THE DANGER OF LOW EXPECTATIONS; A LESSON FROM J.H. MENSAH

I carried with me for years the image of a man I never met personally but spoke to briefly on phone. I might have been 17 or 18 years then and he was at the twilight of his long and illustrious political career. He had given his best years as a public servant for the country of his birth. Even at that young age, I silently wished he would have reneged on his retirement plans. But the hawks were circling around him and he knew the time had come for him to gracefully bow out with his dignity intact.

That earlier phone call was to the house of my Auntie who I had spent time with when I completed high school and awaiting my WAEC result for university. He had called that Saturday afternoon seeking to talk to my Auntie’s husband, who was then the regional chairman of the lands commission in the Western region.

I had been home virtually alone that day watching television. I can’t recall what the issue was but when I told him Mr. Quaicoe wasn’t home, he said in his usual calm voice; ‘tell him J.H.Mensah called…” For a brief moment after the call ended I still held the receiver, not quite sure what had just transpired. Even if it was for just thirty seconds, I knew I had spoken to a gem.

J.H.Mensah was the quintessential politician who rendered authentic service of the kind not usually associated with the politics on this shores. A man of great intellect, he brought a moral dimension to the politics of his latter days to the envy of even his peers. Not given to ideological zealotry, he had a well-grounded philosophical framework to his decision-making.

Read the parliamentary Hansard of his parliamentary speeches and you are sure to be treated to well-thought policy positions that carefully navigated the delicate balance between politics and economics. It is for good reason that people like J.H.Mensah never got close to the presidency of the fourth republic.

He was a stickler to the book and won’t bend the rules to save his own skin. Invariably, he made quite a number of enemies among his peers in politics and effectively blocked out any chances of capturing the ultimate political prize. He was one of the few who genuinely believed in the true potential of this nation.

 In my opinion, JH belongs to my list of brilliant politicians who should have had a chance to govern their various countries. My list includes; Chris Patten and Rab Butler in the UK, Alexander Hamilton and John Mccain in the United States of America, Amilcar Cabral of Guinea and Victor Owusu in Ghana.

My friend Angela isn’t too happy with me. She called me last week to complain about what she termed as, ‘my never-ending criticism of this government’. To say I was scandalized would be an understatement and this is because I had been with Angela in the run-up to the 2016 elections campaigning against the then incumbent.

We saw it as a patriotic duty to do so or maybe I did because Angela is a card-bearing member of the NPP and was going to vote for the party anyway. So I asked Angela why she thought I was being unfair in my criticism of the government.

She proceeded to give me a lecture on the achievements of the government and the challenges the administration inherited from the previous administration. There were a lot of things I could say in response but I kept quiet to avoid upsetting my friend any further.

I knew she wasn’t alone in her assessment of me. I had friends in the NDC calling me ‘idealistic’ when I was constantly on the case of Mr. Mahama. But, is it really the case that I don’t appreciate the efforts of our ruling parties or I am an idealist or even cynical. Well, I can’t be a judge in my own court.

However, one thing I can confidently testify about myself is my absolute belief that this beautiful country of ours has been developing at a rate far below its potential since independence. We have for far too long become content with our mediocrity. Maybe it is time to awaken the giant in our collective resolve to lift the millions of our people from abject poverty and deprivation.