Sometimes, l pity those Ghanaians who are worried about Ghana. I have long stopped losing my sleep to think about the country. I would not even cry at what l see around me, because we lost it long ago.
In the history of every country, leaders emerge at particular points in time to provide what is needed to mobilise the people for changes that are necessary to move the country forward.
The late President Kwame Nkrumah provided the leadership to mobilise the people for the attainment of independence. After that, we needed someone to provide leadership to change the country, then, came Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings.
We all had hopes that the mess that leaders had created would be cleaned. Unfortunately, what l see around the country does not show that we benefited much from what should have been the country’s “glorious years” of January 1982 to December 1991.
Those are years that we should be looking back to today to say, the foundation of growth and development, equity as well as a corruption free society was created. Not so. That is why each time l hear some people say Ghana needs a strong leader to help develop the country, l laugh. I laugh because those who think that way may be living in Cloud Cuckoo Land, somewhere hidden between their imagination and reality. The truth is that we had the strong leader in the person of Flt Lt Rawlings long before Paul Kagame arrived in Rwanda. So what happened?
During those “glorious years,” Flt Lt Rawlings was the strong man who should have used the support he enjoyed to change Ghana. If this had happened, Ghana would have set the standard for Kagame to be following today. Again, if we had not missed the opportunity, the whole world would have been pointing to Ghana as Africa’s equivalent of Singapore. Those were the years that if we wanted to end corruption in Ghana we would have done so without much problem. If we had wanted to ban plastics, it would have happened without any hustle. If we wanted to have a clean judiciary, it would have happened easily.
The truth is that, by the middle of 1982, we had a Citizens Vetting Committee that investigated people with doubtful wealth in this country. Unfortunately, the Chairman of the Committee himself was caught up in some alleged bribery scandal. Then, the committee lost focus and from then, there was no control on how people made money in this country. There was also a National Investigations Committee (NIC) that investigated various aspects of life to check corruption and for some of us at the time, Ghana was building a country of people who would be clean. That was not to be because, the people who were running the NIC became the nouveau riche.
We also set up the Public Tribunal system to ensure that corruption was taken out of the judicial system. Sadly, the very people who served on the Tribunal were caught up in scandals. Some ended up in jail. The man at the helm of affairs, Flt Lt Rawlings, either lost touch with what was going on, or became blind with the problems. So, the Tribunal system also failed us.
I also recall that the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs) and Workers Defence Committees (WDCs) that were set up in the communities and workplaces to check corruption could not achieve much because their functionaries became the new sources of corruption. Some of the WDC executives became so indisciplined that executives of organisations could not function properly and some had to leave their jobs out of frustration.
Looking around, some of the politicians we have today, are those who grew out of the PDCs and the WDCs and have not shown any sign of looking down on the system they used to condemn. If there is still corruption among the political class today, one can safely say that it is those who should have killed it that are helping to perpetrate it. It beats my imagination that some of those who championed the cause of a Ghana free of every societal ill, have become part of the country’s problems.
East Legon, Trassacco, Airport West and Airport Hills are some of the developments that came up after the 1990s. Cost of land and building in these new settlements are so high that one wonders if the country was right to punish people who could not explain the source of their 50,000 Cedis at the time. Today, people talk about million-dollar-apartments and houses and we do not show any concern. We have encouraged corruption more than it ever existed in the country.
Since Flt Lt Rawlings could not use his strong-man status to change Ghana until the coming into force of the fourth Republican Constitution which binds the hands of any leader, it means that instead of a strongman to bring about changes, we need strong institutions. It means that those who head the army must not be pushovers who will only say yes to a President. The Inspector General of Police must be one that can do his work without looking over his shoulder for fear of stepping on toes. The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) needs leaders who would not be on the look-out for political opponents to teach them lessons.
We also need a civil and public service whose leaders are very dedicated and provide policies that would not be based on serving the interest of the political class. It also means that we need a legislature where elected members know that their role is not to satisfy the whims of their political parties. The ordinary citizens would then become real citizens and not spectators.
What we have now is a country of spectators because everything has fallen apart. If a pauper becomes rich overnight simply by shouting political slogans, and if promotions within the security, public and civil services are not based on how dedicated one is, but rather which political colours one wears to work, we cannot get a country that would lead us out of our misery.
It is the rot that we find ourselves in today that is making parents help their children to cheat at examinations without shame. It is the same rot that has enabled parents to use bribery to gain admission to specific schools for their children, and the children are well aware that they do not deserve to be in such schools. By so doing, the rot is perpetrated and children begin to think that the wrong things are acceptable in our society. With all these, why would one lose sleep over Ghana? We have destroyed everything that should make the country great and strong.
But for those of us with faith in God, perhaps, all is not lost and just may be, God may raise someone among us soon to help redeem us from our sins. Otherwise, we are doomed forever because we missed a great opportunity once upon a time!
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