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Professor Stephen Adei, a former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, has noted that military adventurism and weak political leadership have been the bane of Ghana�s development. He said with the threats of coups d��tat no longer a major problem, Ghana should seek solutions to problems by improving the quality of political leadership. Prof. Adei made the observation during the Ghanaman inaugural lecture in Accra last Wednesday, organised by the African Centre for Development and Integrity on the theme: �56 years on, is the Ghanaian really capable of managing his/her own affairs?� He observed that the future of Ghana would depend on visionary, capable, transformational selfless and uncorrupted presidents, who would prosecute a national agenda and not pander to selfish, partisan and parochial interests. He said he believed that such a leader could emerge under the current political dispensation with strong parties and under political neutrality. The former rector said, �We should have a better cause to pat our backs that we are a model democracy because our elections are being challenged through the court rather than through the barrel of the gun.� He said the nation had gone through periods of progress which had not been sustained until recently. To him the 1951-1960 period of accelerated economic growth was the golden age, but the attempted transformation was not sustained by Dr Kwame Nkrumah from 1961-1965. Prof. Adei said the ideological swing from socialism to liberal capitalist stabilisation policies from 1966 to 1971 did not bring much immediate results because of military adventurism. He said the disastrous nightmare years of military rule (1971-1983) were interrupted briefly by Dr Hilla Limann�s listless civilian administration. Prof. Adei stated that a change in direction by Flt Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings in 1983, by embracing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund liberal economic policies, halted the decline and ushered in the period of modest growth with some social costs. He noted that the Fourth Republic had brought in the longest period of sustained national development with election year hiccups. �However, the risk of downturn that occurred in 1961-1966 still remains unless there is a quantum improvement in the quality of leadership and management of the country,� Prof. Adei said.