
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.
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