Something Is Wrong With Ghana

Something is wrong with Ghana, but we shall soon find it.

Ghana is so blessed with human and resources, and favorable climate to boot; yet many a Ghanaian are those that do not benefit so live deprived. Something is wrong and it has to be found.

Ghana has invested a greater part of her fortunes in free and almost-free education, turning out graduates of different shades and forms. As they sit for their final exams they are also in the visa queues for visa to travel abroad to do odd jobs, unrelated to their just-acquired knowledge. Something is wrong somewhere, we shall find it.

Ghana has hardworking rural folks producing all kinds of primary produce which could easily be turned into secondary products, yet our graduates seek government employment and Ghana imports almost everything. Something is wrong and we shall do our best to find it.

Ghana has endowed her educated ones with high level certificates which they flaunt for fans, but they are found wanting in basic knowledge about life in their own environment; the environment they are expected to develop! Something is not right, we have to find it.

Maybe God must come in to help, luckily he is well known in all his identities by Ghanaians; and judging by the serene religious atmosphere in Ghana, God must also know them. They however choose to spend four out of the seven days of the week in churches to ask God to do what God expects them to do on this earth! Something has to be wrong, we shall find it.

Is it not in Ghana that governments pride themselves in the number of hospitals and doctor's strikes they record while they cannot provide enough garbage dumps, toilets, and drainage, thereby increasing incidence of malaria, cholera, etc. Is prevention not better than cure in Ghana? If something is wrong we shall soon find it.

Ghanaian authorities always bemoan the increase in the number of road accidents, and do not forget also to complain about GORO boys at the licencing offices who help to licence unqualified drivers! Do the licencing officials not know the appropriate process in licencing qualified drivers and vehicles even if they are afraid to drive the "Goro" boys from the licencing premises? Something is wrong.

Or maybe the problem could be from Ghana's interesting policy of rejecting well-maintained ten-year old imported vehicles but certifying thirty-year old rickety vehicles to ply our roads, in the name of preventing "dumping" by foreigners! Are the thirty-year old certified vehicles not indicating a dumpsite already! Ghana has a problem somewhere, but we shall find it.

Anyway, sixty years of "proving to the world that we Africans (Ghanaians) can handle our own affairs" it would not have been too much to ply our roads with our own vehicles by now, but our leaders rather are preoccupied by how to select vehicles from the imported government car-pool for their end-of-service benefit.

These leaders acquire state-of-the-art vehicles for use in the capital cities with "polished" roads they leave villages for their inhabitants to become perpertual villagers. Something must be wrong somewhere.

Then our women emerge in the guise of contributing their quota towards national development, but strategically they incriminate to exploit men and pretend not to see their own weaknesses in our socio-cultural setting. They see women capable and even better than men only in top-level and easy positions, but not in the tough, rough, harsh and risky jobs! If being female was all the requirement for development, why do they not let the rural and illiterate women fill those decision-making positions! We shall find what is wrong soon.

"Wo werɛfi na wosan kɔfa a yɛnkyi" (It is not an abomination to return to retrieve what has been forgotten), is a popular Akan proverb. It is not too late learn and to correct our errors, so let us rethink, reposition and redo some of our business-as-usual things to make Ghana shine again, I believe it could be done.