To Break or Not To Break The 8

Undeniably, the NPP, in a positive way have been spectacular with sloganeering of their policies and agendas. Current political discourse downplays the NPP’s latest collage of slogans due to previous slogans not yielding the expected results.

Nonetheless, political slogans create the necessary awareness and euphoria in society and attract persons who have attained adult suffrage to participate in elections and improve voter turnout, which in turn enriches collective decision-making.

In good time before to 2024 elections, the NPP again unveiled the “Breaking the 8” slogan. Without the advantage of a quick recall, one may think this is the first time a government is attempting such a feat.

In 2000, the NDC with J E A Mills attempted to break the 8 with no success. In 2008, the NPP with N A D Akufo-Addo attempted it with no success. In 2016, the NDC attempted again with J D Mahama, no success. Once again, public Ghana is faced with the same conundrum, this time with Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia of the NPP.

An agenda to break the 8 is an attempt to monopolise an already narrow political duopoly (NDC & NPP). At the least, the current political duopoly affords us the opportunity to benefit from inter-party competition. Breaking the 8, as innocent as it seems, inherently carries a political system risk of creating monopolistic dominance as seen in Togo, Gabon, Uganda, Eritrea, Rwanda etc. whose democratic credentials are perennially questionable. For immature democracies, breaking the 8 can easily become an ambition to cripple competition and establish hegemony.

Besides, the two laps of four years as prescribed by the 1992 constitution was strategically calculated to be sufficient to prosecute any development agenda. After eight (8) years, ideas mostly become stale in intent, and driven by rhetoric. Following the current trajectory of overt corruption, poor governance, and economic malady due to gross fiscal indiscipline, any efforts to break the 8 is a journey all the way to nowhere. Especially, in the face of compelling alternative policies of the Movement for Change and the NDC.

The agenda to break the eight (8) for the sake of it so we can boastfully say, “we were the first government to achieve that since independence” is only self-serving, especially when it lacks the compelling backing of socio-economic achievements.

Rather than government making it a target and a statement of achievement, breaking the 8 should be a natural consequence as a reward from a politically discerning electorate. A slogan without political will and intent to prosecute is a fully loaded bus on high speed to nowhere.

The writer DAVID ZEKPAH is the Executive Director of the 1957 Group.