GHANA; THE PREDICAMENT OF A SLEEPING GIANT

GHANA; THE PREDICAMENT OF A SLEEPING GIANT
 

We are living in a time where the spirits and hopes of our people have fallen. Cynicism has found a dwelling place in our souls. Rising to meet the new challenge has deluded our courage. Holding to our values of commonality has tattered. And Black star of Africa has become dimmer than darkness in our backyards. Our youth have replaced zeal and creativity for peasant contentment and lush desire to satisfy personal comfort to the neglect collective progress. 

We are a selfish people not because we are pursuing individual interest but when we neglect our neighbors’. The youth are the representatives our future and progress. Whenever the representatives of the people loose morality, the downfall of a civilization becomes inevitable. Extreme partisanship deeply entangled in tribalism and selfishness has jettison nationalism from our hearts and in its place, greed and hatred. One’s success as a politician is dependent on how brutal and insulting you can be and not the happiness that he brings to humanity through development. The youth are satisfied to count the number toilets NGOs build as government achievement. Our leaders has surrendered and betrayed the reason why they are elected to ruthless international financial institutions that make money at the expense of the sweat of the Ghanaian worker. Economics has no meaning if it cannot ensure higher living standards and elimination of misery from our youth. History equally is meaningless if it cannot inspire our hearts to fix what is broken and build on what works. Science and technology has become a realm of speculation. Science must be the sharp knife that will cut the cord of poverty and build a solid economic foundation that propels our people into greater heights.

The youth is our greatest asset yet we have been socially cloned to accept the status quo. Sadly we have joined and are actually the main accomplice in our current toxic politics. Instead of educating the masses, our leaders exploit our ignorance to rule rather than govern. In this context, education seizes to be our schooling system that gives us nothing except turning us to memory cards for keeping information and reproducing them at request. Education has no meaning if the educated cannot turn information into innovation. Educating and turning our energies to productive ventures, combined with zeal to research and innovate can turn our carpenters into world-class craftsmen and our traders into prosperous business executives. The greatest agents of social restructuring are traders and the media.

The greatest asset we have is what is on the surface and not what is in or comes from the earth. Resource development must therefore be about putting skills and inspiration in the hearts of our people. For it are only human resource that is truly renewable and not any other material resource. I admit as a student of resource development that in theory some resources may be “renewable” but it is only the human spirit that can be renewed without causing any harm to the sustainable development.

There is sufficient energy and creativity in our youth to propel development. We just have to put our minds to it and it shall be achieved. Nothing however shall be achieved if we do not take a step out of our current body politic and social values. Nothing shall be achieved if our youth do no unclench their fists and hold together a new opportunity. Nothing will be achieved if we do not change our hearts and see the new light. We have lost many opportunities. We cannot afford to lose it again.