) behaviour more than what the
leaders say. Actions, they say, speaks louder than words.
And another writer put this differently that “what the
leader does is so loud, that what he says is not heard.”
On the issue of leadership actions being a determinant of
the followers’ attitude Dr. Mensa Otabil, General Overseer
of the International Central Gospel Church says that
achieving anything in this life, whether a national,
organization or personal goal is one hundred per cent
dependent on attitude and that is why what and who
determines people’s attitude to the national cause are as
important as cause itself.
He has said over and again that politicians by their actions
and often false hopes and failed promises to the masses only
engender a very negative attitude to the national cause in
the masses. “Politicians are not trusted any longer. They
are seen as people who only use their privileged positions
to amass wealth for themselves, their friends and families,”
he explained.
Dr. Otabil has suggested in his most popular and widely
listened-to radio and TV broadcast, The Living Word, that
that attitudinal dis-link needed to be bridged to ensure
that the national leadership carry the people with them on
the path to national development; and that national
leadership should and must go beyond politicians.
As Adair observed, there seemed to be a “barrier”, a dis-link
between political leadership and all other forms of
leadership in Africa. It seems political leaders see
themselves as some special kind of people whose position
makes the destiny of this country their exclusive preserve.
On that score they sideline all the other leaders and
virtually make all the policies alone.
He has proposed that the United Nations and the World Bank
should come in and help Africans get on board the moving
train in leadership change else Africa stands the danger of
being left further behind in the global world.
The few leaders whose writings and words
were sampled before this expose
clearly pointed out that a combination of religious,
traditional, civil society, corporate and other forms of
leadership in Ghana, as a policy
and national development planning body,
was more likely to bring the necessary attitudinal
change in the masses for national development. They argued
that it was a sure way to engender
confidence in the people about the genuineness of leadership
and to get them
involved in national development.
There have been many stories of
how political leadership and public sector managers have
been the reason why some Ghanaians in the Diaspora
interested in returning home for good and putting their
shoulders to the wheels of
development, have changed their minds. The frustrations from
politicians and public sector directors cited are numerous.
For such persons, the proposed
national development body would be great news.
The political leadership of
Singapore in the years of Lee Kuan Yew from 1965 to 2000,
saw the need to bring all hands on deck when that country
was very poor. Some point that
kind of integrated leadership is what has made a small
country like Singapore what it is now. A small country; but
by all standards rubbing shoulders with G8 countries.
With integrated leadership,
professionals of the top-most qualification, no matter their
political ideology,
can be placed in charge of sectors
of their specialty just to ensure that the optimum result in
all sectors of the national
economy is achieved. Development
plans then would become products
that belonged to all and not just one political party
thriving on a winner-take-all policy, seeking to appropriate
the success of the economy to themselves only and nobody
else.
We are just at the threshold of the second 50 years of our
country’s history. There is no better time to give heed to
this valuable counsel than this time. Prof. Adair, Prof.
Adei, Dr. Otabil and others like them think we should put
together all the leaders in the country, political,
religious, traditional, corporate, civil society, students,
media and others to put a comprehensive development plan
together for the next 50 years.
Fifty years down the line, we want
to have a more stable government, all inclusive government,
less bickering, faster pace of growth, higher GDP and GNP
and of course lower inflation - many
within the population of Ghana have concluded.
Samuel Dowouna, June 1, 2007, Ghanadot.com.
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