There is a powerful lesson Ghana must learn from what is happening in USA politics today: Building a political party around one person should be a thing of the past.
For some time now, American politics has shown the danger of making one man the centre of a whole party. When a party becomes the property of one individual, when one person becomes the think tank, the voice, the financier and the final decision maker, that party loses its soul. It stops thinking. It stops debating. It stops growing.
Both political parties in Ghana, NPP and NDC, should use what is happening in the USA as a reference point.
We have seen it in our own body politics. When one leader is treated as a god who must dictate for the party, disagreement becomes disloyalty. Young and brilliant minds keep quiet for fear of being punished. The party stops listening to its grassroots and starts listening to only one voice.
But one person cannot be a custodian of all knowledge. No matter how experienced, how popular, or how wealthy a person is, he cannot know everything. He cannot see every angle. He cannot carry the destiny of millions of people alone.
That is why collective decision making should be appreciated in our body politics in Ghana.
A strong party is built on ideas, institutions, structures and teamwork. Not on worship of one man. Leaders must come and go, but the party must remain. Principles must be bigger than personalities. The constitution of the party must be bigger than the ambition of any individual.
Let the NPP and NDC learn this now. Let us build parties where every member matters, where debate is welcomed, where leadership is service and not ownership.
A word to the wise is enough.
