Story by: Yunus Swalahudeen Wakpenjo
Source: Millennium news online
Political science lecturer and expert in politics and development, Dr. Mohammed Abass, hinted the ideally, political parties must be built upon certain ideology purposely to rally support from the citizenry, however, their party ideology must complement national agenda instead of replacing national agenda with party ideology.
He said national agenda is a frame work designed to propel development, hence, parties are expected to align their ideology to suit the existing national agenda for national good. He has however, stated that, our political parties are not driven by any ideology.
‘’ let us be frank with ourselves, political parties in the country are not driven by any ideology, they are driven by vested interest or interest of their funding lords’’ he stressed.
He further stressed that, ‘’if they were driven by iota of party ideology, it would have been supportive to our country’s development. Insisted that, their individual interest is what they champion every time they clinch on power’’.
Dr. Abass added that, ‘’ideology is meant to direct a person or group of persons towards attainment of certain set goals. However, because our parties are not built on any ideology save their individual interest, hence the country’s development is always in persistent limbo’’.
‘’ if you say you are socialist or capitalist, is not much of our problem, ours is to see the needed satisfactory result’’ he bemoaned.
He said the challenge our country is encountering in all sphere of our political and social life, is engineered by selfish interest of leadership of various political parties. Emphasizing that, it has nothing to do with the said ideology.
‘’ vested interest by various political parties and individuals who make contributions to political parties, is the problem of the country’s development. We often mistaking those vested interests as ideologies, that is not ideology’’.
Meanwhile, since after independence on 6th march 1957, Ghana has made effort to put together a development frame work geared towards realisation of certain developmental agenda for a specific period, however, since the overthrown of the founder of the new Ghana, Dr. Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, emerged parties have made deliberate effort to side-line such laudable initiative, by sneaking in so called party ideologies, which hampered continuous development of the country for 64 years since independence.
This unfortunate development has resulted into displaced projects, abandoned project, lack of value for money projects as well as duplication of projects and populist projects whose impact are never felt by the citizenry.