Was Ghanaian Communication minister wrong?

Dar es Salaam. One of the leading headlines towards the end of last week was about Ghana’s minister for Communication Victoria Hammah.She was allegedly telling one of her buddies over her cell-phone that she was in politics to mint money and nothing else.

She was not aware that her driver was recording the lazy and loose talk only to get the presidential sacking shortly after the nosy and wilful social media wildly circulated the statement.

And opinions even among few people I talked to back home; were unanimously affirmative, saying the sacking was justified, for what she said was improper for a politician of her calibre.

On the same day the minister’s news was broken, another African politician from a country whose name is withheld commented on anti-corruption drives and the sitting governments’ failure to deliver promised goods.

“What politicians sell to people are hopes. And people vote for hopes.” Meaning the hopes promised, and hopes voted for a rarely materialise.

Politicians do not work to see the hopes sold are turned into concrete goods. The hopes are thwarted or even swapped for desperation and unsustainable livelihoods which the politicians promised would be history if voted into power.

This prompted me to recall an embarrassing story of the UK’s Gordon Brown who made stupid of one of his lady party supporters.

She poured out her happiness and support for the party only to be snubbed by the Prime Minister when he boarded his car and talked to a colleague who wanted to know what the woman was talking about.

Thanks to the wireless microphone the television crew left stuck on the minister’s jacket, the talk was recorded on the tape (minus) image, but it was significant, anyway.

And embarrassing though it was, it is all the same for politicians all over the world, I suspect!

But we should be out of synch if we were waiting for the Madam minister to realise that all that people join politics for is to fill their pockets with cash. It does not matter whether clean or ill-gotten, but cash.

The talk about bringing about development is nothing but “selling hopes” to credulous voters. And it is even good that this incidence happened in the same country where legendary African intellectual and author Ayi Kwei Armah was born.

He wrote his famous book The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born when teaching in Tanzania towards the end of 1960s, but his reference was Ghana.

He talked at length of a politician, Komson, who entered politics so that he could also drive faster- (read to become rich as fast as possible).

Like all self-serving politicians on this continent Madam minister does not like to end up like Armah’s protagonist, who feared driving faster for fear of accidents along the way, and he ended up being poor.

Things go and succeed with speed, and crazy speed! And politics in Africa provides that speedy facility, for crazy drivers!

Don’t I find the contemporary class of politicians, all, like Komson, driving faster, despite potential accidents along the way, towards   the “gleam” - as Armah calls it - wealth and success and connection.

It is only that luck was not on her side, but all say it in their hearts of hearts, be a politician for the “gleam.”

The political system in Africa works like a magician who carves a snake out of wood, finds a place in his parlour to place the totem, and “breathes” life into it, to become “a god”.

And soon after the carving gains strength and power, as to dominate the creator himself and all those who enter the room. He becomes god himself. That is how I look at politicians.

We vote them into power when they are poor just like we, the voters, are. Shortly thereafter, they start riding those big shiny cars; speak that big talk, demonstrating power, wealth and connections.

And voters, you are just there on the sidelines, you cannot say anything, for the hopes sellers have turned into gods that we were not expecting them to be. Politics has bequeathed them power and money.

They are rich! And they do not need to announce it, like Madam minister did in Ghana, that they are in the ring for that shiny metal called money.

The brand and new cars, the big and many houses, in fact mansions,  real estates and big companies which  they own  or they own shares in, the elegant and expensive dressing, the rich and luxurious clubs they frequent, the extravagant wedding and birthday ceremonies they hold, the frequent and expensive trips outside Africa for shopping and leisure, the hospitals and expensive clinics they go for medical check-up and other services, the schools that their children attend, all announce, as Madam has done, what class they belong to, and actually, why they have joined the club of the politicians.

Dismayed yes, we can be, but it wasn’t a surprise, at all, at least to me! In fact it makes me very much surprised by the surprise some fellow Africans have displayed towards the statement.

I thought we should have taken this loose confession as evidence of the true intentions of people becoming politicians  in this continent.

It is because of this that if we want to tell who will soon become very rich in our neighbourhood, names of politicians may top the list, we know that and yet we are, surprisingly, surprised!

Mr Kayoka is a seasoned journalist and mentor who can be reached through [email protected] or +255 766 959 349