KNOWN BY ALL, ADMITTED BY NONE.

Dear St Jude,

I have always wondered about this business called politics.

I have wondered why so many clamour, in our times, to represent us, to serve us.

Above all, I wonder why they are at each other’s throats to get on the bill.

Every four years, Ghanaians are, by our Constitution, required to elect the government. Sometimes we change them and other times, we confirm them to continue. Or do we?

St Jude, Ghana’s politics is anything but democratic, and I can explain, if you doubt my assertion.

To answer this question I will start by stating that an election should be free and fair and by this assertion I mean that voters should indeed exercise their franchise free from influence and from coercion. If that be the case, then the prevailing conditions where it is known by all and admitted by none that voters are influenced goes contrary to what ought to be the case.

St Jude, our votes, are in the majority, secured by inducement. Yes. This inducement is not always a tangible, like in the form of cash or gifts but can also be in the form of promises, express or implicit. Or even speculative.  Inducement can also be that intangible pull of ethnic considerations, religious calculations or simple sectional interest. What that means is that, next-to-no-voter goes into the booth informed only by merit and proven integrity if at all. In this fraught ecosystem are Christians as well as other people of other faiths, yet there is no discernible evidence that our faiths have a bearing on the process.

Soon, churchgoers will have to suffer the presence of politicians on their campaign trails. They will have to sit in the houses of God and listen to candidates speak a lot of untruths. They will sit and behold their church leaders extol the fictional virtues of persons whose dubious means are in no doubt. They may even have to clap for said persons, all the while, sitting in the house of God. This process will repeat itself with the visit of each politician and we the congregation will have to go along. These politicians, in some cases will be hosted by our leaders in plush quarters, sometimes at the cost of the church, while the average parishioner may live, worship and die without the privilege of ever being invited into those ‘hallowed’ places. Oh I forget, many of us will be asked to leave our seats for these ‘VIPs’. St Jude, such has been the practice and I see no reason to hope that it will change anytime soon.

The above notwithstanding, I am able to report that some Christians have taken a stance, that is by not engaging in active politics, their reason being that ‘politics is a dirty game’. Granted, but it is a necessary evil and so to scurry away at the mention of politics is a grievous dereliction of duty, civic and religious. Of this, many are guilty and I too stand indicted, only now waking up to that imperative of engaging actively in the selection of our representatives and in holding them to account once they are elected. I know this will meet with disapproval from some quarters but I quaver not. Our Bishops have already shown the example and we must follow suit. And when we do so we must keep in mind that we enter politics, yes as individuals but also as known Christians. This fact behooves us comport ourselves in a manner reflective of our faith. We cannot exfoliate ourselves of our Christian credentials when we go into the political arena, in fact we should be prouder still of our faith and while so doing, we should meticulously measure our actions and statements by our faith precepts. St Jude, I know this is no new news but it is necessary that it be rehashed because there is hardly precedent of Christian political comportment, thorough comportment. I make the difference because there is the perfunctory observance of faith duty and there is the thorough application, by one, of faith precepts in their every waking minute.

As election year comes hither, let us my brother and my sister, resolve to inform, at the very least, our choices by our faith, making sure to select our choices on the basis of more honourable considerations, and where we stand in doubt of what is right, we make our choices based on Christ’s example.