Shouldn’t Pastor Obinim and Nana Kwaku Bonsam go to Parliament?

A lot of excitement has greeted the news that some fine brains have jumped into the contest for parliament. Sadly, it seems we’re ignoring one crucial fact, namely that what we may be in need of are more spiritualists in parliament not fine brains.

Look as far back as you may, Ghanaian politics has been decorated by politicians who are themselves well decorated with academic laurels, earned (Dr Limann, Prof Mills) or donated (Nkrumah, Rawlings).

Let’s start with the first president Nkrumah. He enrolled as a doctoral student in LSE, a school well respected in Ghana until it came to light that Hon Ameenu Salifu (of Trees under Schools fame) also claims to have graduated from that school. After Nkrumah, the next democratically elected president was Oxford educated Dr Busia. After Busia, we had Dr Limann, another LSE product, but unlike Nkrumah he completed his doctoral studies. After Limann, we had Rawlings who although a fantastic air-force pilot, yet he doesn’t have much academic laurels to write home about. He’s the exception that proves the rule. After him came Kufuor, who has no PhD but who studied philosophy at Oxford. Following him, Atta Mills, the learned law professor. And we currently have around our collective necks a man who has postgraduate qualifications in communications, which doesn’t show much when he talks.

As you can see, Ghanaian politics has not failed to attract the well educated, the highly skilled; the best and brightest. They have been steering the affairs of state since independence. On the other hand, we’ve never had the likes of Kwaku Bonsam and Pastor Obinim in power. Below are some of the advantages to having spiritualists in power:

1) Spiritualists have supernatural powers; therefore, they can solve almost any problem the country encounters

2) Spiritualists are in direct communication with God; therefore, God will tell them exactly what they need to do at any point in time

3) Because of #2, there will be no need for expensive elections, no need for clamorous debates and discussions

4) Because spiritualists are under the direct supervision of God, corruption will be eliminated, because God will instantly give them a knock on their heads if they ever dared to dip their hands into the national coffers. No wonder Rawlings reposes more trust in Antoa than in the courts of law.

I can already see some of you squirming in middle-class discomfort and righteous anger. And I agree that it is a rather quirky proposal for running a state. So if the highly educated folks are not delivering and we’re too embarrassed to put our faith, no pun intended, in the spiritualists, we could try the next option: i.e. enforce laws and allow the institutions of the state to work.

Editor’s note: The ‘Inside the News by Mpakoo’ column which appears every Monday exclusively on ghanabusinessnews.com is satire.