<<Print>>

Murmurs of disapproval greeted Deputy Information Minister Baba Jamal�s remarks that former presidents deserve the treatment they get from incumbent administrations. He was contributing to a discussion on factors which cause polarization at an Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) organized workshop to review a 2007 report on the subject. His position that busybody former presidents would lose certain courtesies due them appeared to have touched the nerves of People�s National Convention (PNC) representatives at the workshop, for whom the remark was an unfair one, especially as it sought to refer to the late President Hilla Limann. His remarks followed an intervention from PNC�s Policy Analyst Atiku who opined that polarization is caused by, among other factors, how former presidents are treated by incumbent presidents. Atiku�s intervention was hinged on how the late President Limann virtually led a pauper�s life, with the state not taking care of him as demanded by the constitution. Prof Ken Attafuah�s position that political demagoguery is not relevant in contemporary politics appears to have informed his reaction. But the professor/legal practitioner had explained that he did not mean that ex-president Rawlings is not relevant in today�s politics but that using demagoguery to exploit the people would no longer work in the country, as it did some time ago. Baba Jamal had to explain that perhaps he was misunderstood in his expression, pointing out that he was particularly considering the former late president. He ended up leaving his audience to make conjectures about which busybody former president could have lost his privileges because of his post-office activities. Courtesies demand that former presidents, in order to avail themselves of these must, conduct themselves accordingly. �I know many of you would not agree with me on this. Courtesies depend upon how former presidents conduct themselves,� he said, as the murmurs grew louder at the conference hall of the Capital View Hotel, Koforidua in the Eastern region where the workshop took place. Earlier in his opening remarks, a retired Supreme Court judge, Prof. Justice A.K.P. Kludze, a senior fellow of the think-tank, expressed worry that instead of focusing on and expatiating on the programmes they have for Ghana, party members are engaged in acrimony and what he described as indecent vituperation. The alarming rate of bellicosity in the postures of party members in the country, he noted, is alarming, adding, �Insult and abuses have become common, thus engendering divisiveness and intolerance.� He continued by saying, �Every issue, regardless of its implications for our nation, is now discussed by both media practitioners and political leaders with unmerited political bias.� Political leaders, he noted, have leverage over their members, demanding that they exert greater pressure on activists to commit themselves to a fair and decent campaigning.