By Emmanuel Oti Acheampong
Media in Partnership for Development (MIPD), a film production and media firm, has launched a book and movie titled Mandocracy at a press launch in Accra on February 10, 2023.
The sixteen-page book, according to the founder of MIPD, Mr. Ben Imoro, a veteran journalist, contains suggestions and recommendations by a group of research students in Ghana to the Parliament of Ghana to adopt a new way of government in place of the already-known democracy, which has not been successful enough in our Ghanaian and African context.
The proposed system, known as the Mandocracy, is coined from the local dialect “omando” which literally means love for the nation, and crazy which means governance or rule.
This, he explained, when adopted, leaders will heighten the love for the country ahead of the love for themselves and their pocket because Mandocracy is a system made with the Ghanaian and African at heart.
In an address to the press, Mr. Imoro said it is never possible for a football team to go to a game with their own referee to officiate their game. He added that even if the referee does due diligence to the game without fault and blames, the opponent will still not be content with it.
This, he said, is the situation in Ghana currently when the sitting President nominates the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission which is supposed to be an independent institution.
He further admonished journalists to use their space to preach love and also be critical enough when things are not seeming well in the country. Journalists, he said, are closer to God because what they write carries power and should learn how to use their power to influence patriotism and educate the world.
Mr. Imoro bemoaned the way Africans have become what he described as learned helplessness. In an explanation of how we have learned helplessness, he said we play football and do things equally or even more than the Westerners but with issues of development, we have nothing to write about.
“I went to research to find out why, during football, we play like the whites and sometimes more than them, but when it comes to development, we are always lacking. We have all the knowledge, and all the resources, but we are very lacking. What I discovered is that we are suffering what the Psychologist calls learned helplessness,” he said.
