Posted: The Chronicle |Thursday, February 25, 2010
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
A former Director of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), Kofi Bentum Quantson, has warned that the current socio-economic conditions in the country, could possibly lead to civil strife or revolution.
He has therefore warned the government, and the various security agencies in the country, to be up and doing before the unexpected happens.
Presenting a paper at a roundtable discussion, organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in Accra on Tuesday, under the theme, ‘Beyond the frontiers of National Security’, Mr. Quantson decried the extent to which Ghanaian politicians had become self-centered, and virtually shunned their responsibility of addressing the concerns of the very people whose interest they claim to represent.
He wondered whether politicians in the country fully understood the enourmity of their responsibility, since according to him, significant sections of society have rightly argued that many of them have not come to realise their responsibilities.
This, according to him, might translate into they (politicians) seeing themselves as categorised plastic professional politicians, out to hawk their political talents for maximum personal or parochial gains, in which case, they stand disconnected from the national interest, thereby becoming potential security risks, especially where the pursuit of their personal interest, collides with the national interest.
“The insensitive hankering for personal gains, can, if replicated across the broad socio-political spectrum, be a real dangerous trend that should be stopped with vigour,” he noted, emphasizing, “politics should not be the wide avenue for wealth and prominence.”
Until effective mechanisms are established to hold Ghanaian politicians at the levels of District Assemblies to Parliament, the security capo believes, “majority of our politicians would continue to gravitate towards selfishness, avarice, and self-aggrandizement and corruption, to the destruction of the national interest.”
He therefore stressed the need for Ghanaians and politicians to disabuse their minds that “politics should not be equated to the acquisition and accumulation of property and wealth at the expense of the people,” since according to him, “that is dangerous, especially when money comes to play a destabilising role in the political process.”
Mr. Quantsons believes that there can be the best of constitutions, and the best of security policies and structures, however, if the end product does not assure justice for all, inevitably, insecurity would spring up and thrive to the detriment of human security.
For this reason, he is optimistic that, “there can be no peace and stability when there is no manifest justice, especially, where there are suspicions, perceptions, or the reality that the injustice being inflicted has vindictive political colouration.”
He stressed the urgent need for politicians to recognise the fact that at the basic level, politics was not only about the acquisition of power, but even more importantly, how that power is exercised.
“If that power does not assure justice for all, because it is used capriciously or whimsically, there is bound to be reaction that generates security tensions, and the consequential actions and reactions in the interplay of power and politics,” he noted.
In all these, the former Director of the BNI, said, “our politicians remain the key actors for better or for worse,” insisting that “the honesty, integrity, sincerity and selflessness they manifest, can influence the national efforts towards peace and security.”
To him, it was high time Ghanaian politicians were tutored to graduate from being perceived as opportunistic, unpatriotic politicians, to matured statesmen with the national interest at heart. Quoting J. F. Clark, to distinguish the difference between a politician and a statesman, he said, “A politician thinks of the next elections, a statesman of the next generation.
A politician looks for the success of his party, a statesman for that of his country. The statesman wishes to steer, while the politician is satisfied to drift.”
He thinks the politician is satisfied to drift, mainly because a principled position on issues cannot feed into his opportunistic personal interest. For that matter, he noted that the politician would have no scruples drifting to where his bread would be abundantly buttered, and where the filling of his stomach can be guaranteed, and therefore described drifting politicians as apostles of ‘stomach politics’.
This, he said, should engage the serious attention of Ghanaians, since it undermines the key democratic pillars of accountability to the electorate, premising his argument on Prof. Kwame A. Ninsin of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), who claimed that “the Parliament of Ghana has evolved to a point where the majoritarian principle is being applied in an instrumental manner, and without due regard for the interest of the nation as a whole.”
In his observation, there seems to be little or no regard for divergent views on the floor of the House, especially, when parliament is deliberating on contentious issues, stressing that the application of the majoritarian principle by a partisan majority – a parliamentary majority which is also the governing party – that applies ‘the whip’ ruthlessly to obtain conformity, even in secret voting, stifles independent expression by MPs, and therefore blocks the articulation of what could reflect the interest of the majority of the citizens in the decisions of parliament. A situation he described as incompatible with democratic expression.
“Whereas, in properly functioning democracies, members of parliament must consult their people, and sound their reaction on important national issues that affect their well-being, our situation appears pathetically different,” he said, continuing, “there is no doubt that many vital decisions were taken with the skimpiest of public education and knowledge.”
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