There are certain English words I have learned to pronounce with ease, in this elections season. One of such words is “peace”. Another – peace’s super-famous cousin – is “accountable”, which probably owes its current fame to the President’s ongoing nationwide “Accounting to the People” tour. But while the beautiful chorus of our national anthem cannot be heard over blasts of gunfire and wails of Ghanaian mothers —while peace is supremely important, Ghanaians have already established, beyond doubt, that they are completely capable of conducting peaceful elections. So I am hereby tempted to give “peace” some peace, and focus my brief reflection on “accountable”.!!
Specifically, I am tempted to ask the question, “Given the popular culture in Ghana, is accountability a concept to which Ghanaians can actually relate?”
I am tempted to ask myself, “In how many Ghanaian homes can mature, educated children question their parents on how family priorities are set, and how family resources are used?”
How many Ghanaian wives have to abandon their personal goals and ambitions because “the man of the house” doesn’t quite agree? And how many school teachers honestly prefer confident students, who, on a daily basis, ask tough questions and challenge teachers, to calm, submissive students, who just watch the board, copy what they see, go home, and do their homework?”
And asking myself these questions, and really seeing the perhaps inconspicuous continuity between these norms and governments’ supposedly best practices of accountability, it is hard – impossible, even – for me to see how in God’s green earth, – or more accurately, how in God’s red, gold, green, earth – Ghanaians can actually grasp the notion of being accountable to the people. I mean, how!?!!
What will happen, for example, if just when it was my turn to buy my waakye, I saw an animal whose body looked like a cat’s, but had the head of a woman, standing right beside me, looking up directly at me? I know what will happen. I’ll faint, and wake up after Christmas. That’s what will happen. Forget waakye! But then for some reason, when it comes to politics —when it comes to elections, surprisingly, we tend to expect the impossible. We tend to desire – demand – leaders who are “accountable to the people”, as if any of us actually owned a pet with a cat’s body and a woman’s head.
As if there were any of us who wouldn’t want to wake up immediately from a dream in which such an entity suddenly,
And so even as I get more and more acquainted with the sound of “accountable” in this exciting elections season, I remain grossly confused as to how so many Ghanaian fathers remain tyrants over their families, how Ghanaian teachers and Ghanaian students hate students who are “too known”, and while leaders of student groups, religious groups, and so on, hate to be questioned or in any way demanded to be accountable to the people, and yet, Ghanaians seem to want – seem to think that they could even have – a president who is accountable to the people. And I am painfully aware that there is an argument to be made for the glaring fact that Ghanaians cannot continue to embrace the kind of culture they practice in their homes, in their schools, at almost every level of the Ghanaian society, really, and still expect their leaderships to be “accountable to the people”, as though presidential elections were aimed at choosing Martians to lead Ghanaians.!!
At any rate, perhaps only a president who is truly accountable to the people —whoever that could be, in this culture that passionately, overtly rejects accountability, could ease my confusion. I just can’t think far, otherwise. God bless Ghana, gateway to Africa!!!
Abed!
About Abed!!
Abed is Founder of Homeland Global, a young international non-profit organisation that is working to transform the way stakeholders interact, across multiple sectors of community development. Abed is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fort-L; a company that manages a diversified portfolio of services, with a particular interest in youth employment.
He is, as well, Founder of a few community service initiatives, and Supporter of a few more. He had part of his university education in the United States, later leaving for the United Kingdom to graduate with a dual honours in mathematics and philosophy. As a person with diverse interests, he spent his summers studying philosophy at Rewley House, University of Oxford, and at Corpus Christi College, also at the University of Oxford, studying vocal music at TechMusic School in London, and stand up comedy at the American Comedy Institute in New York City, performing at the famous Gotham Comedy Club. Abed is a witty writer, intriguing speaker, and a proud Ghanaian.