When the General called me on Saturday evening of June 20, 2026, he said amidst laughter, “Sir, I can guess what your next article will be on!” Chuckling, I asked what his guess was.
He was right! The 2026 WASSCE ended the previous day. In some schools, parents were said to have gifted cars on school premises to daughters who had just finished writing the WASSCE. Were such public shows of opulence, flaunting wealth, necessary?
Could such presentations, if they were necessary, not have been done privately at home?
In my article last week in the Daily Graphic and Peace FM Online titled, “Kum-ase!” Afari Military Hospital! When?” I stated as follows.
QUOTE
Lamenting the effects of the current floods in Accra on his return from his trip to the UK and Belarus, the President once again bemoaned the loss of our cultural values. He stated,
“Our values are eroded.
We don’t care anymore!” How right he was/is! Otherwise, why the confrontational, arrogant and disrespectful approach to solving a problem everybody wants solved, by attacking and suspending CEOs of teaching hospitals, as we have seen with Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH)?
Scapegoating CEOs and blatantly showing power for systemic institutional problems that bedevil our health ecosystem is certainly not good leadership. Leadership is not showing power!
UNQUOTE
Values/Moral Compass
Values are the core beliefs, principles and moral standards that guide an individual’s or group’s behaviour, decisions and judgment.
They define what is considered right, wrong, important or desirable (Google).
In my first year Ethics class in Philosophy at Legon, Prof. Kwame Gyekye of blessed memory used the term “moral compass,” coterminously with “values.”
For a soldier with absolute faith in the compass as a navigational instrument, “moral compass” was easy to understand/appreciate.
As I thought of the President’s statement, “our values are eroded.
We don’t care anymore,” my mind raced back to my February 28, 2018, article in the Daily Graphic titled “Values, Attitudes and Law Enforcement”, quoted below.
QUOTE
Recently, a young single-parent (Jay) recounted her experience when she took her child to school on a Monday morning. As can be expected of an elite Ghanaian Basic School, an assortment of luxurious cars trooped in each morning to bring the children of their rich owners to school.
However, what struck Jay that Monday morning about the routine dropping off of children was that the children who came out of that posh car looked more like coal miners at the end of their shift. While their school uniforms looked dirty and scruffy, their general appearance, particularly their unkempt hair, was disturbing to Jay.
What kind of upbringing were such rich parents who showily dropped off their kids in luxurious vehicles, giving their children, and seeing nothing wrong with bringing them to school so dirty on a Monday morning?
This incident brought back to mind a question my nephew asked his mother a few years ago, which was referred to me!
Nephew’s Question
My nephew, a young university graduate, asked his mother what legacy their parents are leaving for them.
He fired at his mother that she and her siblings constantly spoke fondly and lovingly about the virtues and discipline their parents instilled in them.
Then he continued as follows:
“All we hear you do daily is hurl insults at one another using intemperate language and showing open disrespect to one another in the full glare of the whole world.
Meanwhile, ours is a country which produces nothing apart from Bitters and building Filling Stations.
We import everything, including toothpicks and vegetables, from neighbouring and faraway countries.
Corruption has grown deep roots and is strangulating us with the power of a choke grip.
Are our parents happy with bequeathing us a legacy of violence, indiscipline, stealing, lies, filth and corruption, and consigning us to permanent poverty with the huge debts you are leaving for us after all your conspicuous consumption?
What happened to Ghana Airways and Black Star Line? What happened to all the State-Owned-Enterprises (SOEs) under the Ghana-Industrial-Holding-Corporation (GIHOC)?
What happened to the Bonsa Tyre Factory, the Aboaso Glass Factory, the Volta Corned-Beef Factory, the Kumasi Jute Factory, Nsawam Cannery, and the Asutuare and Komenda Sugar Factories, among others?”
The mother was sad about her son’s questions as she realised that she had no answers to his barrage of questions. She asked me, “Uncle Dan, so what do we do?”
President Sukarno
On a visit to Indonesia in 1968, Prime Minister Lee-Kuan-Yew of Singapore was impressed with what he saw.
He, therefore, complimented President Sukarno of Indonesia with the words “you are blessed with a beautiful country.”
Sukharno’s answer was “Yes, God has blessed us.
The problem is the people.” Like Lee, I think Ghana is blessed.
But, how about its people, as Sukarno said about Indonesians?
Certainly, the people of Ghana need visionary and good leadership by example to ensure a change in values and attitudes.
Most importantly, we have to enforce our laws!
Time without number, I have heard on the radio/TV experts chorus to us that Ghana has some of the best laws in the world.
My simple question is, of what benefit are good laws on paper which are not enforced?
When I questioned a foreign colleague about why screaming newspaper headlines on murder were a daily ritual in his country, he sadly said, “It is because people know they can get away with murder, as there is no law enforcement in this country.
If they know they will be killed for murder because the law works, they will not murder.”
I ask myself, why have we become so negative and cynical?
Why do Ghanaians denigrate anything Ghanaian and yet offer so much “traditional Ghanaian hospitality” to foreigners, some of whom do not deserve it?
Why do traditional rulers cooperate with foreigners in the destruction of our forests and water bodies through illegal mining? Rivers Ankobra, Birim, Pra and Tano now have the colour of chocolate that can no longer sustain fish life, as “galamsey” ravages us.
Mediocrity/Indiscipline
Why do we praise mediocrity and kill achievement?
What happened to Meritocracy, which brought out the potential in students from villages when we went to secondary school in the 1960s?
This country is so blessed with both human and material resources that, with a positive attitude under effective visionary leadership, we can do far better than we are doing, in the estimation of my nephew.
For about the first 20 years of life as a nation, traditional values were generally respected and observed, despite some social upheavals.
Thereafter, a revolutionary new alien culture of violence, indiscipline, disrespect for authority/elderly and dislike for success, while hailing mediocrity, got injected into Ghanaian society.
The very fabric of Ghana’s societal values got dealt a heavy blow with a culture of viciousness and selfishness replacing the virtues of Ghanaian society at independence.
Money replaced Truth as a social value. This has had a serious toll on the Ghanaian people and has not helped us.
Way forward
What we need is a rediscovery of the time-tested values of Truth, Integrity, Hard work, Respect for Diversity/Discipline, back to what we had at independence, when the Ghanaian respected the Ghanaian and felt proud to be a Ghanaian.
Indeed, such was Ghana’s image internationally that some colleagues from other African countries told me that in the 1960s, they all took pride in introducing themselves overseas as Ghanaians.
Given effective visionary, respectful and selfless leadership, this country can rediscover itself and move forward again, such that my nephew’s question about what legacy we are leaving for them will not embarrass us.
Most importantly, parents must parent their children based on the traditional values of Respect, Integrity, Discipline and Selflessness, and remember the old saying “spare the rod and spoil the child!”
Summary
Some may argue that parents have the right to spend their money the way they like on their children. Granted this, they must also realise the negative psychological effect of flaunting such wealth on other students on campus.
The General and I humorously quipped that, if a girl gets a car just for finishing WASSCE, then probably, a helicopter awaits her
first degree! We wondered what she would get for her Master’s and Doctorate degrees!
Parents, parent your children to be responsible citizens in future, and not teach them how to flaunt wealth!
Ghana Education Service/School Authorities, you have a role to play to nip this showmanship in the bud!
Leadership, lead by Example/Humility/Integrity! Fellow Ghanaians, WAKE UP!
Brig Gen Dan Frimpong (Rtd)
Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association
Nairobi, Kenya
Council Chairman
Family Health University, Accra
