A young Ghanaian entrepreneur’s account of the “most peaceful” election he’s seen
After writing about the Ghanaian presidential elections, gathering some voices on issues of stability and safety that some people speculated on, I wanted to look back on the proceedings of the election with another young person.
I talked to Jaward, a Ghanaian university student, who is also a faculty member of the Ghana Education Service. He is currently doing his second degree in IT Education. He also runs his own internet café and printing services shop near Tamale Polytechnic, one of the big post-secondary institutions in Tamale.
In addition to all of the above, Jaward is very active with the Ghana Volunteer Program, which is an initiative by the Ghana Think Foundation. He is the lead volunteer for the Northern Region. The Ghana Volunteer program exists to encourage volunteerism amongst youth.
You can follow him on Twitter at @jawardmaltiti.
Jaward and I met one week after the election, which occurred on December 7th, 2016. This is an account of his thoughts based on the questions I asked him.
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Jaward doesn’t belong to any particular party. For this particular election, he stayed in tune with what was happening because he was curious as to why people were so involved in the election.
Early in the campaigning period of the election, he believed that the majority of those who do vote, are not moved to vote due to any particular issues. After asking some of his classmates at his university in Kumasi (capital of the Ashanti region) a little bit about political party platforms, manifestoes, etc, some admitted that they didn’t read anything about them. Despite this lack of awareness, they were members of certain parties.
People are now interested in what the government does
However, due to the poor performance of Ghana’s economy in recent years, and rising inflation, Jaward argues that people are now interested in what the government does, and doesn’t, do. Hence the increased number of people interested in voting. Indeed, there was a relatively high voter turnout in the 2016 Elections, at 68%. (At the time of our conversation, the turnout was thought to be 68%. As the Electoral Commission calculated the results, it was revealed that this percentage was for 271 of 275 constituencies in the country, and that the total voter turnout was actually lower, at 49%, which according to the Graphic Online was received with skepticism.) By comparison, Canadian turnout to the federal election in 2016 was 68.3%, which was the highest since 1993.
Jaward clarified that the layman may not understand inflation or the cause of inflation. However, what the average person is aware of, is that recently, certain goods and services are more expensive, for example, school fees. This, he argues, moves the layman to vote and to vote for the party that he believes will address these issues. He also noted that graduates of post-secondary institutions such as himself are struggling to find work, further contributing to a list of social issues. We got into a discussion on unemployment later.
NDC government did not live up to election promises
Jaward is also an entrepreneur. Prior to starting his business, an internet café, his taxes increased and thus opening a business meant paying more in duties and taxes. He felt that the the NDC government did not live up to its promises it made when it won the 2012 election, because running his business has not been easy. That was one reason he was hoping to see a change of government. Another reason is the level of corruption of the NDC government. He indicated his compatriots’ dissatisfaction in the government spending a lot of taxpayer money on the campaigning as an example of corruption.
Now, Jaward is optimistic about the change in government. He notes that it was the most peaceful election he has seen. Some of his friends have put up a non-partisan website to track election promises.
Youth Unemployment and the Ghana Education System
From there the conversation turned to his friends and other youth. Many Ghanaians, and Ghanaian youth, see the government as responsible to providing a solution to unemployment. One such solution is providing employment opportunities through the government itself. For him, entrepreneurship is one solution to unemployment, which is why he began his own business. One problem with thinking that the government must provide jobs, Jaward says, is that many youth don’t have the skills to be employed in the first place. They may have the [university] degree, but they don’t have the skills to succeed in that work environment.
He notes that this partly comes from the education system, which desperately needs to enhance delivering practical knowledge and critical thinking. He says of his counterparts’ mentalities: “[They] are just [there] to get a good GPA and then [they] are gone.” In other words, they are there to read the books, pass the exam, and become certified. He argues that school should be training them to specialize in something, to be able to solve problems in society.
To top off our conversation, I asked him what he thought of the recent US election. He said he didn’t follow it much, but that he has read many books that Trump has authored and co-authored. Jaward’s question was, how can Trump be preaching one thing while campaigning, but writing about something else?