Can Ghana Ever Develop?

A year ago, I lost my sweet octogenarian grandmother to medical negligence; a term that has gained currency in our beloved country due to the many instances where rather preventable deaths otherwise lead people to their graves at the instance of health practitioners. I also lost a sister from another mother just when we were preparing to ‘Cross Over’ into 2015. She’d just delivered a bouncy baby boy the natural way than she started complaining of stomach ache. That was all!

Anyway, so we held Maame Efua Ansaba’s first anniversary earlier in the month. Due to pressure emanating from different quarters, I celebrated her with a rather unkempt hair. So on the Sunday of the celebration, I visited my most trusted barber after the memorial and thanksgiving service, for a trim. Upon reaching the salon, I met two childhood friends of mine waiting their turn to trim theirs too.

About 15 minutes into our conversation, one asked the other: “So can Ghana ever develop?” My eyes and ears were fixated on my other friend to hear what he had to say. “Kai…for the where? The individuals dey develop, but the nation di33...Yaa Mutu!”, was his response. I couldn’t stop laughing. On my way back to the reception grounds after I’d had my hair cut, I was still thinking about that response, trying to ascertain its veracity or otherwise. Dear readers, I readily concurred after about a minute or so, and I’ll tell you why.

Who Are You?

I had barely walked into the Interactive Media department of the company I work with than a colleague asked: “What do you call that plastic thing at the ends of a shoe lace?” For a moment it seemed I was sitting on the hot seat of Kafui Dey’s ‘Who Wants To Be Rich?’ programme waiting to attempt an answer to the penultimate question where one wins GHS 25,000.00. I shrugged and carried out the motive which took me there in the first place, but not after a bout of laughter from them.

It wasn’t after a couple of hours had passed when a colleague from the IT department walked into my office than I remembered the question. This bizarre reminder and quest for knowledge drove me straight to ‘google’ it on my phone. An aglet, it is called. I relayed the answer to him and was given a thumps up. Later in the evening, I again accessed the internet on my phone, and realized I hadn’t closed the tab on which I found the answer to the brain teaser. I proceeded to scroll down to satisfy my curiosity. The webpage had this for a definition:   

I Have A Dream......

As a student of history, I find it almost unpardonable that I hitherto, hadn’t found it necessary to listen to the complete speech made by the doyen of the struggle for freedom in American politics for the Afro-American, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in 1963. I had heard snippets of it whiles growing up, and seen it referenced in many articles but hadn’t really saddled myself with that kind of research. However, I woke up one morning, and “I have a dream” emerged victorious in the quest for attention in my mind after saying my prayer. Where did it come from? I have no idea. Nonetheless, I also have dreams. I will share one I have on politics.

If this was the picture Kwame Nkrumah and his men had seen when they fought for our liberation, they would not have lost sleep, gone to prison and endured all manner of abuse. I don’t believe the Ghana I have seen for twenty-something years is the same Ghana they handed over to our generation. Successive governments have fought so hard to plunge us into a state of anarchy. Our leaders have happily carried the cross of corruption since independence, and seem to be in the contest of who will outdo the other. They have always said on campaign platforms that they intend to strengthen one institution or another to tackle corruption. Ruling parties have been voted against in elections because they failed miserably to face corruption head on, inter alia, only to find that the next government is actually worse off. They tend to rather build systems that make the menace thrive. They create, loot and share! The mere mention of ‘politician’ in certain quarters will be met with derision because the breed we have in Ghana and Africa are liars. This has led to the game being rechristened ‘politricks’, because that’s what they do essentially – trick us the populace into voting them into office.