ABSTRACT
Introduction: This is a Case-control study of subaltern
intellectuals, professionals and cowards in the Ghanaian public space. The
theory of change for this presentation is: If the nation wants to avoid
military takeovers, the intellectuals and professional classes need to become
active in governance, using tools such as civil disobedience; public
demonstrations; a strong judiciary; advocacy against corruption, identity
politics, and Court actions, as the main weapons against the abuse of office. Objective: The purpose of this work is to show how the Ghanaian political and public
spaces have been inundated by acts of cowardice with disastrous consequences on
good governance, and the general disintegration of the nation’s moral ethos.
Using the examples of the Controls, this study would show the options available
in becoming change managers and transforming society towards professionalism,
and encouraging moral temperance. It would also show the instances where
weapons such as judicial challenges, public demonstrations and picketing with
sustained advocacy, have led to behavior modification on the part of government
and administrative powers. Method: The Case-Control study approach
allows for the study of unusual phenomenon such as the incidence of Cowardice
in Ghana’s intellectual space, by reviewing past events retrospectively; the
consideration of a variety of reasons for the conduct or risk factors;
and allows for the optimization of outcomes that may be difficult to determine
at first such as counter-measures. Result: The findings show that,
although a few of Ghana’s intellectuals and professionals have used public
demonstrations, picketing, advocacy and judicial action to cause social and political
transformation, most of the nation’s intellectual and professional classes
display cowardice in speaking truth to power, unable to pursue noble deeds as
the subaltern intellectuals of old, to create the legal estoppels against
government’s or administrators’ inimical actions or corruption, due to their
own immersion in corruption in the universities and public institutions. For
these reasons, they are riddled with fear and cannot protest the denial of the
citizens’ functioning and capabilities by public officials, as enshrined in the
1992 Constitution. Conclusion: It is not only on the political/governing
classes that about (40%) of the blame for the persistent underdevelopment,
underclassness, poverty and corruption in Ghana should be placed, but (50%) of
the blame should be put on the intellectuals such as university lecturers and
vice chancellors, and professionals such as bankers, accountants, medical
doctors and pharmacist, judges and lawyers and similar professions, with the
rest of the blame on the citizens for their cowardice, feigned helplessness,
and egoism for not fighting against injustice, neglect of duty and abuse of
power.