By : Lang T. K. A. Nubuor
Odometa
The difficulties ahead as noted by analysts and protagonists of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dear Comrades, are indeed daunting in the light of the historical and continued decay of the capitalist neo-colonial system in Ghana.
Here, our fundamental concern relates to the seeming reluctance of the President-elect, John D. Mahama (JDM), to go beyond the current State system and its institutions in the face of those difficulties.
That reluctance is bound to lead to the retention of the said system and its institutions which have historically proved to be and are still impervious to any new policy directions that are aimed at a fundamental change in the Ghanaian polity.
Comrades, the existing State System is one that has been described as a trisystemic system essentially dominated by a set of capitalist neo-colonial institutions – the others being the precolonial and colonial.
JDM’s reluctance reflects in, for starters, his conception of Operation Recover All Loots (ORAL) as an intra-systemic State corruption-fighting organ subordinated to an existing Ministry – the Attorney General.
Such a subordination to rather than the independence of ORAL (in an alternative but newly evolving State) from any of the existing State institutions seems to us to compromise its projected work from the word ‘go’.
This seeks to suggest that any initiative directed at intra-systemic checks on acts of corruption therein would definitely face an organic intra-systemic resistance from the System’s officials to abort it.
We are here learning from and referring to our history under Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who found the inherited colonial State rather impervious to progressive policies and had to initiate its alternative at the Flagstaff House where the 1966 coup d’etât aborted it.
This seems to us to hold true for any intended new and fundamental initiative directed at uprooting any rooted malaise of the existing trisystemic State which is irretrievably rotten in its entirety.
We are anxious to point out that the ORAL initiative, for instance, is bound to fail in its execution once it is not conceived as an institution that is independent of the rotten State that must be replaced – not reformed. As it is now, it appears to be an exercise of standing among thorns to remove thorns.
Yes, Comrades, we are talking about any policy initiative directed at fundamentally addressing the chronic ills of Ghanaian society. To be primarily focused on intra-systemic rearrangements would be disastrous as it would simply follow the historical logic of the decay to compound it.
So far, we have not been assured by JDM of any drive away from this trisystemic State and its institutions in any fundamental way. As it is now it all seems like a future of repeated failures and worsening of the state of affairs.
Not only does JDM’s articulation of the NDC’s concept of the ORAL project express an intra-systemic intent but also his whole interview on VOA (?) projects a commitment to a retention of this rotten neo-colonialist-dominated trisystemic socio-economico-political System.
That explains, it seems to us, the grievous dimensions of the difficulties that today (and the years to come after January 7 2025) face the development process in Ghana and Africa.
Thanks.
Lang T. K. A. Nubuor
Odometa
