Daily Independent (Lagos)
Hakeem Jamiu
7 January 2009
opinion
At last, Africa has something good to celebrate. It is a big relief that it is not all bad news from Africa. Ghana last week made the whole of Africa proud when against all expectations; it carried out a free, fair and transparent election in which an opposition candidate defeated a candidate of the ruling party.
The election and subsequent declaration of Professor John Atta-Mills as President-elect has shown that Africa is capable of conducting an internationally acclaimed free and fair election. It also shows that not all African leaders are afflicted with the bug of sight-tight syndrome and do-or-die politics. The Presidential election was keenly contested between Professor John Atta-Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Nana Akufo-Addo of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) that produced the out-going President John Kufuor.
The first round of the Presidential election held on December 7, 2008 did not produce a clear winner though Akufo-Addo had a slight lead but it was not enough to return him as winner. Therefore, a run-off election was held on December 28 and it became controversial as there were claims and counter claims of electoral malpractices from both parties but there were no enough prove to back them up. In the midst of the controversy which surrounded the run-off election, words sneaked out that Professor Atta-Mills had won; an information which sent his supporters into wild jubilation. The Ghana Electoral Commission (EC) was quick to tell the supporters of Atta-Mills that results of the election were yet to be officially announced more so when voting did not take place in the Tain region and unpleasant report of malpractices in the Ashanti and Volta regions. The Ghana Electoral Commission did not announce the result of the election until election was conducted in the Tain region on January 3, 2009 . The ruling NPP went to court to stop the EC from conducting election in the Tain region but the court refused its application. Thereafter, the NPP boycotted the election but it held all the same. At the end of the polls, Chairman of the EC, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan declared Professor Atta-Mills winner with 4, 501,466 or 50.13 per cent votes to beat his rival Nana Akufo Addo who polled 4, 478,411 or 49.87 per cent. There is no doubt that this margin in a Presidential election is close. It is worthy of note that throughout the election, there was no incident of ballot stuffing, ballot snatching and multiple thumb printing. Also incidents of thugs backed by the coercive powers of the state harassing voters and disrupting voting in the process were not recorded.
When I reflected on the outcome of the Ghana Presidential election, I felt ashamed of my own country, Nigeria and the shameful conduct of the April 2007 elections. It now brought home the fact that Nigeria 's INEC Chairman Professor Iwu, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party were responsible for the present parlous state of our democracy as they had visited untold and unpardonable electoral heist on Nigeria. Ex-President Obasanjo grossly abused, misused and bastardized the power of incumbency, Professor Iwu betrayed Nigerians as he became an instrument in the hands of Obasanjo and the PDP by making sure that almost all PDP candidates were returned. If what happened in Ghana were to happen in Nigeria under President Obasanjo, the result of the election will never see the light of the day. Professor Atta-Mills would have been arrested by the EFCC on trumped up charges. Iwu's INEC would have doctored the results and announced the candidate of the ruling party as the winner, more so when the margin is so close to make manipulation easy. Obasanjo would have derisively asked those who are not satisfied with the results to go to court. It is inconceivable and unthinkable for the candidate of the ruling PDP to lose an election and for a President like Obasanjo to remain neutral as President Kufuor displayed statesmanship in Ghana's Presidential poll. In the run up to the April elections in Nigeria, Obasanjo was unpresidential when he charged his supporters to make the election a do-or-die affair while also telling them with gibberish childishness that, 'while we shall be in power, our opponents shall be at the tribunals'. Compared to the out going Ghanaian President, Kufuor, I was happy for once that hope is not lost for Africa's redemption from backwardness, negative reports and crass underdevelopment imposed on her by sit tight leaders in the mold of Robert Mugabe, Obasanjo and Mwai Kibaki.
Kufuor, like ex-President Mogae of Botswana who won the Mo Ibrahim Prize for leadership, are good examples of leaders to be emulated by other African leaders. President Kufuor departed from the usual norm of abusing the power of incumbency by allowing the will of the people to prevail in refusing to influence in any way, the result of the Presidential election. He instead appealled to both candidates to play according to the rules and urged them to accept the outcome of the election even when he knew that his candidate might not win. This is commendable and Kufuor should be celebrated as a hero.
The outcome of the Ghanaian Presidential election has gone a long way to deepening democracy in that country and it is capable of having a multiplier effect on other African countries. President Kufuor also defeated a candidate of the ruling party to emerge President and now, another candidate has defeated a candidate of his own ruling party, and this is how democracy is run all over the world contrary to the wuruwuru (fraudulent) democracy of Obasanjo which he dubiously dubs - home grown democracy.
There is nothing like home grown democracy. Democracy all over the world is universal and it is the main source of legitimacy for governments which has its main element as periodic elections that must be free, fair and transparent. Anything short of this is not democracy and it cannot confer legitimacy on any government emerging from such a sham as we had in Nigeria in April 2007.
We should congratulate Ghana for emerging as one of the countries with an enduring democracy arising from strengthening of her institutions. One does not need any seer to know that leaders like President Kufuor would be in hot demand by international organizations for many noble assignments unlike some of his peers who had become despised, idle, irrelevant and lonely after leaving office. Ghana does not need to go scouting for foreign investors but her democratic credentials as a stable country is all she needed to attract them; more so when her state of infrastructure is not that bad. While welcoming Ghana to the comity of decent nations, the question remains, when will Nigeria get it right?
Jamiu is a media consultant and columnist
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