As we pay tribute to Nelson Mandela; the dreamer, the visionary and strategic leader who envisioned “a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities”, an ideal he was prepared to die for, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), wishes to extend condolences to the Mandela family, the people of the Republic of South Africa, the Continent of Africa and the world in its entirety, for the loss of a great leader.
We find Mandela’s leadership model worthy of emulation and in fact recommend it as the benchmark that African leaders both present and future must work towards attainment. By envisioning a new democratic South Africa when it was clearly impossible to attain; he exhibited leadership by mobilizing his people behind the vision with a strategy for its achievement despite the obstacle of being imprisoned for 27 years - a period that accounted for a third of his entire life.
That he strategically chose to focus on the dream by traveling the path of reconciliation instead of retribution, motivated by the need to attain the vision more than anything else, is worth emulating. That he planned his succession, knowing when to quit as Head of State, which he did, regardless of the opportunity to remain ‘Life President’, is a leadership characteristic we recommend to both present and future leaders of Ghana and Africa.
The passing of Nelson Mandela must serve as a wake-up call. The last wide awakening to the realities of delayed socio-economic transformation and development of Africa. As he envisioned the political transformation of the Republic of South Africa from apartheid to a democracy, so must we the political leaders of Africa envision the transformation of our continent from the specter of poverty, destitution and neglect to the economic power continent that has enough to go round every citizen.
We the progressives, call on leaders and peoples of Africa, to use this solemn occasion to reflect and decide to change our economic governance strategies from the “anything goes” prescription to our own homegrown transformational economic development paradigm, discarding the comparative advantage economic models and settling for the competitive advantage ones, where our economies are brought back home with 90% of our raw materials, from cocoa to crude oil, processed into finished products for the domestic and world markets.
Nelson Mandela, has played his part and gone. The baton is now firmly in the hands of current and future leaders of Africa. The best tribute we can pay to the memory and legacy of Nelson Mandela is to envision and work towards the transformation of the Ghanaian and African economy for the benefit of the peoples of Africa within the next decade without fail.
Source: Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond/National Chairman, PPP
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