Dr.Ibn Chambas warns of “youth quake” if they’re ignored.
Ghanaian international diplomat, Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas has fired a salvo at nobody precisely but then the ones who failed his criteria test could apply the strong sentiments to themselves.
He was speaking in a British Council forum in Accra under the theme ”Empowering citizens, enriching nation-building” subtitled ”Fostering active citizenship for sustainable development in Ghana.”
He said, there is a need for mass participation in the decision-making process, consultations between office-holders and the people, and rigorous accountability in the governance system.
He also said the opaque nature of contracts and procurement processes does not auger well for a democratic requirement such as transparency but breeds corruption. He rued mismanagement of natural resources which conventionally States hold in the trust of the people but systematically abused and whose rewards are diverted to the advantage of a few.
He was not enthused about the cumulative national debt either, and saying it as it is, he noted that everything must be transparent since the bus stops with the people who must pay through their taxes.
Dr Chambas touched on the sensitive issue of elections, and here he noted that it is an exercise to choose leaders or the people’s representatives into government. He said elections ought to be won at polling stations, it becomes problematic if the courts must decide election outcomes.
Casting a panoramic view of the issue, he said the circumvention of the will of the people has led some African countries into chaos, just as the lopsided allocation of democratic dividends and prosperity has been one of the basis for military coups.
He advocated for increased public education to enable informed choices. In his opinion, space, and protection for women and the youth is a sine-qua-non of any pure democratic system, that consciously and correctly manages national resources in the best interest of demographic elements.
Whilst admitting that the world is a global village, the context of operability is not just, Dr. Chambas yet again reminded politicians to do the right things such as building national resilience.
He traced patriotism to his alma mater, the Mfantsipim school in Cape Coast where 8 persons kept the torch in flame at the time of an abeyance before the Christian missionaries intervened. Similarly, the fight for Ghana’s independence from colonial rule through nationalist and pan-Africanist movements culminated in the formation of political parties.
Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas served as Ghana’s Deputy Foreign Minister in the 1980s, becoming a Deputy Minister of Education in the 1990s and later the First Deputy Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament. He lost his seat in Parliament but regained his seat in the 2000 elections representing the Bimbilla constituency.
He later became the Executive Secretary of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, and the African-Caribbean and Pacific States, ACP. He moved on to become the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General to Darfur, and subsequently to West Africa and the Sahel. Positions that challenged him into an increased advocate for good governance on the continent.
