President-elect Akufo-Addo
[Reflections]
A new dawn is upon Ghana and Africa.
Like a tidal wave, the indomitable Ghanaian people in the millions went to the polls on Wednesday March 7, 2016, to exercise their democratic rights, and elected Nana Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to be the next president of Ghana.
Although in historical perspective the election of Akufo-Addo might not be as significant as the election of Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) in 1951 and 1957, it is nonetheless as profound in its implications for the future of democracy and the rule of law in a continent that is teeming with parasitic dictators.
As the President-elect embarks on the arduous task of tackling the cancer of corruption, anemic economic growth and high unemployment among youth in particular, he deserves the moral, practical and intellectual solidarity of democratic forces in Africa and progressive people all over the world.
He deserves more than our prayers because his election heralds a new dawn and should inspire hope and renewal of faith among democratic forces in the continent for two principal reasons.
To begin with, Akufo-Addo is from a distinguished political pedigree and is no doubt conscious of his patriotic destiny not to betray the sacrifices of the first generation of nationalist leaders who fought for democratic dispensation in Ghana during the twilight of European colonial imperialism in Africa after World War II.
But most importantly, he deserves out support because he is an enlightened, ethical and principled democrat and judicious lawyer of great integrity. His democratic credentials are indeed unimpeachable.
During the ominous era of military dictatorship in the country, for example, despite risks to his life, he stood up to campaign for a return to multi-party democracy. As a result of his efforts and those of like-minded compatriots, military rule came to an end in Ghana in 1992; and since then, the country has been a multi-party democracy.
The second reason why democratic forces in Africa and progressive people the world over should demonstrate solidarity with Akufo-Addo is impersonal, but of enormous historical and symbolic significance. This derives from the unique position Ghana has always occupied in African history.
Ghana, formerly referred to as the Gold Coast, has had the distinction of being a trendsetter in Africa since the advent of European human trafficking in Africans in the sixteenth century.
The present-day Ghana is the region from where Europeans first captured and took into slavery Africans in what has become known as Trans-Atlantic human trafficking from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.
During the period of the new European imperialism, Ghana was regarded as a British model colony in Africa; and at the twilight of British colonial imperialism in Africa after World War II, Ghana was the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to blaze the path for attainment of juridical self-government and independence from Britain in 1951 and 1957, respectively.
In the immediate post-colonial period, Ghana, under Kwame Nkrumah, provided a dynamic brand of leadership for Pan-African renewal and progress and served as a torchbearer and role model for the continent.
Later, it was in Ghana that the first discernable authoritarian tendencies reared its ugly head when the mono-party state was adopted in 1963.
Subsequently, when on February 24, 1966, the Ghanaian military overthrew the democratically elected government, it marked a watershed in African history not least because it had a domino effect in the continent in that soon thereafter other military forces overthrew democratically elected governments in their countries.
The various military coups set a new trend of the use of violence to change governments in the continent.
Military coups and rule were followed by militarization of politics as well as politicization of the military, which consequently led to the emergence and growth of a lethal value system known as militarism in the continent.
Finally, in 1992 Ghana set an example of how to successfully revert to genuine multi-party democratic politics after military rule.
In the history of peacekeeping and humanitarian missions under the aegis of the United Nations, Ghana has made enormous contributions and has arguably been a shining role model by punching above her weight, since the Congo Crises in the early 1960s.
Ghanas positive leadership role as a trendsetter in Africa was perhaps best captured and memorialized by the inspiring clarion call and vision that the great Pan-African leader, Kwame Nkrumah, crystallized in his independence speech on March 6, 1957, when he declared: Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa.
When Kwame Nkrumah issued the clarion call, European formal colonial imperialism was regarded as the principal evil in the continent, as under it Black Africans were denied fundamental freedoms and rights. Today in Africa, the principal evil is backward-looking dictatorships.
Because Ghana is not an island unto itself, and because of the country’s historic role as leader in the continent, Akufo-Addo should take the mantle of trendsetter and adopt Nkrumahs vision, though perhaps not his ideology, to link up the struggle and success of democracy and the rule of law in Ghana with the crises and prospects for revival in the continent.
In the context of the early twenty-first century, it is the anti-democratic dictators in Africa that have in the main generated a multitude of crises in the continent. The dictators have contributed to the crises by denying their people the fundamental democratic rights to elect who should govern them.
Akufo-Addo should, both in policy and in practice, make it clear that the dictators, who have betrayed their people and the history of struggle for self-determination should be eliminated from the continent and consigned to the dustbin of history.
It must not be forgotten that the first generation of African nationalist leaders sacrificed a lot in the 1950s and 1960s, as they fought valiantly for the transcendental ideals of equality, non-discrimination, nation-building and international solidarity, under the banner of self-determination. Virtually all of the ideals have today been betrayed by a greedy group of medievalist dictators who, like locusts, have denuded the great majority of African people of hopes and affirmative aspiration.
Among the parasitic dictators are: Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo who was in power from 1967 until his death in 2005 and has been succeeded by his son Faure Gnassingbe; Jose Eduardo dos Santos who has been in power in Angola since 1979; Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea in power since 1979; Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe in power since 1980; Paul Biya of Cameroon in power since 1982; Yoweri Museveni of Uganda in power since 1986; and Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo Brazzaville in power since 1997.
Although there are certain peculiarities about the individual dictators due largely to social customs and historical conditions, all the dictators have been driven by anachronistic medievalist logic to personalize and criminalize the states over which they rule.
Accordingly, they have built apartheid-style systems in which rights and privileges are accorded to individuals on the basis of family and ethnic affiliations.
Surely, if enlightened and democratic forces mobilized against apartheid in South Africa, which used race as a criterion to accord rights and privileges, it would be a betrayal of moral principle not to mobilize against the current ethnic-based dictatorships in Africa.
Bereft of any moral scruples, the various dictators have surrounded themselves with family members and kin and kith sycophants to loot the vast resources of their countries and to bank them in off-shores accounts. They have done this while the great majority of ordinary Africans live in sheer hell on earth. The desperation and plight of young Africans in particular are perhaps dramatized by the thousands of immigrants who risk perilous journeys across the Sahara and the Mediterranean to get to Europe, thousands perishing along the way.
Tragically, the various dictators in Africa have not only transformed their families and ethnic groups into a politico-military caste but they have also eviscerated institutions and substituted their personal whims and prejudices for long-term state priorities. In the process, they have subverted the very ideals of equality, non-discrimination, nation-building and international solidarity that Pan-Africanist leaders in the 1950s and 1960s fought so hard for.
With the continent bedeviled with vicious dictators that have destroyed institutions of democracy and the rule of law, the election Akufo-Addo in Ghana comes at a critical juncture in African history. His success in fighting to eradicate waste and corruption, to revive the economy and to resuscitate independent institutions of the rule of law in Ghana should not only redeem the promise of Africa, but also inspire democratic forces that are fighting for democratic pluralism and against dictatorship in the continent.
Because the success of Akufo-Addo in trendsetting Ghana will redound to the pride of all Africans.
It is imperative that a hand of solidarity should be extended to him, as he is inaugurated as Ghanas president.
Professor Amii Omara-Otunnu is
UNESCO Chair in Human Rights
University of Connecticut, USA
