#DumsorMustStop: Fallout Of Planned Vigil Illustrates Our Shallow Understanding Of Democracy And How That Is Inimical To Our Progress

Yvonne Nelson might not have intended it but her little campaign has taken off the clean rag covering Ghana politics, exposing its rotten core for the entire world to see.

If there is one thing Ghana likes to pride herself on in Africa, it’s that we have a largely peaceful country and a sufficiently developed democracy. Five successive fairly free and fair elections has given us that reputation.

But in essence, Ghana’s burgeoning reputation comes from being a one-eyed man in the land of the blind. Certainly you can make a case for our peacefulness (although I attribute it pretty much to cowardice and ‘fama nyame’ syndrome), but extrapolating from our elections that we are a democratic nation seems illusory. Certainly if the tenets of democracy being applied in governance is what makes a nation democratic we’re going about it all wrong.

Because the perfect image just hides a core of deep partisanship, tribalism, and other deeply dividing lines that ensure we’ll almost never be one people. If there is one thing that should unite all Ghanaians, it is the suffering dumsor has wrought on us the past few years. Yet we have shown, leaders and citizenship alike, that our political differences far outweigh any need for truth and honesty in public discourse.

In discussions of the planned vigil, people always come in with their preconceived notions. Supporters of the NDC call the planners and supporters of the vigil all sorts of names, despite the fact they’re smack dab in the middle of the suffering caused by dumsor and feel it just as keenly as the next man.

We feel that our political affiliation should dictate the position we take on issues, not trivial considerations like honesty and accountability. If you’re feeling reluctant to take any action and others feel the need to take it too, all it earns them are name-calling and shameful insults.

In truly democratic nations people analyse issues based on how it would affect them, not what party colour they’ve tied themselves to. Sure they have their biases and such, but you do not see this dogged attachment to partisanship that colours everything as we see down here.

Democracy calls for recognising contrarian views, but how you express them go a long way. Yet you try that in Ghana and all you get are insults, and allegations of working for the opposition despite the fact you’re raising perfectly legitimate concerns.

It’s a mindset I do not understand, and accounts for why nothing gets done. Since this campaign was organised, the frontrunners have been called wh*res, accused of being opposition lapdogs, countless other invectives labelled at them; yet all they’re trying is a vigil to protest the biggest problem facing our nation right now.

If you can draw so much flak for attacking such a universal complaint, you can see why I would remain unimpressed with protestations of Ghana’s great democracy. Because we remain a deeply divided nation, quick to politicise any issue of public interest. In such a climate, nothing would ever get done.

Peaceful we might be, and we can be grateful that we’ve dodged a lot of the problems plaguing countries around us. But we have the potential to be so much better, and our deep partisanship and shallow understanding of what democracy really means would keep us tied down and unable to give ourselves the lives we truly deserve.

PS: I have kept my complaints generic because it’s a general problem, not with any particular party; though I have to say the NDC have perfected it to an art. We’re living in a country riddled by problems, largely brought on by the administration of John Mahama, but you wouldn’t know it listening to them.

And they have their lapdogs to go on the attack whenever legitimate concerns are raised, and they’re safe in the knowledge that no matter how much you f**k up, John Mahama would never fire you.