A Leopard can't change its skin: PNDC vs Rev. Charles Palmer Buckle, NDC vs Rev Martey & Otabil

The Catholic Standard, before it was banned by the PNDC government of Jerry John Rawlings in 1985, was Ghana’s oldest private newspaper, owned by the Catholic Church of Ghana. The editor of the Catholic Standard during the PNDC era was Reverend Dr. Charles Palmer Buckle, the present ArchBishop of Accra.

It will be recalled that when the PNDC ousted Dr. Hilla Limann’s PNP government in 1981, the PNDC carried out several anti-democratic and human rights abuses against many Ghanaians including journalists, chiefs, traders, politicians, judges, university lecturers, ex-police and army officers, trade unionists, members of the clergy and ordinary citizens. For example apart from the murder of the three high court judges and an ex-army major in 1983, the regime also arrested and detained Kwesi Pratt and Kwaku Baako before being freed later on.

On 22 June, 1982, the publishers of the Free Press, Mr Tommy Thompson, his editor, Mr John Kugblenu, and Mike Adjei a senior writer of the paper, were all imprisoned without trial for penning editorials critical of the PNDC regime. After a year in detention the three were freed but John Kugblenu died a week after his release. In February 1985, the news-editor of the Pioneer newspaper together with Baffour Ankomah (the editor of Pioneer in Kumasi from 1983-6 and the New African magazine current editor) “were arrested and detained at Gondar Barracks in Accra accused of publishing ‘false reports’ about an assassination attempt on the life of Jerry Rawlings in Kumasi”. For their crime their heads were shaved. They were also tortured before being thrown into separate guardrooms. They were later released.

Fearing for their lives, several journalists, unionists, business people, politicians and army officers fled the country. For example the editors of Palaver and the Echo fled Ghana. John Dumoga, who edited The Echo, fled to Nigeria by means of a refuse truck. Baffour Ankomah later fled the country after his article ‘Ghana, Marxism and lies’ incurred the wrath of the PNDC apparatchiks.

In 1985 three union members of the Cocoa Marketing Board in Accra were arrested and sent to Gondar Barracks. One of them was tortured to death there. Another Ahmed Pobee, who was then 35 years, was seriously injured after a soldier violently stamped on his manhood. Pobee was freed but later escaped to Lagos in Nigeria after attempt were made to arrest him for the second time. Those journalists who stayed maintained a low profile, stopped writing anything political or branched into sports writing. These activities by the PNDC around the country, imposed what became known as the ‘culture of silence’ on the entire population.

However these atrocities did not go down well with the Catholic Standard and its editor Reverend Dr. Charles Palmer Buckle and many of the private press in the country including Free Press, The Palaver, The Echo, the Pioneer, The Believer, the Ghanaian Voice and many others. As a result the private press and particularly the Catholic Standard and Rev. Palmer Buckle became the mouthpiece of the silent majority. The Standard and its editor took it upon themselves to courageously fight for liberty and freedom for Ghanaians. For instance when John Kugblenu (editor of the Free Press) died in 1984, a week after his release from detention no paper was able to report it. It was Rev. Palmer Buckle and the Catholic Standard who mastered courage to report Kugblenu’s death.

Despite the threat to his life, Rev. Buckle did not budge. He actually developed a martyr’s complex, putting the interest of Ghanaians above his own life. He continued to highlight the brutalities of the regime while at the same time punching holes into the PNDC’s populist propaganda. As a result, Rev Buckle and the Catholic Standard became the target of the PNDC. In fact the agents of the PNDC became incensed and were more ever determined to eliminate the vociferous reverend minister. As Baffour Ankomah observed in his article ‘Ghana’s culture of silence’: “In November 1985, the same Catholic Standard [and Palmer Buckle] antagonised the government with a series of down-to-earth editorials. The editor, Revd Dr Palmer Buckle, became a target, but when government soldiers moved in for the kill, they mistook another priest for Revd Buckle. The priest’s body was found at the Choker beach near Accra the following morning.”

The killing of the priest by regime’s forces was not the first time a man of God, had been killed by the PNDC. Three years before that tragedy, a similar tragedy had happened in Kumasi.

According to Ankomah, the PNDC declared “February 7, 1982 a national day of prayer — every Muslim, every Christian was to pray and ask for God’s blessings on Ghana, especially for rains and prosperity which we needed badly. It was a solemn day. But it so happened that a major in the armed forces stationed in Kumasi, entered a church building where national prayers were being said to ask the congregation to come out to assist in filling potholes on the road in front of the church. A misunderstanding ensued. The major pulled a pistol. He was disarmed by a policewoman in the congregation who suffered a bullet wound in the face as a result. The gunshot so alarmed the congregation that they threw their Christianity out of the window and killed the major….When the news of his death reached the Kumasi Barracks, the Commander ordered his troops into town in pursuit of the fleeing murderers. A reign of terror was unleashed on the near one million residents of the city. For close up to a week, both the innocent and the guilty were arrested, several of them summarily executed, without trial. The pastor of the church was captured three days later and shot. The soldiers sadistically tied his mutilated body to the back of one of their trucks, dragged it along the road from the Barracks to the centre of town (some two miles away), left it to public view for more than eight hours, and finally set fire to it before the eyes of the bemused and frightened inhabitants. Some of the soldiers even ran to the hospital where the policewoman had been admitted. They found her in bed, having just come through a major operation. They shot her in the hospital bed, forcing all the other patients in the ward to flee for their lives. The soldiers then chased the surgeon who performed the operation around the hospital. Fortunately he was able to escape and flee the country. Later, the Commander of the troops came out publicly to say he had no regrets for the week’s incidents — the tyranny, the killing of innocents — and that if they had to do it again, they would.”

That is a short history of the PNDC and the Clergy in the 1980s. The PNDC became the NDC in 1992.

Fast forward to 2010-2016 and the story is almost the same except this time the names of the perpetrators (NDC) and the victims (Rev. Prof Emmanuel Martey of the Presbyterian Church and Rev Dr. Mensa Otabil) have changed.

In the last five years or so, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev Martey, and the founder of the International Central Gospel Church, Pastor Mensa Otabil, have taken on the mantle of leading the LORD’s sheep spiritually as well as ensuring their socio-economic well-being, something which is in line with the Gospel of Christ.

Both reverend ministers have constantly urged past and present governments to administer the country prudently to ensure that Ghana does not remain marred in poverty and underdevelopment. They have also criticised the governments for putting the interest of their parties’ elites above that of Ghana and Ghanaians especially the misuse of public funds and corruption. Their admonitions and criticisms have not sat well with the NDC elites who are the beneficiaries of the economy. The anti-clergy forces, anti-development forces, and pro-corruption forces in the NDC have mobilised against the reverend ministers with the same venom as those who attacked Rev Palmer Buckle under the PNDC.

Recently Rev Otabil asked Ghanaians not to be happy with minimals but rather strive for better things: “We can’t just be happy because a road has been tarred. We can’t just be happy that we didn’t have electricity now we have electricity. We can’t be happy with minimals…citizens must have an appetite for better”. He added “We have to wrest the nation back and control it as citizens of this country and that is the challenge I want to put to you. You have to dare to dream to take our nation back…We have to battle, we have to fight, we have to wrest the destiny of our nation from incompetence and from people, who have determined to run us to the ground…I’m not saying take it back from one party to give it to another party; I’m saying the citizens must take their country back and run their own country” the Pastor said.

These comments made Solomon Nkansah, the National Communications Officer of the NDC, to go ballistic. He accused Rev Otabil of anti NDC bias and inciting Ghanaians against the government and said the reverend is a threat to Ghana’s security. “Under the guise of the Bible, he says all sorts of things against those he is not in support of. But you know what; God is bigger than him and so whenever he says such things people don’t listen to him. I am ashamed and scandalised as a Christian that a man of God can speak like Pastor Mensah Otabil has done…These are the men who are a threat to national security and co-existence. Because you don’t support the NDC government, you are inciting the public against the government. During the NPP regime he didn’t preach this way, he rather preached with the Ghana flag, why is he preaching this way now. The last time it was generational thinkers, today it’s about revolt against minority rule. We can’t continue to countenance such worrying conducts of this Pastor.”

Rev Martey has also come under fire from the NDC elites for saying politicians have tried to buy his silence with money and position. “Politicians had tried all means to muzzle me, to get me but they can’t, they come with bribes, fat envelopes, $100,000…You cannot get me with corruption…Never ever should any politician or political activist go to a pastor or minister with money in order to influence him; if you do that you’ll be in trouble.”

Koku Anyidoho (NDC deputy secretary) and George Loh (NDC MP for North Dayi) have been verbally assaulting the reverend, accusing him of being an NPP apologist and a corrupt man of God. George Loh said “there is something wrong with the Most Reverend and we have to take a second look at him” implying that the man of God is mentally sick. Anyidoho castigated him and said he would deal with him.

It seems Anyidoho, Nkansah, Loh and those castigating the men of God have not learnt from the past mistakes of the PNDC which gave birth to their party the NDC. Such treatment of the men of God by the elites in the NDC does not augur well for the party. The men of God are Ghanaians in the first place. They pay their taxes as Ghanaians. Also government policies whether good or bad affect them, their families and their congregation. They therefore have every right to praise or criticise any government. Asking them to shut up will not help them to fulfil their calling as pastors.

In the Bible Elijah took on King Ahab and his wife Jezebel after they led a corrupt lifestyle and seduced the people of Israel to worship Baal. Jeremiah criticised Kings Zedekiah and Uzziah and warned them of the consequences of disobeying God. Isaiah, Ezekiel and many prophets criticised the kings whose corrupt lifestyle displeased God. When they did not listen, God punished the kings by allowing them to be carried away into captivity. For example God used Nebuchadnezzar to punish Jehoiachin King of Judah by carrying him into captivity. Nebuchadnezzar also punished King Zedekiah whose children Nebuchadnezzar killed right before his eyes. He also put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in chains and carried him to Babylon. God used Jehu to destroy the entire household of Ahab and Jezebel. He also used Pharaoh Necho to dethrone Jehoahaz and took him to Egypt where he died there.

The NDC elites should not act like Ahab and Zedekiah but must strive to build a better relationship with the men of God and God.

By Lord Aikins Adusei
Email: politicalthinker1@yahoo.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lord.adusei

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Politicalthinke
(19/09/2016)

ECG Privatisation: Privatising for who? The experience of Australia, UK

The financial, managerial and technical challenges facing the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have galvanised the apostles of privatisation, anti-state ownership of business and the neoliberal-free market capitalists to strongly advocate for ECG to be privatised.

Their argument is that selling ECG will make it more efficient, financially resilient and economically prosperous. ECG when privatised they argue, will bring huge benefits to Ghana in the form of security of power supply.

In other words power supply will be reliable and the current system of power cuts, blackouts and power rationing will be a thing of the past because privatisation will bring in additional capital, investments and technical and managerial talents.

In the long term prices will be stable or even fall and consumers will be happy. Taxes to government will increase and more jobs in the energy sector will be created. For the government of Ghana, money raised through the sale of ECG will enable it to increase expenditure, cut taxes or repay the nation’s debt.

At the same time privatising ECG will enable the government to access the $500 million Millennium Challenge Compact Funds promised by the US government.

But these are all illusions. In the first wave of privatisation that took place in Ghana in the 1990s, Ghanaians were told that the companies and individuals buying state owned companies would transform them into thriving enterprises providing Ghanaians with endless job opportunities and thus turning Ghana into a prosperous nation.

What they did not tell Ghanaians was that the IMF, the World Bank, the British and the U.S. governments through USAID were behind the push for Ghana to sell its assets as a condition for more loans. In other words these actors used Ghana’s poor financial situation to demand the dismantling of the state and its assets.

There is strong evidence that Mr. Jerry Rawlings and the PNDC resisted pressure to sell state owned-companies. But the IMF, the World Bank, the Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher administrations piled on the pressure using several tactics.

A message from the White House to USAID representatives instructed that they should make sure Ghana sold everything.

Needing cash and unable to raise it at home, the National Democratic Congress party which replaced the PNDC went on a selling spree selling both performing and non-performing companies alike. By 1999 almost 70 percent of state owned assets had been sold. While majority of the state-owned companies sold went to Ghanaians, most of the high valued ones were sold to foreigners. As Prof Antoinette Handley of University of Toronto observed in 2007: “Of 212 divestitures, 169 were sold to locals. This may look like a high figure, but the firms sold to locals were overwhelmingly the smallest, least valuable firms and, in terms of value, may have comprised only ten percent of the total” [1].

One of the sectors of the economy which saw rapid privatisation was the mining sector. The most valuable company in the mining industry was the Ashanti Goldfields Company. For decades the company was controlled by the British firm Lonrho with Ghana having little to no shares at all. Lonrho needed to extend its leases in the 1960s and so it agreed to grant the Ghanaian government 20 percent share in the company to allow the leases to be renewed. When Acheampong’s military government took over power in 1972, it realised how Ghana had been shortchanged. How could Ghana which owned the gold be having only 20 percent shares while a foreign firm controlled everything? the leaders asked. Therefore, Acheampong seized another 35 percent for Ghana, bringing Ghana’s total shares to 55 percent.

However, in 1994 the Rawlings led-NDC government privatised AGC by selling 39.8 percent of its shares. Ghana received more than $454 million from the sale of AGC. What happened to that money is a story for another day. However, Ghana subsequently became a minority shareholder with only 15.2 percent shares in AGC when the NPP replaced the NDC in 2001. Ghana Consolidated Diamonds Limited and other mining firms were also sold.

How did the privatisation of AGC and the mining sector benefit Ghana and how will privatisation of ECG benefit the country? Several reports by the World Bank, United Nations, and Bank of Ghana have revealed that the privatisation of the mining sector has been detrimental to the economy and the welfare of the people of Ghana particularly the communities and farmers in the mining areas. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in 2003 for example, mineral exports from Ghana generated $893.6 million but Ghana got only $46.7 million or just 5% while the companies took the remaining 95% or 846.9 million [2]. Similarly, The UK based The Economist magazine reported that: “Gold accounted for 40% of [Ghana’s] exports in 2008, with a value of $2.2 billion. But the government received only $116m in taxes and royalties from mining firms” [3].

In 2003, the World Bank (the chief advocate of privatisation in Ghana) acknowledged that Ghana has not benefited from mining activities in terms of revenue, employment, infrastructure development and environmental sustainability and urged Ghana’s leaders to take steps to reverse the trend but nothing happened. Using very diplomatic words the World Bank wrote that:

“It is unclear what gold mining true benefits are to Ghana. Large scale mining by foreign companies has high import content and produces only modest amounts of net foreign exchange for Ghana after accounting for all its outflows. Similarly, its corporate tax payments are low due to various fiscal incentives necessary to attract and retain foreign investors. Employment creation is also modest given the highly capital intensive nature of modern surface mining techniques. Local communities affected by large scale mining have seen little benefits to date in the form of improved infrastructure or services provision because much of the rents from mining are used to finance recurrent, not capital expenditure. A broader cost-benefit analysis of large-scale mining that factors in social and environmental costs and includes consultations with the affected communities needs to be undertaken before granting future production licences” [4].

The suffering and agony of farmers and local communities affected by large scale surface mining and who have seen little benefits of mining to date was captured in a study by a Ghanaian scholar Jasper Ayelazuno in 2011. One female farmer from Dumasi in the Western Region told him:

“There is one important thing for us as peasant women in this village that I must mention. We are not educated to get a different job so we depend solely on our land. When we go to the forest, we can fetch firewood free for our own energy needs and to sell for income. But what has the Ghanaian state done? It has given all our land to the white man to mine for gold; and not to do underground mining but surface mining, destroying all our arable lands. In the midst of all this, I cannot say the state of Ghana is good to me or responsive to me. On top of that, the Ghanaian state has given the white man the authority to do whatever they want to us: I have my own land and I cannot have access to it; my water sources (the streams) have been polluted, etc. Up till date, the Ghanaian state has not come to our aid, either to check these mining activities or to provide us with potable water since the mines have polluted our water sources. For me, there is nothing that the Ghanaian state can do for me to view it as a responsive state; so both the past and present government have not helped us” [5].

Since the days of privatisation, more than 50,000 farmers have been displaced by the mining companies who continue to refuse to pay satisfactory compensation to the farmers. While a cocoa farmer could earn $25 a year from a single cocoa tree, mining companies only pay about $8 per tree when they cut the cocoa trees for their mining operations. The economic life of a cocoa tree is between 40 and 50 years [6]. This means most cocoa farmers lose between $1000 and $1250 per a cocoa tree. If this is multiplied by 50 or 100 cocoa trees the financial loss to a farmer could be between $50,000 and $125,000. This injustice is allowed to happen to cocoa farmers because of the mining companies’ closeness to Ghana’s elites. These facts and realities are hardly acknowledged by the torch-bearers of ECG privatisation.

The privatisation of ECG will not be different from what is happening in the mining sector, in fact its impact on Ghana may be far more severe because of electricity’s strategic role in the economy. ECG is a strategic asset, meaning it constitutes a vital part of Ghana’s economy and hence its security. For instance, a private company distributing electricity could decide to sabotage the economy by failing to distribute power to critical sectors of the economy.

One of the reasons why there are constant fuel shortages in Nigeria is due to the fact that import of petroleum products is controlled by few private companies and individuals who sometimes hold the country to ransom by failing to import and distribute fuel. They sometimes create artificial shortage to force prices up just to increase their profit margins. It is this energy and economic security fears which has led Prime Minister Theresa May of UK to kick against China’s involvement of the Hinkely Point C nuclear power project.

From the perspective of the Ghanaian state, the ultimate aim of electricity privatisation is to give consumers lower prices, promote efficiency and reliability, and drive better investment decisions.

But the experience of Australia, United Kingdom and the United States which have implemented electricity privatisation tells the opposite story. In the United Kingdom, the privatisation of electricity has resulted in six big private energy companies dominating the sector including British Gas, Npower, Scottish Power, E.ON, EDF Energy, and Scottish Power and Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE).

The profit-making motive of these companies has led to unusually high prices of energy in the UK. According to Prof Benjamin Sovacool of Vermont University, USA, "from 2004 to 2012 domestic electricity prices increased by more than 75 percent [an increase of more than 9 percent a year] and gas prices increased by 122 percent with gas prices increasing 15 percent from 2011 to 2012". According to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change "For several years prices have been the most influential factor in the movements in fuel poverty. Prices have risen at a rate well above that of income". This high energy prices has made electricity unaffordable for many companies, households and families leading to massive rise of households living in fuel poverty. Any time energy prices increase by 1%, more than 40,000 households become fuel poor. As a result, the number of households living in fuel poverty in all of UK has been rising steeply. It rose from more than 2 million in 2003 to more than 3 million in 2007 to more than 5 million in 2009. In fact, in 2009 about 18 percent of all households lived in fuel poverty and it has been estimated that as of 2015 more than 25 percent of households were living in fuel poverty [7].

Thus a combination of low household incomes,extremely high energy prices and high penalties for nonpayment of energy bills has made it difficult to contain the escalating rise in fuel poverty and its socioeconomic implications for millions of households. In fact, thousands of people die of fuel poverty every year especially during the cold winter and hot summer months. Between 2012 and 2013 over 31,000 died [8] while in 2014 over 15,000 people died [9]. Some families have to choose between food and heating and lighting their homes. Despite the presence of well-developed consumer advocacy groups and media campaigns, energy is the second most important factor after housing rent that takes away a large chunk of people’s income. Some families spend more than 10 percent of their monthly income on energy.

In Australia where some states have privatised electricity, Prof John Quiggin, an Economist at University of Queensland who spent 20 years analysing electricity privatisation in Australia points out that in states in Australia where electricity is privatised, "Privatisation has produced no benefits to consumers, but has resulted in large financial losses to the public".

Privatisation has resulted in dramatic rise in electricity prices as well as serious customer dissatisfaction and complaints. He observed that “Privatisation, corporatisation and the creation of competitive electricity markets were supposed to give consumers lower prices and more choice, promote efficiency and reliability, and drive better investment decisions for new generation and improved transmission and distribution networks. [Instead] prices have risen dramatically. A secure low-cost supply has been replaced with a bewildering array of offers, all at costs inflated by a huge expansion in marketing” [10].

His findings which is contained in a report titled “Electricity Privatisation in Australia: A Record Failure” include the following:

"Prices— have reversed their declining trend, and are highest in privatised States. Since the NEM [National Energy Market] was introduced, prices from 2005 have risen sharply.

"Quality — customer dissatisfaction has risen markedly since the NEM, profoundly for privatised States, where complaints to the relevant energy ombudsmen have grown from 500 per year to over 50,000’. ‘Reliability— has declined across a wide range of measures in Victoria [state], notwithstanding increased “physical audits” and expensive financial “market incentive” programs.

"Efficient investment — has not occurred, as the pricing mechanisms have not delivered coherent signals for optimal investment.’ ‘Efficient operation— resources have been diverted away from operational functions to management and marketing, resulting in higher costs and poorer service…The NEM and privatisation have reduced real labour productivity, as employment and training of tradespeople have been gutted and the numbers of less productive managerial and sales staff have exploded."

Consumers bear the cost of private owners’ debts— ‘In privatised States, customers’ bills include the cost of almost 10% per annum interest on the corporate owners’ debt on the electricity assets. This compares to government borrowing costs of closer to 3%. The NEM has mimicked these exorbitant borrowing costs to all customers.’ Private owners are receiving unjustifiably high rates of return based on the low investment risk — ‘The high rates of return to private owners for the low investment risk is unjustifiable and irresponsible. The private owners of price-regulated distribution assets have outperformed almost all investment classes, by making post-tax real rates of returns close to 10% annually since 2006.’

The examples from Australia and United Kingdom indicate that privatising ECG could deepen socio-economic inequality because affordability rather than access and needs will be the rule. Private companies, who will put profit-making above everything else, will use price increase as a strategy to make huge profits. They will expect Ghanaians to bear the cost of their investment through price hikes. Not all consumers in Ghana will be able to afford the huge price hikes. Electricity could even become a luxury commodity allowing those with the means to buy to live, leaving those without the means to live without it, with serious socio-economic consequences for them and their families. As Ghana seeks the best way to produce and distribute electricity, policymakers must know that privatisation is not always the answer and in Ghana’s case will be unbeneficial.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Notes
[1] Handley, A. (2007) ‘Business, Government, and the Privatisation of the Ashanti Goldfields Company in Ghana’ Canadian Journal of African Studies, 41:1, 1-37 (see pp 8 and 12)

[2] UNCTAD (2003) ‘Economic Development of Africa: Rethinking the Role of Foreign Direct Investment’ http://unctad.org/en/Docs/gdsafrica20051_en.pdf (see page 50)

[3] The Economist (2010) ‘Carats and sticks: mining in Ghana’ The Economist, 3 April 2010.

[4] World Bank (2003) ‘An assessment of the performance of Mining in Ghana’; http://lnweb90.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/docunidviewforjavasearch/a89aedb05623fd6085256e37005cd815/$file/ppar_26197.pdf (see page 23)

[5] Ayelazuno, J (2011) ‘Continuous primitive accumulation in Ghana: the real-life stories of dispossessed peasants in three mining communities, Review of African Political Economy, 38:130, 537-550’ (see pp. 544-5),

[6] Tickner, V. (2008) ‘Africa: International Food Price Rises & Volatility’, Review of African Political Economy, 35:117, 508-514 (see page 4)

[7] Sovacool, B.K. (2013) 'Energy and Ethics: Justice and the global energy challenge'

[8] The Telegraph (2013) ‘Energy row erupts as winter deaths spiral 29 per cent to four year high of 31,000’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/elder/10474966/Energy-row-erupts-as-winter-deaths-spiral-29-per-cent-to-four-year-high-of-31000.html

[9] The Independent (2015) ‘Fuel poverty killed 15,000 people last winter’ 30 April 2015 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fuel-poverty-killed-15000-people-last-winter-10217215.html

[10] Quiggin, J. (2014) ‘Electricity privatisation in Australia: A record of failure’ 20 February, 2014

Burkina Faso attacks: Ghana ready to support fight against terror threats

Government of Ghana condemns Terrorist Attacks in Burkina Faso.

The Government of Ghana strongly condemns the terrorist attacks that took place over the last two days in Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.

The attacks which started on Friday at the Splendid Hotel, the Cappuccino Cafe and also the Yibi Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso have since ended. Over twenty-eight persons lost their lives as a result of this tragedy.

We offer our heartfelt condolences to President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, the relatives of the deceased victims, and the Government and people of Burkina Faso. We stand with our sister country of Burkina Faso in this difficult time and are ready to enhance our cooperation and work together to see an end to this terrorist threat.

We commit ourselves to work with the countries within our ECOWAS region to ensure that our citizens can live in peace and security.

Signed:

Hanna S. Tetteh

Ghanaians should resist making the Guantanamo detainees' issue Muslim/Christian or NDC/NPP matter

 President Mahama should be applauded for helping Obama to close down the illegal Guantanamo detainee prison.

More often than not debates about issues of national economic, political or security significance in Ghana quickly tend into debate between the NDC and the NPP to point that nothing in the country gets. Attempts by certain people to turn the Yemeni detainee issue NDC/NPP or Muslim/Christian affair should be resisted by all. Instead the pros and cons of the government’s decision to accept the detainees should be analysed.

In my opinion, it shouldn’t be difficult for Ghana's security agencies to handle the two former Guantanamo detainees and I do not think President Mahama erred when he reached out to US to help close down the prison facility in Cuba.

There were roughly 780 detainees in Guantanamo of which 678 had so far been transferred to about 56 countries worldwide. Of the 678 transferred, Ghana has accepted just 2 detainees. Other African countries that have accepted some of the detainees include Algeria 17; Morocco 13; Sudan 12; Somalia, 3. Libya, Tunisia, and Mauritania have also accepted 2 detainees each. Egypt, Uganda, and Cape Verde have also accepted 1 each.

Outside Africa, Afghanistan has accepted 203; Saudi Arabia 125; Pakistan 63; Yemen 22; Oman 20; Britain 15; Kuwait 12; Tajikistan 11; Albania 11; Kazakhstan 9; France 9; Slovakia 8; Russia 7; Iraq 7; Georgia 6; Uruguay 6; UAE 6; Qatar 6; and Palau 6. Bahrain, Spain and Jordan have accepted 5 detainees each. Bermuda, Bosnia and Turkey have also accepted 4 detainees each. Germany, Somalia, Belgium, and Switzerland 3 each. Eleven countries including the United States, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania and Ghana have accepted 2 detainees each. Thirteen countries including Egypt, Uganda, and Cape Verde have also accepted 1 each. At least 10 detainees have been transferred to countries that can't be determined.

The problem is that the government wasn't transparent with the people of Ghana about the reasons for accepting the detainees.

Key cabinet ministers including Foreign Affairs’ Hannah Tetteh and Interior Ministry’s Mark Woyongo say they were kept in the dark about the decision to bring the detainees to Ghana. “I don’t know the details for their being here. I wasn’t privy to the discussions but may be that can be found from National Security. They are supposed to comport themselves, not to do anything untoward and I am sure they will be briefed on what to do and what not to do,” says Mr. Woyongo. According to Hannah Tetteh: "At the time the discussions were ongoing – especially because at that point in time it no longer was a foreign affairs discussion, it was a national security discussion – there were some of those discussions I was not privy to.”

Mr. Fritz Baffour, Chairman of Parliament Select Committee on Defence and Interior and NDC Member of Parliament for Ablekuma South says he and his committee members only got to know about the decision to bring the detainees to Ghana on US news network Fox News. “We heard about the Guantanamo bay too from an outside source; the Fox news, who revealed it before our government told us about it. I think the roadmap that was used to reveal what had happened to us was a little flawed…If there is a situation like that I think that we should have been informed or there should have been a way in which that decision could have been passed on to the people of Ghana and I thought that we didn’t handle it well,” he said.

The statements by Ms Tetteh, Mr. Woyongo and Mr. Baffour mean that the decision to accept the detainees was made entirely by the President. As the leader of the people of Ghana and the chief representative of all Ghanaians home and abroad, the president is mandated by the constitution to act in the interest of Ghana and Ghanaians. From international relations perspective the President’s decision was an attempt to boost bilateral relation between the US and Ghana.

Ghana was the first country in Sub-Sahara Africa to have been visited by President Obama when he first became president of the United States in 2009. Back then in 2009, Ghanaians enjoyed the fact that Obama selected the country for his first Sub-Sahara visit. Since President Obama has faced fierce resistance at home (mainly from Republicans about the closure of the prison facility in Cuba), it is right that countries like Ghana that love democracy, human rights and freedoms help Obama to close down the facility.

Lord Adusei

Corruption in Ghana Poses Existential Threat to the Nation

In this article, I argue that the impact of corruption on Ghana’s economy, political stability, national security, the justice system and national reputation makes corruption dangerous than terrorism, climate change, piracy, human trafficking, weapons proliferation and other security threats currently facing the country. Therefore, the fight against corruption should be made a national security priority.

Corruption in Ghana is more dangerous and cunning than terrorism, which currently threatens Ghana and has already overwhelmed Nigeria, Mali, Niger, Kenya, Somalia, Tunisia, and Egypt. This is because corruption corrodes society to its core; it erodes trust, honesty, good societal values, and builds mistrust and suspicion among a country’s population. To quote Dr. Kwesi Aning, corruption and its proceeds “undermine the state, through weakening its institutions, its local communities, and its social fabric”. Because corruption is parasitic in nature, it erodes the ability of the state to develop economically, transform itself socially and culturally, and move forward politically. It seriously undermines a country’s security and hence its ability to protect and defend itself against her enemies.

Corruption and the Economy

Economically, corruption is impeding Ghana’s investment attractiveness and economic performance. For some time now, the World Bank through its ‘Ease of Doing Business’ project annually ranks countries based on how easy it is to do business in the country. Corruption or what the the Bank calls “informal payments to public officials” is one of the set of factors the Bank uses in ranking countries. According to the Bank, Ghana comes on top as one of the countries in the world where the percentage of informal payments made to public officials is very high. Due to the high level of informal payments, Ghana ranks high as one of the countries in the world where businesses feel very reluctant to invest their money. In 2014, out of the 189 countries the World Bank compiled, Ghana came 112th as the best place to do business. In 2015, Ghana’s position got worse, it ranked 114th out of 189 countries. Although the 2014 and 2015 performances are better than 2011, 2012, and 2013 where Ghana respectively ranked 128th, 124th, and 127th, the ranking shows that corruption is having a serious negative impact on the health of Ghana’s economy (1). It particularly increases cost of doing business in Ghana helping to decrease investor confidence and undermining Ghana’s attractiveness to foreign and local investors. In hard, practical language, corruption deters investors. It makes it expensive and unattractive to produce goods and services in Ghana. It also makes goods and services imported into the country very expensive. Producers, importers, and traders end up passing on the money they pay as bribes to consumers, making such goods and services expensive, luxury and beyond the reach of many Ghanaians.

In Ghana, corruption is partly responsible for the rising levels of unemployment, inequality, deprivation and poverty. Corruption scandals like the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA), SADA, SUBAH, and the Metro Mass Transport rebranding, transfer money meant for the development of the nation into the pockets of few groups and individuals to the detriment of the entire society. Like the AMERI deal, which cost Ghana $510 million instead of $220 million, corruption allows the state to pay more for goods and services that can be obtained at far cheaper price. There is no doubt the extra $290 million used to buy the ten turbines could have been used to develop the country’s other infrastructures such as roads, schools, hospitals or buy additional ten turbines to improve the embarrassing state of electricity generation and distribution in the country. Corruption therefore is not only undermining the building, and smooth functioning of key socio-economic infrastructures that serve as the engine of the economy including oil and gas pipelines, oil refineries, roads, bridges, railways, electricity, harbours, airports, and telecommunications), but is partly responsible for the inadequate as well as the poor state of socio-economic infrastructures in the country.

Corrupt practices by Customs and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) officials allow importers, exporters, mining firms and other businesses and individuals to defraud the state to the tune of billions of cedis. Businesses and multinational corporations in particular have been able to avoid paying taxes because of the activities of corrupt public officials and civil servants. Individuals and businesses have been able to hide their money in foreign banks without paying taxes and without being caught. This behaviour has forced the government to borrow to finance development projects effectively increasing the national debt to 70.9% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The debt incurred as a result of borrowing puts pressure on public finances. Poor Ghanaians who do not usually benefit from the borrowed money end up paying for it through cuts in public spending on health, education, water, housing, sanitation, electricity, transportation and other public services. Because of corruption, businesses particularly those in the extractive sector (oil and mining) are able to break state environmental laws with impunity. Corruption simply makes a country poor and underdeveloped.

Corruption and Political Stability

Politically, corruption can dangerously destroy a country's democracy and lead to protracted political instability. Excessive corruption among politicians is often cited as a justification by the military to take over power. Ex-president Rawlings for instance cited corruption as one of his reasons when he staged his coups in the 1970s and 1980s. While elections especially in developing countries increase political tension in a country, in Ghana corrupt practices such as vote buying, using macho men to disrupt elections, allowing foreign nationals to vote and playing one tribe against another are likely to increase the tempo of violence and post-election conflict.

When corruption is fused with unemployment, it can generate serious unpredictable political outcomes. Since 2010, the countries in North African have been thrown into a state of anarchy, violence, instability, and insecurity. Several governments in the region have fallen and the future of the region is seriously uncertain. It all started with endemic police corruption in Tunisia and the immolation of Mr. Mohamed Bouzizi, a 26 year old street vendor. Reports indicate Mr. Bouzizi suffered extortion from the police. He had his wares routinely confiscated by the police who hoped to extort money from him. In one instance, he protested but he got slapped by a female police officer. When he could not take any more of the extortion, and the abuse, he set himself on fire. His death galvanised the population against the corrupt Ben Ali government and the seeds of what has become known as the Arab Spring were sown. The uprising in Tunisia spread like wildfire devouring the governments of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and setting the entire Middle East and North Africa aflame. As I write, the countries in the region have become a haven for Al Qaeda and ISIL terrorists. Currently, there are about 3000 ISIL fighters in Libya killing and pillaging the country. They have even managed to recruit some Ghanaians to pursue their strategic objective to theocratically rule the world. On another level, corruption breeds cronyism and undermines accountable governance. People who do not deserve or are not qualified to occupy certain offices get to do so.

Corruption and State Security

Corruption undermines a country's security. It breeds terrorists and terrorism. One of the Ghanaians (Nazir Nortei Alema, the 25-year-old graduate of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology), who joined the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in 2015 cited corruption in Ghana as one of his reasons for joining the group. Corruption allows terrorists, cyber criminals and other enemies of the state to infiltrate key state institutions such as the military, police, immigration, and the customs. Corruption particularly in the military undermines morale and the ability of the armed forces to fight. In Nigeria, Boko Haram continues to dominate North-eastern Nigeria and the threat the group poses to Nigeria and West and Central African regions persists because junior soldiers would not fight them. They would not fight the terrorists because corrupt senior officers pocketed their salaries, and used the military’s budget for personal gain.

Ghana is awash with cocaine, heroin, and guns because the criminals have been able to buy airport, harbour, immigration, police and other officials of the security establishment. There is also rampant armed robbery in the country because of co-operation between the robbers and some agents of the state. This immoral relationship between officials and the actors of the criminal underworld makes it difficult for the state to fight organised crime. It strengthens the hands of criminals against the state and its security establishment. It particularly weakens institutions of the state and makes it easy for terrorists, drug lords, illegal weapons traders, pirates, human traffickers, and armed robbers to operate their parallel economy in the country without fear of reprisals from the state.

Corruption allows enemies of the state to exploit the country and opens the country to all kinds of attacks. Particularly, it allows unfriendly foreign governments, their spy and intelligence agencies to scheme against the state and undermines its interests and its ability to protect and defend herself. For example, hackers, intelligence agencies, corporations and other entities can easily steal state secretes and gain access to sensitive national information by bribing corrupt officials. Corruption creates a broken glass syndrome. It creates the feeling that no one cares about the country, a situation that allows the vultures of impunity to carry out their illegal activities against the state.

Corruption, Justice and National ReputationCorruption undermines a country's justice system. As has been shown by Anas Aremeyaw Anas in his recent investigation of the judiciary, corruption allows murderers, armed robbers, cocaine dealers, weapons traffickers, rapists, and paedophiles to escape punishment while the innocent is punished and thrown into jail. Hard core criminals including drug barons, terrorists, pirates, illegal weapons traders, hackers, human traffickers, become untouchable. It allows companies with no track record to secure contracts and do shoddy work without prosecution. Corruption makes a country to suffer serious irreparable reputational damage internationally. This makes the world to lose trust and confidence in the country's citizens, its economy, and its business community. For example because of 419 and other internet scams, Australian, European, and American citizens are warned to be extra careful when conducting business in Ghana and in Nigeria. Some Nigerians I know have told me they have to hide their passports when traveling abroad. European and American immigration officials seriously scrutinise Nigerians and Ghanaians trying to enter their countries because of the suspicion that they may be carrying drugs. Such reputational damage is too difficult to repair.

What we do?

Therefore, corruption in Ghana should be treated like terrorism and fought like how the Russians, Americans and the British are fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. To do so there must be political will. There cannot be victory over corruption without political will. The buck stops with Parliament, Judiciary, and the Executive branches of government. They should make the fight against corruption a top priority. Politicians and political parties must scrutinise their officials before appointing them to any office. The media should perform its role as the fourth arm of government by educating the public, diligently conducting investigations, and making sure corrupt deals are brought to the public domain.

Corruption should be included in national risk plans and be treated in the same way as terrorism, insurgency, climate change, and other traditional and non-traditional security threats. Specialised corruption institutions such as EOCO should be established and be granted with more powers. Besides, the police, Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), NACOB, and other corruption and crime-fighting institutions must be totally independent with powers to prosecute without having to go the president for approval. Banks and financial companies must be brought on board to fight corruption. They should carry out due diligence and report suspicious transactions to the security apparatuses of the state for prompt action.

Education about the dangers of corruption should be taught at all levels of schools so as to build a culture which frown on corruption. Schools should also be tasked to teach ethics and patriotism as well as the dangers of cronyism and favouritism. Academics, universities, and higher institutions of learning should conduct research into the causes and solutions of corruption and share their work the Ghanaian public. Civil society groups and the creative industries should highlight the dangers of corruption in their work especially how it undermines the integrity of Ghana.

Since dishonesty and unfair treatment of family members sow the seeds of corruption, families must be encouraged to adopt fairness, honesty, when dealing with kids, wives, husbands, and other members of the family.

By Lord Aikins Adusei, E-mail: politicalthinker1@yahoo.com

Reference
(1) World Bank (2015) ‘Ease of doing business index’ Ease of doing business index (1=most business-friendly regulations) Ease of doing business ranks economies from 1 to 189, with first place being the best. A high ranking (a low numerical rank) means that the regulatory environment is conducive to business operation. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BUS.EASE.XQ

Ghanaians shouldn't panic about the two Yemenis from Guantanamo Bay

While terrorism is real and Ghanaians are rightly justified to be concerned about any terrorist in their country, I strongly believe Ghanaians shouldn't panic about the two Yemenis from Guantanamo Bay. First Ghana's acceptance of the two Yemenis is what allies and partners do. Second, if Ghana's security services do their work well, whatever threat the two Yemenis pose can be contained. Third, any discussion about the pros and cons of Ghana’s acceptance should be based on facts.

There were roughly 780 detainees in Guantanamo of which 678 had so far been transferred to about 56 countries worldwide. Of the 678 transferred, Ghana has accepted just 2 detainees. Other African countries that have accepted some of the detainees include Algeria 17; Morocco 13; Sudan 12; Somalia, 3. Libya, Tunisia, and Mauritania have also accepted 2 detainees each. Egypt, Uganda, and Cape Verde have also accepted 1 each.

Outside Africa, Afghanistan has accepted 203; Saudi Arabia 125; Pakistan 63; Yemen 22; Oman 20; Britain 15; Kuwait 12; Tajikistan 11; Albania 11; Kazakhstan 9; France 9; Slovakia 8; Russia 7; Iraq 7; Georgia 6; Uruguay 6; UAE 6; Qatar 6; and Palau 6. Bahrain, Spain and Jordan have accepted 5 detainees each. Bermuda, Bosnia and Turkey have also accepted 4 detainees each. Germany, Somalia, Belgium, and Switzerland 3 each. Eleven countries including the United States, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania and Ghana have accepted 2 detainees each. Thirteen countries including Egypt, Uganda, and Cape Verde have also accepted 1 each. 

At least 10 detainees have been transferred to countries that can't be determined. 93 detainees so far remain in the Guantanamo facility while 9 died whilst still in the Guantanamo facility.

Credit: Lord Adusei

Ghana is second most corrupt African country – Report

Ghana’s fight against corruption has been dealt another setback after the country was ranked as the second most corrupt African nation behind South Africa.

The corruption perception index by the Transparency International stated about 71 percent of people living in Ghana say corruption has increased over the last twelve months.

Most governments across Africa are also seen as failing in their duty to stop the abuse of power, bribery and secret deals, according to the new opinion poll.

In the report People and Corruption: Africa Survey 2015, part of the Global Corruption Barometer, Transparency International partnered with Afrobarometer, which spoke to 43,143 respondents across 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa between March 2014 and September 2015 to ask them about their experiences and perceptions of corruption in their country.

The majority (58 per cent) of Africans in the surveyed countries, say corruption has increased over the past 12 months. In 18 out of 28 countries surveyed a large majority of people said their government is doing badly at fighting corruption.

Despite these disappointing findings, the bright spots across the continent were in Botswana, Burkina Faso, Lesotho and Senegal. Citizens in these countries were some of the most positive in the region when discussing corruption.

Ghana is closely followed by oil rich Nigeria making up the top three worst performing nations in the corruption index.

For the first time, people reported business executives as highly corrupt. Business ranked as having the second highest levels of corruption in the region, just below the police.

The police regularly rate as highly corrupt, but the strongly negative assessment of business executives is new compared to previous surveys. Business was followed by government officials, tax officials, judges and magistrates, members of parliament, local government councilors, office of the Presidency, traditional leaders and religious leaders.

22 per cent of people that have come into contact with a public service in the past 12 months said they paid a bribe.

Of the six key public services that we asked about, people who come into contact with the courts and police are the most likely to have paid a bribe.

Across the continent, poor people who use public services are twice as likely as rich people to have paid a bribe, and in urban areas they are even more likely to pay bribes.

“Corruption creates and increases poverty and exclusion. While corrupt individuals with political power enjoy a lavish life, millions of Africans are deprived of their basic needs like food, health, education, housing, access to clean water and sanitation. We call on governments and judges to stop corruption, eradicate impunity and implement Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals to curb corruption. We also call on the people to demand honesty and transparency, and mobilize against corruption. It is time to say enough and unmask the corrupt,” said Transparency International Chair José Ugaz.

China Transformed

Since 1949 and more importantly since the 1970s, the people of China have sought to remove everything that has held China back. The past became the enemy to conquer in order to reach the future. Their collective effort has yielded major achievements. In the last 30 or 40 years, more than 600 million people have been moved from out of poverty with 300 million now enjoying middle income status. China overtook Japan in 2010 as the world’s second biggest economy and the country is tipped to overstake the United States as the world’s foremost economic superpower. Currently China has more than 170 cities each with a population of more than one people. It also has several megacities with 10 million people. Beijing the capital and its surrounding region have a population of 200 million, more than half of the entire population of the United States.

China is dubbed the 'workshop of the world' producing almost everything the world needs. It is the world's biggest producer of steel accounting for about 50 percent of global output. Alibaba, China's online marketing firm is bigger than ebay....to be continued

LA Adusei

Ebola, the IMF, and the World Bank: Unlimited Privatisation of Healthcare and the legacy of three decades of neoliberal economic restructuring.

The World Bank and the IMF have added their voice to the Ebola crisis that is currently ravaging through West Africa and which is threatening Europe and the United States. According to the World Bank, Africa faces serious threat from the disease while the its president admits: 'The response is slow and we all know that'. However, I find the IMF and the World Bank's comments to be very hypocritical. For decades the two institutions have been at the forefront of the fight to get African governments to stop investing in healthcare infrastructure, training of doctors, nurses and other frontline staff. They have also been encouraging African governments to freeze employment of health workers as well as salaries of those already employed. It is therefore no surprising that African countries are struggling to cope with the Ebola outbreak. Years of neglect of the health sector courtesy of IMF and the Bank has produced a healthcare system capable of doing almost nothing. This explains why the African countries badly hit by the Ebola virus are struggling to provide healthcare for the affected population. It also explains why the health systems in these countries are struggling to contain the spread of the epidemic. For 6 months West African nations particularly Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been battling to contain the deadly virus while the West and their economic and financial agents i.e. the IMF and the Bank look on unconcerned. More than 3700 people have so far died with Liberia alone recording more than 2100 deaths. In Ghana, which is considered the most successful IMF/World Bank adjustment story in Africa, cholera outbreak in August/September killed more than one hundred while thousands have been affected raising fears that the nation will find it difficult to cope should the Ebola virus raises its ugly head in the country. Health workers, hospitals, polyclinics, and clinics have struggled to provide adequate healthcare. All this happened because the World Bank and the IMF have been insisting on cash and carry system, where patients, irrespective of economic and social status, must pay upfront before they are treated. Meanwhile investment in the health sector has not kept up with needs and demand due to pressure from the Britton Wood instructions. Rather than insisting that African countries reduce investment in critical systems such as healthcare, he World Bank and the IMF should do the opposite.

L. A. Adusei
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POVERTY AND TERRORISM: A LESSON FOR GHANA

One of the major challenges confronting Africa today is how to tame or reverse the tide of terrorism sweeping across the continent. There is a strong belief among policymakers that terrorism in Africa is largely the product of economic hardship, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and economic, social and political marginalisation and dispossession of the masses. For example on 15 November 2001, two months after the 9/11 attacks, Susan E. Rice, the current Obama Administration's top Security Adviser told the Congress' Subcommittee on Africa that:

'Africa is the world's soft under-belly for global terrorism...Much of Africa is a veritable incubator for the foot soldiers of terrorism. Its poor, overwhelmingly young, disaffected, unhealthy and under-educated populations often have no stake in government, no faith in the future and harbor an easily exploitable discontent with the status quo. For such people, in such places, nihilism is as natural a response to their circumstances as self-help. Violence and crime may be at least as attractive as hard work. Perhaps that is part of the reason why we have seen an increase in recent years in the number of African nationals engaged in international terrorism...Al-Qaeda and other terrorist cells are active throughout East, Southern and West Africa, not to mention in North Africa. These organizations hide throughout Africa. They plan, finance, train for and execute terrorist operations in many parts of Africa, not just Sudan and Somalia. They seek uranium, chemical weapons components and the knowledge of renegade nuclear, chemical and biological weapons experts. Terrorist organizations take advantage of Africa's porous borders, weak law enforcement and security services and nascent judicial institutions to move men, weapons and money around the globe. They take advantage of poor, disillusioned populations, often with religious or ethnic grievances, to recruit for their jihad'.

However, the poverty, unemployment and illiteracy that drive African youths to embrace terrorism in Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania and Mauritania among others are the product of another issue: The Bad African Politics. As Jakkie Cilliers of the Institute of Security Studies, South Africa has observed:

'African politics easily degenerates into a life-and-death struggle over private access to limited public resources; the zero-sum nature of the struggle compels would-be political leaders to obtain material benefits in order to wield influence over followers and competitors. Accordingly what all African states share is a generalised system of patrimony and an acute degree of apparent disorder, as evidenced by a high level of governmental and administrative inefficiency, a lack of institutionalisation, a general disregard for the rules of formal political and economic sectors, and a universal resort to personalised and vertical solutions to societal problems'.

In this zero-sum game politics, helping the masses to climb out of poverty isn't the priority of the politicians. Once they are in power the politicians quickly forget about the electorate and rather work hard to monopolise national resources and use it for their personal gain. As has been argued by Hussein Solomon of University of the Free State, South Africa:

'Part of the reason for the conflict-ridden nature of African polities is that a tiny elite has often been allowed to monopolise the wealth of the nations giving precious little back to ordinary citizens. President Mobutu Sese Seko's rule (1965-1997) of the former Zaire is perhaps the quintessential example of this. For his entire 32-year rule, Mobutu and his kleptocratic coterie gave his hapless citizens little more than an ill-disciplined and predatory military rule while spending practically nothing on public health and educational services'.

The danger is that because politicians refuse to address the extreme poverty facing the people, the poverty quickly gives way to grievances. The grievances when they mature also metamorphose into secession, violence, ethnic-religious conflict and terrorism. In the last three decades for example Africa has experienced an increase of secessionist movements which has already desintegrated Ethiopia and Sudan and may as well dismember Libya, Mali and Nigeria. The reason is that poverty and marginalisation of the masses from the largesse of the state by the tiny political elite and their cronies usually force the marginalised to take extreme measures in order to secure their share of the national resources. In Mali and Niger for example poverty has served as a major motivational factor for both terrorism and secession by the Tuareg people who have complained about poverty, neglect, and marginalisation. In Mali for instance, while the poverty rate averaged 64% of the population in 2004, the figure was much higher in the Tuareg dominated north: Timbuktu had a poverty rate of 77%, Gao had 78.7% and Kidal had an astonishing 92%. It is these conditions of poverty and despair that led Tuareg to join forces with the terrorist group Ansar Dine to battle the government in Bamako in 2012 for the creation of Azawad/homeland for the Tuareg people.

Poverty has been a driving force for terrorism in Nigeria. Since oil was discovered in the late 1950s the country has earned more than $350 billion and continues to earn about $74 billion a year but a tiny elite of top civil servants, military and civilian regimes have plundered the money leaving very little for the people who live on one dollar a day. As Hussein Solomon points out:

'Despite soaring oil prices benefiting the Nigerian state, the growing impoverishment of the citizenry stands in sharp contrast to the growing wealth of the political elite, and perceptions of endemic corruption. Since the end of military rule in 1999, Nigerian politicians have reportedly embezzled between US$4 billion and US$8 billion per annum. At a time when Nigeria's oil revenues are in excess of US$74 billion per annum, more than half of Nigerians live on less than $1 a day and four out of 10 Nigerians are unemployed'.

Cyril Obi, one of Nigeria's respected political scientists observes that:

'Apart from being Africa's largest oil producer and exporter, Nigeria is also a producer of natural gas, accounting for an estimated output of 22 million tonnes per year. Natural gas exports account for about $4 billion worth of earnings annually. Most of the natural gas is produced from the Niger Delta or its coastal waters. However, this oil- and gas-rich region that generates billions of dollars worth of revenues and profits annually is also paradoxically one of the least developed and conflict-ridden parts of Nigeria'

In the absence of economic opportunities for the average Nigerian, jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and Ansaru with radical Islamic ideologies have found fertile ground in the country's north, recruiting the youth and radicalising them to carry out act of terrorism against the state. According to Thomas Fessy of the BBC, Boko Haram pays more than $3000 to each new recruit. As a result the ranks of the terror group have been swelled by thousands of destitute young men from even Niger who are willing to swap their poverty and joblessness with terrorism and death. A group of poor and jobless youths told Thomas Fessy of BBC: "We break into houses for cash; sometimes we beat people for money, we steal their animals so we can eat and then we gather up and take Tramol [an opiate drug], smoke ganja [marijuana] and drink alcohol...We have no jobs; some of us are still at high school but we need money. Violence has become a form of work for us...They [Boko Haram] have paid 500,000 Nigerian naira ($3,085, £1,835) to those of us who followed them over there" (See BBC documentary headlined: 'Niger hit by Nigeria's Boko Haram fallout' April 22, 2014).

The same poverty was responsible for the insurgency that took place in the Niger Delta between 1999 and 2009. Many of the youth sensing that they had been deceived by the politicians, after billions of dollars' worth of oil and gas was taken from their land without any direct benefit, began to agitate for greater control of their natural wealth as well the revenue accrued from the exploitation of those resources. When the government-corporate alliance failed to address their concerns, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and other ethnic militias embarked on armed rebellion, destroying and sabotaging oil and gas pipelines, flow stations, kidnapping oil workers and killing security officers sent to confront them. This is one of the reasons why Nigeria cannot supply gas to Ghana through the West African Gas Pipeline.

Poverty therefore is a major driver for terrorism in Africa. In the just ended Fifa World Cup in Brazil the international media (BBC, Al Jazeera) reported embarrassing news about 200 Ghanaians who had sought asylum with the Brazilian government claiming to be fleeing religious persecution. According to media reports the asylum seekers claimed their life would be in danger if they returned to Ghana. While the claim of the people to be fleeing massive religious conflict is totally false, it cannot be denied that those claiming asylum are in fact fleeing poverty, economic hardship, unemployment, inequality, underdevelopment, neglect, dispossession, and economic and social marginalisation.

Some policymakers, security experts and political scientists have rubbished the idea that Ghana might go the way of Nigeria if the poverty of the people is not addressed. They argue that Ghanaians are not so enthusiastic about shedding blood and radicalisation may be difficult to take root because the Muslim population in the country follow a moderate form of Islam. The danger of such argument is that it continues to give the politicians in the country a license not to do anything about the suffering of the people. On the larger note the argument that Ghanaians are not blood spilling people holds no water if one considers the ethnic and chieftaincy conflicts in the north that has claimed the lives of thousands of people including Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II of Dagbon and Naa Dasana Andani the Paramount Chief of the Nanumba Traditional Area.

The truth is that the high poverty levels and economic hardship facing Ghanaians are increasing their agitation against the ruling elite. The July demonstration by the Occupy Flagstaff House group; the two month old strike action by POTAG; chiefs in Western region fighting Ghana Gas Company over land compensation; 817 highly skilled Ghanaian professionals renouncing their citizenship; the increasing fatal armed robberies are all signs that the country is slowly slipping into something that resembles Nigeria's Niger Delta.

To prevent Ghanaians from embracing terrorism or any form of political violence, the swamps of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and corruption must be drained. And to quote Dr. Susan Rice 'we must do so for the cold, hard reason that to do otherwise, we place our national security at further and more permanent risk. We must do so out of realpolitik recognition that our long-term security depends on it'. To drain these swamps, we must invest in education and healthcare of the people. We must build roads and rail infrastructures to connect our cities and rural areas to speed up development. We must industrialise by building and expanding our energy infrastructures to take advantage of Ghana's huge untapped natural resources. We must increase trade, investment and promote economic growth. We must strengthen state institutions to deliver better, efficient and high quality public goods to the citizens. And we must at all cost fight to end endemic corruption in the country.

Without progress on these fronts we should expect the international brotherhood of terror groups (made up of Al Qaeda, AQIM, Boko Haram, Ansaru, MUJWA, ISIS and future such enemies) to infiltrate communities in Ghana to recruit and radicalise the youth to engage in local or international terrorism.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Reference

Cilliers, J. (2003) 'Terrorism and Africa', Africa Security Review, Volume 12, Issue 4, p. 98.

Fessy, T. (2014) 'Niger hit by Nigeria's Boko Haram fallout' April 22, 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27111884

Obi, C. (2009) 'Nigeria's Niger Delta: Understanding the Complex Drivers of Violent Oilrelated

Conflict,' Africa Development, Nov. 2, 2009, pp. 106-107;

Solomon, H. (2013) 'The African state and the failure of US counterterrorism initiatives in Africa: The cases of Nigeria and Mali' South African Journal of International Affairs, Volume 20, Issue3, pp. 427-445

September 11, 2001: Attack on America Testimony of Dr. Susan E. Rice Before the House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on Africa - "Africa and the War on Global Terrorism"; November 15, 200. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/sept11/susan_rice_001.asp