One of the most frustrating experiences for citizens is hearing political leaders complain about the same problems they were elected or appointed to solve.
A government official speaks about poor roads. A politician complains about unemployment. Another raises concerns about the high cost of living, illegal mining, poor sanitation, unreliable public services or the difficulties facing young people.
But sometimes, the question citizens are left asking is simple:
If you are now in a position of authority, why are you complaining about the same problem we elected you to solve?
Citizens already know the problems.
They experience them every day.
They deal with broken roads on their way to work, struggle with rising prices at the market, search for jobs in a difficult economy and watch their communities deal with problems that have remained unresolved for years.
What they expect from their leaders is not simply an explanation of the problem. They expect action, leadership and solutions.
Leaders Are Not Ordinary Citizens
There is an important difference between an ordinary citizen identifying a problem and a political leader identifying the same problem.
A citizen can complain because they have limited power to change the situation.
A minister, Member of Parliament, metropolitan, municipal or district chief executive, government agency head or other public official has been given a level of authority, resources and responsibility specifically to help address problems within their mandate.
The Real Test of Leadership Is Finding Solutions
The real test of leadership is not how well a politician can describe the problems facing ordinary Ghanaians, but how willing they are to take responsibility for finding solutions to those problems.
A leader is elected or appointed to represent people who cannot all gather in one place to make decisions for themselves. Whether it is a Member of Parliament representing a constituency, a local government official representing a community, or the head of an institution responsible for a particular mandate, leadership comes with responsibility.
This is why citizens have every right to ask a simple question when leaders repeatedly complain about problems: What is the difference between you and the citizens who elected you?
Citizens already know the problems because they live with them every day. They know when roads are bad, when public services are failing, when businesses are struggling and when government institutions are not performing as expected.
What they need from their leaders is not another description of the problem. They need someone with the authority to investigate, demand answers, coordinate the relevant institutions and push for solutions.
Take Ghana’s public institutions, for example. If an institution has been given a specific mandate to scrutinise government expenditure or investigate activities within the public sector, should it always wait for the President before performing that responsibility?
If every institution must wait for the President to personally intervene before it can investigate problems within its area of responsibility, then citizens are entitled to question whether those institutions are being allowed to exercise the authority given to them.
Of course, institutions must operate within the law and respect the boundaries of their respective mandates. But leadership also requires initiative. It means asking difficult questions, demanding accountability and taking action within one’s authority rather than simply pointing to the problem and waiting for someone else to solve it.
Perhaps this is where political leadership in Ghana needs a change in mindset.
Citizens elect leaders because they cannot all sit in Parliament, occupy ministries, run public institutions or make decisions on behalf of the country themselves. They entrust others with that responsibility.
Therefore, when those entrusted with power return to the same citizens merely to complain about the problems, they were elected or appointed to address, the question becomes unavoidable:
If you have the authority to act, why are you only telling us about the problem?
Ghana’s Blame-Game Politics and the Cost to Citizens
For more than three decades of Ghana’s Fourth Republic, politics between the two dominant parties, the NPP and NDC, has often been characterised by a cycle of blame. When one party is in government, it blames the previous administration for the country’s problems. When the other party is in opposition, it points to the failures of the government in power.
There is nothing wrong with holding a previous administration accountable. In fact, accountability is essential to a functioning democracy. The problem begins when blame becomes a substitute for action and when political parties appear more interested in proving that the other side is responsible than in finding solutions that benefit ordinary citizens.
The two major political parties have repeatedly accused each other of corruption, waste of public resources and decisions that have allegedly caused financial losses to the state. Yet citizens can reasonably ask whether these accusations consistently result in meaningful accountability.
If a government believes that the previous administration mismanaged public funds, why should accountability end with political speeches and accusations? If an opposition party believes the government is misusing state resources, what mechanisms are available to investigate and establish the facts?
The same principle should apply regardless of which party is in power.
When Public Opportunities Become Political Favors
Another concern is the perception that opportunities that should be based on transparent and competitive processes can sometimes become influenced by political connections.
Public appointments, recruitment and access to opportunities should ideally operate under clear rules that give qualified citizens a fair chance. When citizens believe that political connections or “protocol” determine who gets an opportunity, trust in public institutions suffers.
This is particularly troubling when the same leaders who speak about creating a fair society are perceived as participating in systems that give preferential access to certain individuals.
A leader’s responsibility should be to strengthen institutions, not create a system in which citizens believe that knowing the right person is more important than meeting the right requirements.
Leadership Must Also Be Willing to Discipline Its Own
True accountability becomes difficult when leaders are willing to criticise wrongdoing on the other side but hesitate to confront similar conduct within their own political camp.
A government that wants citizens to respect its anti-corruption efforts must also be prepared to investigate and, where wrongdoing is established, sanction its own officials.
Leadership should not mean protecting people simply because they belong to the same political party.
If an appointee violates the law or abuses public trust, accountability should not depend on political affiliation. Otherwise, the message to citizens is that there are different standards for people depending on which side of the political divide they belong to.
That is not the kind of leadership citizens should celebrate.
It is not enough for politicians to promise a transparent and accountable society. They must demonstrate those values when doing so is politically inconvenient.
Leadership Means Taking Responsibility
Ghana does not lack people who can identify its problems. What the country needs is leadership that is willing to take responsibility for solving them.
For too long, citizens have watched political leaders blame their predecessors, opposition parties blame governments, and institutions point to one another while the same problems continue to affect ordinary people.
No government can solve every problem overnight. No leader has unlimited resources, and some national challenges require years of planning and cooperation. But citizens should at least be able to see a genuine effort to find solutions, strengthen institutions and hold people accountable when things go wrong.
The people who occupy public office were given that responsibility because citizens cannot all sit in Parliament, ministries, assemblies and public institutions to make decisions themselves. They entrusted others with their power.
That trust should mean something.
A leader who can only tell citizens what is wrong is performing the role of a commentator, not necessarily a leader. Leadership begins when someone accepts responsibility and asks: What can I do with the authority I have been given to make this situation better?
Perhaps Ghana’s political conversation should therefore move away from who caused every problem and focus more on who is responsible for solving it.
Because at the end of the day, citizens do not elect leaders simply to hear their complaints.
They elect them to turn those complaints into action, and action into results.
