Leaders must constantly engage citizens – Hanna Tetteh

Ms Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, United Nations (UN) Special Envoy to the African Union, says African leaders must constantly engage citizens on the state of their countries in the governance process.

The lack of such engagement, she said, had resulted in the spate of coup d’états in some African countries as the lack of trust in governance presented less confidence of citizens in the actions of a government to do what was right and perceived fair.

She said trust in government was one of the most important foundations upon which the legitimacy and sustainability of political systems were built.

She noted that, in Africa, the way democratic and governance processes were characterized was almost as though people elected democratic leaders to think and act for them and that it was important to appreciate that constant communication and continuous interaction with the citizens was key.

Ms. Tetteh said trust, through effective engagement, was essential for social cohesion and well-being as it affected governments’ ability to govern and enabled the citizens to act without having to resort to coercion.

The UN Special Envoy to the AU, sharing her thoughts during a panel discussion at the “African Union Reflection Forum on Unconstitutional Change of Government in Africa” held in Accra, explained that to examine what influenced trust in government, the preferences of the citizens needed to be compared to their perceptions of the functioning of government.

“Leadership elected should govern with the people not to think for them and assume that they knew what they wanted to have at a particular point,” she said.

She stressed that, “we need to start looking at the process of governance as a continuance of constant engagement with the citizens – the very people who put leadership in power in the first place” and that the assumption of a top-down approach would be absolved because there was unceasing conversation and engagement.

Ms. Tetteh, also the Head of the UN Office to the AU said considering the state of governance in Africa continuous engagement was important because it was the fractures in the State governance that had led to the situation of the seeming spike of coup d’états currently being witnessed in Africa.

“Why is it that when there were these coup d’états in the past in West Africa, they were welcomed by especially young and frustrated people who were unemployed and probably thought that having a military leadership was going to offer something different for them,” she wondered.  

Ms. Tetteh said it was because when there were imminent challenges in the body politics and challenges with civilian or military governments, there was no sufficient engagement with the people to enable them to understand the difficulties to proffer alternative solutions.

Therefore, she said, with the current state of governance, ensuring that inclusion was not mere rhetoric was key and suggested that refining the governance system for continuous engagement to become the norm in ways that respect democratic principles and tenets.

Again, she said respecting the opposition was significant, explaining that governance must not be about the party in government neither a party in opposition without thinking about the people who elected both parties otherwise it became an elite power play.

“It has become a question of who is able to get the better sound bite, who is able to make the better argument and who is able to bring people along with their way of thinking at a point in time,” she said.

That, she added, was the reason African leaders must move away from thinking of politics as an elite interaction and “zero sum game” that does not reflect the people who were the majority of any society and ensuring that it was done in ways that respond to the needs of the people.

Ms. Tetteh, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration of Ghana, said a system that was inclusive and democracies that were not responsive to African values simply meant that effective engagements were not being effective as those were fundamentals in the governance process.

She suggested that the solutions to nipping the phenomenon of the increasing coups in the bud, was not about new norms and principles, but “it is about ensuring that the structures, including civil society, public service, political leadership among others, and the citizenry worked more effectively.