The horrible news from Volta Region is that some assassins have brazenly shot in cold blood to death the District Chief Executive of Nkwanta South, Mr. Peter Kenyeso.
I was watching TV news on Monday evening when suddenly the newcaster made public this extremely bizarre tragedy ? that the hallowed personality of the President?s Representative has been blasted with bullets and sent onward to join his ancestors.
Thanks to Local Government and NPP politics I have been to Nkwanta at least four times and I am familiar with the area. Nkwanta is in the middle belt between the rich south and the poor north. Vegetation wise it is mixed: shades of savannah here and forest there ? Nkwanta South is a hybrid area.
The DCE is an NDC chap, so I don?t know him, but his death for me is a very strong message to both President John Mahama ALL our Parliamentarians and the whole country at large.
First of all, who is a DCE?
In today?s Ghana, a DCE is the executive head of the local administration. Thanks to the Rawlings era winner takes all policy, the local government legal regime is such that the DCE ipso facto is a DICTATOR whose will is law. All you need is to get the President to nominate you, be endorsed by the District Assembly and instantly you become a monarch over all. Period.
The DCE is all so powerful at the local level that a good person wielding so much power can actually bring positive change in the quality of life of the people. By contrast a selfish greedy weak fellow can use the office to amass wealth filthily in a short time.
That is a DCE ? the President?s Representative in the District. Who appoints him?
This is where I have a big problem and I will keep saying it all the time, especially so now that Nkwanta South DCE has been killed.
You see, politics is WHO decides WHAT WHERE WHEN and HOW. Even in the nuclear family of man wife and children there is politics ? where love reigns there is perfect order but where it is step father step children cheating mother profligate father and all, there is total chaos.
In every locality in Ghana, there are powerful factors at play which you ignore at your own peril. Who are the indegenes there? Who are in the majority, population wise? Who is the paramount Chief? What forces are at play?
As at now, His Excellency the President sits in Accra and decides who should be appointed as the District Chief Executive. Why?
The President does not know everybody in the area so he relies on special set of advisers ? the Minister of Local Government, the Regional Minister, the Regional Chairman of the party, the Constituency Chairman of the party ? who told you that all these persons are SAINTS? Which of them is so fair that he cannot be subverted?
And so it usually turns out, regularly that a search committee organises interviews, shortlists and so on, only to be told on radio that the President?s wife?s maid or mother in law or chief of staff?s father or some innocuous chap from nowhere is now the DCE.
The person comes into office knowing How he was appointed and concentrates on that source, ignoring the people, because he owes them no allegiance whatsoever.
In the result, the people have nobody but the MP to put all their blame upon ? after al they voted for him into parliament. They don?t care that he speaks everyday on every issue in parliament. It is of little concern to them that the MP attends every committee meeting and participates in every session of the House.
What they know and what they see is that they voted for you to be the MP, so, why don?t we have electricity in our village? Why no water supply? Why no classrooms? Why this why that?
The MP goes to the offices of the District Assembly and he has no vote in the Assembly?s proceedings. The only resources he commands is the MP?s Common Fund which cannot even buy 100 bags of cement, and which at any rate is always in arrears, meanwhile you have to attend funerals and make donations, you have to attend church harvests and contribute to fund Raising projects??????.
When I was MP for Berekum I introduced three major projects none of which took off because the DCE did not share my vision ? I wanted to organise a big trade fair to bring several visitors to Berekum, I wanted to build a vocational Technical School and I wanted to build a certain link road ? if the DCE does not share your dreams, sorry.
Addressing a press conference in Ho on Tuesday after the gruesome murder of the DCE, the chairman of Volta Region DCE HON Adjaho said that ?DCEs were the people who dealt directly with communities and therefore come under attack when certain decisions they had taken were considered by the people to be unfavourable to them.?
This is the whole point that I am struggling to make. Who appoints DCE?s to deal directly with the communities? What prevents the communities from electing their own LEADER to deal with them? When you vote for a DCE and you are not happy with his decision, will you kill him or just wait for the next time and vote him out?
But please do not understand me ? I am not in the least saying that if a DCE or MP or Minister or President takes a decision and you are not happy you should take a gun and shoot him ? no, not at all ? far from it.
In fact that leads me to my second theme in this article. Apart from demanding that as a matter of dire urgency we should take our democracy to the next level by insisting that ALL district chief executives must be directly elected by popular ballot, my next beef is that slowly but terribly defiantly security is loosening in our motherland and that is dangerous.
Reader, we must be BOLD to talk about things that are dangerous signals for peace. Our chiefs are being killed in cold blood, and now our DCEs are becoming targets of gunmen ? what is the problem?
Are people losing confidence in the judicial system? What happened to the killers of NiiJoma who still lies in the mortuary at Police Hospital?
A story is told of a gunman who decided to shoot to death the Prime Minister of Great Britain on 22nd December ? I think 1890 or thereabout such a heinous crime was unprecedented so the system rose up to the occasion.
The assassin shot the Prime Minister at close range. He was immediately arrested and his statement was taken. A docket was built and prosecution began. Witnesses testified were cross examined, he opened his defence and lawyers addressed the empanelled jury. A decision was given and the Court of Appeal heard the appeal ? exactly seven days later, somewhere on 29th December, Her Majesty the Queen signed the confirmed death sentence and the Joker was executed.
THE LAW MUST WORK !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Even in A kan traditions, when parents lose a first child it is considered ?SODEE? (the closest definition is TABOO) so they don?t do any elaborate funeral ? they quickly bury the corpse and after some small gathering they forget about it.
What? You have killed a chief? Our DCE? How dare you? All hands on deck !!!!!!!! Roll out all officers of the law, let Judges sit all through days and within a week finish? judgment, sentence, execution ? period !!!!!!!!!!!
LET THE LAW WORK !!!!!!!!!!!
In our part of the world, we have a very unpleasant saying: ?ABUSUA DO FUNU? which means the family is interested more in your corpse rather than in keeping you alive.
Instead of spending precious state money buying drinks and formal announcements, one week celebration and this and that, let us rather use the precious blood of the DCE as a price for solid positive steps:
(i) Stop appointing DCE?s. let the people elect whoever they want to be their local governors.
(ii) Strengthen the judiciary both in personnel and in resources ? equipment, vehicles so that justice will be SWIFT and decisive.
(iii) Improve security arrangements for our chiefs leaders and those who take decisions over our lives.
(iv) Ensure transparency in the electoral process at all levels as signposts for enduring peace and tranquillity.
Source:Written by
Nkrabeah EffahDartey
