Ghana @ 60: Time to mourn
Shall we show by hand how many Ghanaians think that celebrating 60 years of Ghana’s independence is worth even a cedi? My hand is down. Reason: We haven’t moved one inch in 60 years.
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Our minerals, oil and other natural resources have brought us nothing beyond what has been available to spend on our greed, our family and business relations and party gurus. Our leaders have failed us big-time. For their pockets and their stomachs, they have allowed a situation where, even before a bid is submitted or before the contract is signed, the contractor has been paid – a la Bus Rebranding.
In this leader-less nation, citizens are selling (and eating) cooked food near public toilets; school children are sitting on bare dusty ground (they don’t qualify to be called ‘floor’) to study; a good number of our citizens are still competing with cattle in the community streams (into which both they and the cattle urinate) for drinking water.
By failing to announce a no-show for ‘Ghana @ 60’, I think President Nana Akufo Addo has missed one of the biggest opportunities he would ever have to etch his name among the exceptionally brave african leaders who dared to be different. One of these leaders is the Tanzanian President who has entered and earned the admiration of world leaders for daring to (i) postpone independence celebrations so that the money saved could buy drugs for cholera patients (ii) insist that workshops and conferences should be held in conference rooms of the various ministries instead of plush five-star hotels.
Don’t get me wrong. President Akufo Addo has not sinned – so far... If there is Dumsor in January 2017, does it not naturally mean that the problem had not been fixed before end of 2016? What is this shrillness on our radio and TV since January 2017 that seems to suggest that the two-month-old government has already failed beyond redemption? Some critics turn out to be failures, I agree; but even those critics deserve time (at least, six months) to prove they are failures.
I remember 2011, a month after Kufuor came to power, the song we were being made to believe the people were singing was “Medofo adaadaa me”, even when nobody could actually be heard singing it. Then Atta Mills came. If the records are correct, Rawlings hounded Atta Mills till death mercifully took him away.
In 2017 what I hear on radio is that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) did same or worse than the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in its first few weeks in power in 2009. Is that reason to expect that a month-old government should have solved any problems yet? That is the work of angels, I submit. Equalisation is bad; on that I agree with the NDC. For instance, in regard to the activities of the NPP hoodlums seizing toll booths and toilets and chasing out NHIS officers, the Flagstaff House Director of Communication should have had the President speak on TV, surrounded by IGP and the Military High Command (with an extreme close-up of the cameras on their face) doing the condemnation and issuing warnings to those perpetrators – in the very first week the atrocities broke out.
More anon.
For now, my worry is why we are celebrating Ghana at 60 at all, even if it is costing only One Ghana Cedi, or even if the GH¢20 million celebration budget is from private pockets. As usual, we have been quick to produce logos and compose patriotic songs.
Honestly, what is there to celebrate? If anything, I rather think there is a lot to mourn over. Shouldn’t this have been the time to mourn the rate at which our water bodies are drying up or dying? Is this not the best opportunity for the government to ask for the mandate of the people to go against illegal miners (galamsey) with the full might of the military and police?
And what is this ignorant call to “regularise” galamsey? Ask Madam Joyce Aryee. It has been tried before. “Galamseyers” were asked to register as small-scale miners and be given concessions. Some did; many refused. Fact is, those who have refused are too greedy for quick money to want to do the legal. They are not looking for GH¢2,000.00 monthly salary: they want that which will build them mansions and V8 within weeks. Going forward, why restrict the Navy to the sea? Why don’t we make the Navy responsible for protecting water bodies?
Another area we should use the Ghana a 60 to do is to mourn over the inability of our system to create opportunities for our scientists and researchers to practicalise their knowledge with inventions? Why do our scientists shine only when they operate from the laboratories of NASA and other industrialised nations? We cannot have Professor Allotey walking in flesh among us and yet suffer as a nation!
The independence anniversary period in 2017 should have been declared a National Week of Mourning. All flags should fly at half-mast. Everywhere, people should go in black or red. Our radio stations should be given some money (out of the GH¢20 million celebration budget) so they can suspend regular programming and devote their air time to mournful songs.
People will then begin to ask, who is dead? And we shall tell ourselves: “Ghana is dead”. Through corruption and thievery and opportunism, our leaders have killed Ghana’s soul.
We have failed as a nation, and in all my 60-plus years on earth, I have never come across anybody celebrating failure.