I am watching the current brouhaha between the government and the NDC over missing government vehicles with amusement; the drama just fills me with uncontrollable laughter. Are these guys telling the country that they have nothing better to do than to engage in this silliness over properties that rightfully belong to the citizens of Ghana?
The whole spectacle of groups of uniformed soldiers and police officers chasing former government officials from one corner of Accra to the other to repossess cars is a huge embarrassment and a sad commentary on our system of governance. How did it come to this? Well, blame pure bitterness and political partisanship.
It is delusional to think that officials of outgoing African administrations will readily give up official property without dragging their feet and throwing dust into the eyes of citizens. And it is equally foolish to see those insisting on the return of government cars as genuine, bonafide patriots, doing something good on behalf of their country.
Let’s face it, politicians from the NDC and NPP are not being honest to their country men and women about the supposedly missing vehicles. Who in his or her right frame of mind will even consider the notion that the truth is being peddled here. Someone is deliberately misleading the public.
What we have learnt so far about the vehicles leaves us wondering if the hard truth will ever be unearthed, come out. While the NDC profusely claims that every single car that was used officially has been turned over to the current administration, the latter insists that it has no returned official cars in its possession.
So they do what Ghanaian politicians do best; take to the airwaves to savage each other and to engage in acrimony and exchange bitter words And we thought the electoral victory of the NPP was going to be the beginning of a new political environment in the country. How wrong we have been.
Which of the two political behemoths is the honest broker? Hard to tell. If you are a party partisan, an ideologue, of course, you will believe whatever your party says. Truth ultimately becomes a victim of partisanship, and the Ghanaian suffers. It is only in Africa that politicians are treated like babies, pampered, in fact given everything; big salaries, expensive imported cars and beautiful homes.
Elsewhere, politicians take the train to parliament or congress to pass legislation. But in Ghana, politicians won’t even think of taking Trotro to work. To them, it is embarrassing to be seen with ordinary folks in the same rickety old Trotro. Instead, they crave those big, expensive American and Japanese cars.
Our politicians have become swollen headed because we made them that way; they are spoiled rotten brats. If we hold them accountable by threatening to unseat them at the ballot box, perhaps, they will turn new leaves and do what is right for us.
