If Africa leaders think like Thomas Sakara

A friend sent me a wacky joke through WhatsApp a couple of days ago. It was about a group of politicians who were attending a rally. But unfortunately, their plane suffered a technical hitch and fell into a farmland. The farmer apparently called the police and reported the accident but was quick to add that he had interred all of them.

Surprised by this answer, the police asked the farmer whether all the politicians died instantly.  The farmer gave rib-cracking answer that “some of them were shouting and crying, help me! help me! we are not dead yet, but you know politicians, they can’t be trusted, so I buried them.” 

As funny as this joke may seem, it projects some level of perception that many people hold about politicians. Today, many technocrats and well-grounded people who could contribute meaningful to solve many of our problems are dragging their feet to venture into politics. This is as a result of the negative perceptions that have come to be associated with politics.

As the sages of old advice, do we blame the vulture for perching on the carcass? If the demeanour of our politicians seem to support the view that politics is a game of loot and share why would men of integrity dabble in this game?

But is this assertion entirely true? Maybe not! The story of one of Africa's greatest Pan-African, Thomas Sakara, gives a contrary view of this assertion.

His story stands parallel to former Ghana's president, Jerry Rawlings. Apart from their military background and their sometime iron fist on power, they both were charismatic leaders who identified themselves with the common people and wouldn’t mind descending into the gutters whenever it mattered.

The difference between these two men is that Sakara got betrayed by his bosom friend Blaise Compaore who connived with the French government and overthrew him while Rawlings enjoyed a longer term in office.

The other difference between these men is the different economic policies and political directions that each of them trekked. Sakara came into power through a widely supported revolution in the former Upper Volta. When he came to power, he changed the name "Upper Volta" to "Burkisna Faso", meaning “land of upright men”. The charismatic leader transformed the desert-threatened nation with his sometime harsh yet result-driven economic policies.

To promote economic equalities, he removed all privileges enjoyed by his ministers and reduced their salaries drastically. He ensured his minister flew in economy class instead of the luxurious but expensive first class. Ministers were forced to ride in mercedes cars instead of the expensive chauffeur-driven convoys.

But his best policy, which is by far the best policy by an African leader, is his introduction of local fabric as official wear for public servants which became known as “Faso Dani Fani”. That boosted the local fabric industry and reduced importation. He paid unannounced visits to public institutions to ensure that the local fabric was worn.

Sakara was not a Harvard trained development economist nor was he an expert in governance but he brought hope to his people.That single policy and many others changed the economic fortunes of the desert-stricken country into a nation blossoming with hope until he was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d'état led by the French-backed Blaise Compaoré on October 15, 1987.

A week before his murder, he declared: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas". And indeed his ideas still lingers on many years after his death.

Many years down the lane, most African leaders have not learnt a clue from this leader. Instead, they preside over political enterprises with bankrollers and have turned politics into a commercial venture. Their aim is to make money for themselves at the neglect of the suffering masses.

Almost all Africa economies find it difficult to maintain their currencies’ strength against the dollar. But the reason for this trend does not require a sophisticated economic diagram to explain. Africa is basically an import driven economy. Almost everything is imported from outside the continent. This has resulted not only in the weakening of our currencies but has also exacerbated unemployment on the continent.

Ghana for instance, has suffered a weak performing currency for years now and successive governments have embarked on various interventions to boost export while encouraging people to patronize locally produced products but to no avail.

However, our efforts can be equated to giving paracetamol to a malaria patient. It will only give temporaryrespite to the patient but it cannot certainly cure the malaria.The only way we can boost our currencies is to add value to our export. This will help us create more jobs for the teeming youth as well as increase our export. All Africa leaders would tell you they know these ideas already. If so, Why are we not developing?

If our governments are serious about strengthening our currencies, then we must consume what we produce. As Africans, we have cottage industries specialised in the production of kente, tie and dye, batik,fugu and even in some cases textile industries. What Africa need is strict legislations which would ensure that our local fabrics are used as official wear by all public and even private sector employees. This will help us revive our textile industries which are folding up because of our insatiable demand for "broniwawu" or so-called designer wears.

The China we see today developed out of its culture. A Chinese man will choose the Chinese traditional stick for eating over cutlery. Have we ever imagined the number of employment that the Chinese eating stick industry creates and the revenue it contributes to China’s economy?

Just recently, African leaders returned from a begging tour, in what has been euphemistically called Indian-African Summit. Very soon you will see them in China or Europe, but the hard truth is that these countries developed out of their culture! 

The solutions to our problems are not far to fetch. It only requires strong leadership to ensure our forwards move. If we don’t curtail our penchant for foreign products, we can implement all the best economic policies but we will achieve nothing!

Ghana has witnessed strike upon strike for some time now. Sometimes, one thought some those strikes were politically motivated, but no! If you live in a country were a minister’s wardrobe allowance is fatter than graduate teacher’s salary which is sometimes unpaid for months, then, you don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you we are creating a fertile ground for corruption.After all, a hungry man is an angry man.

Some people are are born greed but some too become thieves because of some harsh realities. If  the gap between the salary of the teacher in parliament and the teacher in the classroom becomes reasonable, the teacher in the classroom will see the need to be patriotic.

When doctors in Ghana went on strike recently to demand conditions of service, I listened to the president of the Ghana Medical Association, Dr Opoku Adu-Sei and he referred to a particular circulation on social media which was said to be the salary and benefits of our MP’s and minister. He then questioned why doctors didn’t deserve a similar salivating package. Obviously, he was comparing their condition of service with that of ministers and saw no point to be believe that our purse were empty.

Here's a quote from the FAO: "Poverty cannot be eradicated without addressing the pervasive inequalities in incomes and economic opportunities between and within countries, between rural and urban areas, and between men and women. Reducing such inequalities will need to start with improving access for the poor to productive resources, basic services and social protection."

If we want to develop, let's walk the talk!

Writer: Abdul-Karim Mohammed Awaf
National Service Person

Movies killing our culture?

The liberalization of the airwaves has not only fast-tracked the flow of information but has also increased the options on the menu of audience by giving them different and appetizing recipes of television, online or radio content.

Movies serve as an indispensable item on the menu of all television broadcast. Both local and foreign movies whet the appetite of the ever dynamic audience who are ready to accept anything that will add a little flavor to their diet. The Ghanaian television screens are now awashed with soap operas also known as telenovelas. Media owners and media managers are taking advantage of it to rake millions of cedis through ads.

Our local movie makers have also developed a notoriety of churning out movies with nudity, sex, and violence as their favourite punchline. They have probably done so in order to match-up with the more advanced foreign produced soap operas dumped into our markets.  I recently listened to an entertainment programe where some Kumawood movie producers vowed to produce pornographic movies as a result of the unbridled competition they endured from soap operas that have taken centre stage on Ghanaian TVs.

But the irony is that the key features of some of the locally produced movies are no different from the imported soap operas. The only difference, maybe, is the fact that the foreign ones use white characters whilst the locally produced ones feature dark people or local characters.

  

The portrayals of foreign cultures in our local movies were thought to be the exclusive preserve of the so-called “elite” movies where some of the characters tried to sound more English than the queen herself. But the trend is fast changing. I recently watched one Kumawood movie in which the main character was a “kunfu master” and I wondered how such a movie reflected the African identity and the African way of life. Why can’t we tell our own story in a compelling manner that exhibits our unique but diverse arts and cultures?  We have developed penchant for everything foreign including food, fashion, music and now movies.

Recently, as I sat with my brother, his wife and their 6 year old girl to watch one popular soap opera currently screening on TV, a scene popped up where two characters were engrossed in a deep passionate kissing. All of a sudden, the room remained as dead as Awudome Cemetery. At that point, the facial expression of my brother and his wife suggested to me that they wished the earth could divide and swallow them up. Uneasiness was broadly written on their faces as my brother struggled to toss his legs up and down whilst his wife tried fruitlessly to clear her throat.

That was the first day they properly wished the lights could go off, but unfortunately, that day, ECG was not going to listen to their prayers. They clenched to their fist as they hoped that scene flipped away.

Uncharacteristically, my brother’s 6 year old child sat silently as she struggled to understand why the room had suddenly turned dead.

All of a sudden, my mind went riot with the worst possible scenarios of what the 6year old was thinking.

There may be several people who have encountered similar or worst experiences of this nature. Movies are supposed to help people draw important lessons as most often characters exhibit certain roles that reflect our untold stories. Movies in essence, mirror society, and therefore how a particular storyline is told is very important. How a particular character pulls through a particular problem help people to solve their own problems they faced.

One of my lecturers once told the class that he had warned his wife and children against watching telenovelas. His reason? Telenovelas teach people who are either married or are in relationship how to cheat on their partners. We laughed hysterically and took whatever he said with a pitch of salt. But after some deeper reflection, I can’t but agree with him.

We cannot underestimate the power of movie's influence on people's relationships. Movies have now set the new bar for an ideal and successful relationship. Partners who fail to meet the standard set by movies are seen as unromantic and uncaring.

Movies are powerful platforms that showcase and market our rich cultural heritage to the outside world. Movies are also the perfect media that can help correct wrong perceptions society still hold against the disabled, women and other minority groups.

We can’t look at the blind side of life and say it is business as usual without appealing to the conscience of society.

The cinematography board, the media and the civil society must embark on massive campaign to reverse this growing trend. This will not only save our struggling cedi from undue pressure as a result of importation of unnecessary products which can be produced locally but also help preserve our cultural identity as a people.

Writer: Abdul-Karim Mohammed Awaf
National Service Person

The National Sanitation Day Needs Mental Sanitation to Survive

The first round of the National Sanitation Day was climaxed at the Brong Ahafo region, having travelled all the ten regions of Ghana. This initiative, no doubt is a monumental exercise that shouldn’t be left to die out.  Rather, it should be promoted to ensure that the country rid of filth that is gradually becoming a mental tumor in our country’s quest to remain clean.

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, as well as the good people of Ghana who made time out of their busy schedules to partake in the exercise in this first round should be commended for their unrelenting effort so far.

The National Sanitation Day was initiated at the heels of the outbreak of cholera which claimed so many lives in the country.  Like the proverbial vulture who always decides to build its shed when the rain sets in and forgets thereof when the rain subsides, it is often said that Ghana is quick to react when a disaster strikes but relaxes thereof as soon as the problem is over.  But in this instance, the programme is still ongoing and I pray that it defies this Ghanaian notion.

Several programmes have been launched by successive governments since independence but many of such programmes often experienced a shorter lifespan because of apathy and lack of enforcement.

Although the National Sanitation Day has been largely successful so far, they’ve been many reported news stories about the level of apathy that is gradually lacing its boot to cripple this laudable initiative.

For us to sustain this initiative, fast-forward, the Ministry of Local Gov’t and Rural Development should endeavor to increase public education on the need for people to volunteer their time and energy during this important national exercise. This would convince more people to see the exercise as a national exercise worth sacrificing for rather than a political one.

Government should also consider passing a law that will give a legal arm to the exercise and compel people to actively engage in the exercise. Defaulters of the law should be punished to serve as deterrent to other people. Growing up as a child, there were Sanitary Inspectors who were much dreaded each time they went on an inspection exercise and whipped discipline into people. A law will give a similar force to this exercise.

The Local Gov’t Ministry should also seek private partnership, where private sector workers would also take a front-lead role in the exercise. The ministry could also get sponsorship packages which may come in the form of T-shirts, hand gloves, pick axes, dustbins etc.  Awards scheme could also be instituted to recognize regions and organizations which give massive participation, as well as individuals who dedicate themselves to the exercise.

Media organizations, institutions of higher learning, celebrities and the civil society should take active role during the exercise to conscientise the ordinary citizens that the exercise is a national affair and should be seen as such. If the ordinary citizens see doctors, lawyers, media practitioners, musicians, actor/actresses, etc join the campaign, it will renew ordinary citizen’s spirit of nationalism and dedication which is currently waning in the exercise.

Ghana can only move forward if we eschew apathy, politicization of national issues and sabotage.  We need to imbibe the spirit of volunteerism in the younger generation so that people will learn how to die a little more for our dear nation. As the former US president, John F. Kennedy was famously quoted, “ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country”. God bless our homeland Ghana!

Writer: Abdul-Karim Mohammed Awaf
Service Personnel: Graphic Communication Group Limited
Accra-Ghana

A Slip of the Doctor’s Knife May Kill One, But a Slip of the Journalist Pen Kills Millions.

 

 The media industry has seen a tremendous growth since its inception, and the hitherto concealed matters are now in public spaces just with the click of a button. The proliferation of the media has deepened the democratic credentials of Ghana, as well as served as the mouth-piece of the socially-handicapped in our societies.

The quashing of the Circuit Court decision that saw Charles Antwi jailed for 10 years after the suspected mentally derailed fellow went to the church where the president worships with a gun was largely made possible by the loud-mouth of the media which gave the matter the prominence it resonated.

Despite the phenomenal role the media have played and continue to play, there have been concerns about unprofessional conducts by some media practitioners. Some journalists have involved themselves in scandals unwarranted of the profession, hence, dragging the image of the industry into the mud.

Just some recent past, Asamoah Gyan, the Ghana’s skipper’s sexual affair with a 22 years student, Sarah Kwablah, which was debated in the court of public opinion saw a journalist indicted as having demanded money from the Shanghai-based star, failure of which the said journalist threated to publish a sexual video of the footballer and the lady in the center of the controversy.

During the 2012 election petition hearing at the Supreme Court , as well as the hearing of the Justice Djemefe’s Commission of Enquiry which was mandated to probe into Ghana’s participation in the 2014 World Cup  in Brazil, several people were cited for contempt of court including journalists who in true essence, were supposed to shape opinions and guard public utterances. These incidences and many others have raised a lot of red-flags about the level of professionalism of some journalist.

In my media class, I questioned my lecturer why journalists are often touted as professionals, when in reality, some journalists do not have such word either in their dictionary or their conduct. Unlike medicine, law, nursing, pharmaceutical and the rest where people are certified before they can call themselves professional, journalism is not the same. This has given room for any person who can afford a notepad and a pen to call him or herself a journalist. Just as we have quack-doctors, I believe the number of quack- journalists in this country far exceed the well-trained journalists.

 The only difference, I believe,  between the “quacks” in medicine and those in the media is that whilst flouters in medicine are made to face the law, those in the media are rather given more audience and are made to go scot-free all in the name of free speech. The phenomenon, perhaps, is because society perceives that a slip in the knife of a doctor can cause a life to be lost but the slip of a journalist might not have such a devastating effect.

This view, in my candid opinion, is a misplaced judgment or what the legal luminaries would refer to as miscarriage of justice. As much as the media have contributed greatly to the development of free speech in Ghana and by extension, the world, some utterances of the media have resulted in the death of tonnes of millions of people across the globe. The Rwanda war which could be chastened as a holocaust that swept millions into their early graves was as a result of the unprofessional conduct of some unscrupulous media professionals.

As we inch closer to 2016 electioneering period when some political parties would want to exploit the media in order to advance their political fortunes, caution must be taken on how the media report on issues.

As the sages succinctly advice, “as we drive away the hyena, we must also advice the goat.” Inasmuch as we need to weed out quack professionals, the outstanding journalists in this country who have dedicated themselves to trumpet the voice of the vulnerable and have safe-guarded the peace of this country should be well rewarded.

The reward in this sense should encompass issues of remuneration, security, safety and the general wellbeing of practitioners. The recent accident, involving the Presidential Press Corp which resulted in the death of Samuel Nuamah, the Ghanaian Times reporters and left  several other journalists still battling for their lives, has unearthed many startling revelations which underpin how journalists are disrespected even at the heart of government. 

I have over the years witnessed the GJA annual awards that seek to reward journalists for their services to the nation. Mabel Aku Banessah of the Daily Graphic who won the prestigious Ghana Journalists of the Year Award had to wait for close to one whole year before receiving her prize package from the GJA, and guess what, her prize package was only GH¢5,000!

In my opinion, the price package is too small for journalists who have contributed so much for this country. Beauty pageants have been organized in this country where the winners take home brand new cars. So what prevents the journalist whose toil gives publicity to such events also taking a car or its equivalent when he or she wins such an award as the Best Journalist of the Year? When our Black Stars went to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, our players were handed $10,000 as winning bonuses for each player per match. Why is it that journalists can’t be given $10,000 as a prize package for the Best Journalist of the Year Award?

 I believe it is a high time the leadership of this country took journalist as an indispensable force in the development of our dear country and treat them with some dignity and seriousness they deserved. The GJA must streamline the media environment and draw a clear line between who qualifies to be a journalist and who does not. Preferably, just like other profession, journalist should be made to write licensing exams to ensure that only qualified practitioners are recognized as such. This way, media owners will be compelled to hire only the services of only qualified professionals. That way, just as we try to prevent the slip of the doctor’s knife in order to protect a soul, we will control the pen of the journalist in order to prevent preventable national catastrophe.

Writer: Abdul-Karim Mohammed Awaf
Service Personnel: Graphic Communication Group Limited
Accra

African Union Day: Nkrumah- The Flute Players Who's Dancers Could Not Interpret the Rhythms of his Tunes

As I was scribbling something in my dairy, trying to list my schedule for the day, the Joy FM’s news jiggle started playing. This signaled me that it was six o’clock AM already. I strained my ears to listen to what the news had for me. As usual, I was expecting to hear something about the vultures who are eating themselves up within the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and possibly, our struggling economy under the seemingly confused government. But no, I heard more than that! Today was also the African Union Day. All of a sudden, my thoughts were set in motion. Names of our great forbearers resounded in my ears, names including: Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Haile Salasie, Sekou Toure, Abdul-Nasser and the rest.

But the only one whose name re-echoed in my ears and swept me on my feet was Kwame Nkrumah. A man whose monumental achievement and effort gave birth to the African Union of today, and this bears testimony in his statute which stands magnificently at the edifice of the African Union building in Addis Ababa.

Growing up as little boy, the only name I could hear was Nelson Mandela and in my naïve judgment, I perceived him as the greatest African ever lived. But going through literature, it became apparent to me that even though Nelson Mandela fought hard to end apartheid in South Africa, Kwame Nkrumah lit the flames of the struggle of nationalism. As our sages advice “a person whose corn matures first is the person who started stinginess” and therefore no matter what Mandela did, he could not be compared to Nkrumah.

To our current generation and specifically Ghanaians, when we talk of Nkrumah’s greatness we cite only the physical projects that he left—Tema Harbour, Akosombo Dam, Tema Motorway, KNUST and my own alma mater, the University of Choice, among others.

But Nkrumah greatness lay far, far beyond those projects. This seems to vindicate the great academic, Charles Abugri’s suggestion that “Dead politicians are different things to different people…Their good is usurped, their failures exhumed and magnified as appropriate and in accordance with creed”. Maybe this also explains why as a little boy, Nelson Mandela’s name sounded more important in my ears than Nkrumah.

The achievement of Nkrumah lay deep like the roots of Odum tree, they are firmly stalk deep in the soil and cannot be blown away even by the hurricane or tsunami. His achievements are cast in iron and are well documented.

But our elders say, when we reach the cemetery, it is prudent we remember the heroes of the past. This will help us make a retrospective attempt to understand the origin of the current crisis. Kwame Nkrumah’s legacies include his inspiring effect on the black man, his singular contributions to the liberation of our continent and his hold on the masses stemming from his brand of retail politics.

Having acted the Organizing Secretary of the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester which included other great Pan-Africanists such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Nkrumah's longtime friend, George Padmore, Nkrumah was inspired about the need for Africa to be liberated and be united under one union government. His influence was inspired by the wealth and power of the United States of America(USA) and the now defunct, Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR).

Having suffered racial discrimination during his student days in the USA when the civil right movement was at its peak, Nkrumah developed a non-violent yet a militant approach to the struggle for independence when he returned to Ghana in 1947 upon his invitation by the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC). The UGCC leadership had already stoked the fire for the liberation struggle, but they were reacting with kid gloves.

At a point, Nkrumah had to break away from the UGCC and formed the Conventions People’s Party (CPP) which eventually won independence for Ghana in 1957.

After Ghana’s independence, Accra became the mecca of Pan-Africanism and all the liberation fighters trooped to the shores of Ghana for the “baptism of fire” for the liberation of the continent. Nkrumah forcefully preached the need for Africa to unite urgently to elude neo-colonialists and imperialists from infiltrating within their ranks, but this went unheeded by his compatriots who were still enjoying their new found sovereignty.

As the elders say, “the sore that will kill the dog starts from its head”. Nkrumah’s ideas were consigned into the dustbin, but today, the bones of those leaders who opposed to Nkrumah’s ideas would be gnashing and turning bitterly in their graves with regrets, but the ship has already sank deep in the ocean.

Today, Africans are blaming their leaders. There seems to be leadership crisis on the continent. “Dumsor” is suffocating and roasting Ghanaians and businesses are folding up. Boko haram insurgency continued to terrorize innocent people in Nigeria whilst their outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan, was busy doling out gold-plated iPhones at his daughter’s wedding. Thousands of Burundians are mourning the murder of the opposition leader, Zedi Feruzi, whilst their president, Pierre Nkurunziza is busy exhibiting his skills in soccer. What a continent!

The continent is the richest in the world yet the poorest in terms of human and infrastructural development. Millions are still dying from common preventable diseases and our resources are being carted away everyday by the imperialists and the neo-colonialists Nkrumah preached about. Was Nkrumah not right in calling for African Unity?

Even though Nkrumah’s critics have always argued that Nkrumah’s personal posture indicated that he was a new form of black imperialist, the true must be told, Nkrumah’s ideas were superb but his contemporaries were too naïve to interpret the rhythm of his tunes.

He introduced one party system, Preventive Detention Act (PDA) and was also accused of assassinating Sylvester Olympio of Togo, as well as masterminding to overthrow other leaders in Africa including the Nnamde Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria and Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast.

His cynics often say, he should be nailed on the cross because of these reasons, but they forget that the exigencies that raised its ugly head in his attempt to Unify Africa called for a more radical and brutal approach. The west imperialists were working on the backdoor to overthrow Nkrumah for the mere reason that he was a socialist. They were using their puppet governments and some selfish individuals to execute their plans.

Every person has his own flaws. Just like Mandela who was hailed as a hero but today, we are witnessing  xenophobia which I prefer to call “Afrophobia” in South Africa, which many people would want to put the blame on his doorsteps, Nkrumah had his own flaws because of the exigencies of his time.

Today, as we commemorate of African Union’s Day, I see it as the celebration of the funeral of Nkrumah’s abortive ideas. The ideas which continue to ignite lively debates among rational thinkers. Today, Africans would wish they could reverse the hands of time but that seems too late. Nkrumah is indeed a great hero of Africa and his name and Africa Union are siamese twins which cannot be operated on by any surgeon.

Democracy is not the Panacea for Development: My Tribute to Lee Kuan Yew

As I was surfing through the web, I chanced on a news item breaking  the news on the death of Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew but instead of soaking tears for this man as custom demanded when someone joined the ancestral world, I rather felt proud for this true hero and I could hear myself whispering that “bravo! we are proud of you”.

I suddenly dismissed the renowned academic, Charles Abugre’s suggestion that, “Dead politicians are different things to different people and that, their good is usurped, their failures exhumed and magnified as appropriate and in accordance with creed.” This certainly cannot be the case with Lee Kuan Yew.

The death of Lee Kuan Yew shook the foundation of the world and the media as usual, begun to trumpet what he stood for.  Tributes begun to pour from around the globe, eulogizing this national hero who transformed Singapore from a small port city into a wealthy global hub. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply saddened" by Mr Lee's death. US President Barack Obama described him as a "giant of history". The Chinese foreign ministry called him "a uniquely influential statesman in Asia".

But the big question is, why would the world celebrate a man whose leadership was criticised for his iron grip on power??  A man who was criticized for his uncompromising stance against democracy and stifled press freedom?

Even after he could not effectively perform his mandate due to old age, he relinquished his position to his son, now Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. And so the multi-million question still remains that what was so special about the legacy of a man whose political ideologies were perceived as the exact opposite of the people who are now singing his praises?

Singapore is one of the world neatest countries and even citizens cannot even chew gum in public yet a showpiece of rapid economic transformation.

Kwame Nkrumah’s Ama Ghana was in the same development plane with the likes of Malaysia and Singapore after independence, but today, Ghana’s has nothing to show except the empty self-fulfilling clique that “Ghana is the gateway to Africa and a beacon of democracy”.

Having organised six successful elections since 1992 and received accolades from the international community, Ghana pride herself in Africa as a beacon of peace and democracy.

Interestingly, democracy has often been tagged as the first crack of the seemingly impregnable wall of industrialization and development, but is democracy really the trick to development?

Ghana’s self-imposed tag as the “gateway to Africa and a democratic cockpit,” to borrow words from Chinua Achebe, is no more than the power of a child over a goat that was said to be his. As long as the goat was alive it could be his; he would find it food and take care of it. But the day it was slaughtered he would know soon enough who the real owner was.

Ghana still wallows in so many myriad of economic challenges including the infamous dumsor which has compelled some people think that Ghana would have been better off if the country was still under colonialism.

I have always had my reservation about this thing called “democracy”. In my opinion, African countries needed selfless long-serving dictators like Lee Kuan Yew in order to accelerate the wheels of development

Libya under Gadhafi witnessed, massive infrastructural development especially his housing policy which ensured that even children who were yet to be born in ten years’ time had housing facilities.

During the 1950’s under the leadership of King Idris, Libya was among the poorest nations in the world with some of the lowest living standards. From the early 1980’s until 2003 Libya were placed under heavy sanctions by the US and UN which had the result of strangling Libya’s growing economy leading to an inevitable smothering of development projects and social welfare schemes.

Despite this the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya headed by Muammar Gaddafi achieved the highest living standard in Africa. Libya also invested heavily in African development initiatives. The funding of infrastructure projects as well as African political and financial institutions was aimed at developing
Africa independently, and combating the economic exploitation of African resources and labour by outside powers.

Gadhafi had transformed a desert-proned country into one of the richest country in Africa where until the ousting of Gadhafi, Libya became the US for many young people in other Africa countries notably, Ghana and Nigeria, who sought to better their lives by seeking greener pastures there.

The number of people who perished their lives on the Sahara desert in their quest to travel to Libya to seek for greener pastures would beat human imagination, yet the west and their cohorts ostensibly found everything wrong with this man on the bases of their so-called human rights and democracy.

The irony however is that this was the same people who perpetuated slave trade in Africa and used dozens of our grandparents as mouthwatering feast to whales and fishes in the Atlantic Ocean, but today, they want to force their so-called democracy and human rights down our throat as the panacea to our woes.

Meanwhile Ama Ghana is malnourished and is inching closer to her graveyard owing to wounds inflicted on her by corrupt officials ranging from the passengers to the bus driver, yet we continue to hammer and take pride in this so-democracy. What is the meaning of democracy to a hungry man?

Ama Ghana is rich in talents, human and natural resources but her children have now formed what is called “Graduate Unemployment Association,” her inflation figures are sky-rocketing, her children are dying from simple preventive disease such as cholera, interest rate is ballooning and to cap it all, her children are now begging for pittance from a so-called IMF.

Listening to the Joy FM’s annual debate on Thursday, March, 26, on the motion “Ghana’s independence had lost its meaning”, Dr. Richard Amoako Baah, who debated for the motion made a profound statement that Ghana needed to change her game if she wanted to win, and to him, Ghana’s independence has lost its meaning.

His co-debater, Prof. Agyemang Badu Akorsah, however, insisted that the likes of Singapore and Malaysia had developed because the west allowed them to use their brains since they had no natural resources.

But my interest in the debate stemmed from a statement by Dr. Amoako Baah that people by nature are bad, and therefore strict policing must be put in place to check behaviors.

This statement, in my view, is an area Ghana and Africa leaders have failed. African leaders themselves are corrupt and therefore they pay lip-services in the fight against corruption. They form create, loot and share governments and therefore they have lax their effort in the fight against corruption.

The symptoms of this beast called “corruption” is staring us on the face in all facets of our national lives but what do we see? Several people were indicted for various corrupt practices ranging from the Wayome unlawful judgment debt payment, the GYEEDA scandal and the rest, but interestingly,the institutions that are supposed to punish these people are reacting with “kid blows”.

According to the Forbes.com, the family fortune of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was $70 billion. In the same vein, the net worth of General Ibrahim Babangida, a former military dictator of Nigeria, was $12 billion whilst that of Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was $9 billion.

Accordingly, it also computes that the personal fortune of General Sani Abacha, former military dictator of Nigeria, was $5 billion, whilst the net worth of Charles Taylor of Liberia was $5 billion.
The personal fortune of Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo, Forbes says, was $5 billion.

The personal fortune of Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, according to forbes.com, was $3 billion whilst the net worth of Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola’s President, stood at $3.1 billion

Meanwhile, Forbes.com further revealed that, for a perspective, the total or combined net worth of all 43 US presidents-from Washington to Obama- was only $2.7 billion. (See http://theatln.tc/1uZ8wMD)

Ghana and by extension Africa still commanded enormous wealth, talents and human resources but corruption is impoverishing the continent and therefore it is a high time Africans stopped blaming colonial imperialists for their backwardness.

The hard truth however is that, the west is as guilty of corrupt practices as the African leaders because the west have provided safe haven where African leaders comfortably save their booties from their corrupt deals. The only difference between corrupt leaders in the west and that of Africa is that when a politician in the West engaged in corrupt practices, the “booty” was invested in the same country and therefore the money stayed in the country but the contrary could be said of the African corrupt leader.

To put it mildly, Africa leaders have failed because they have refused to play the kpa kpa kpa game.

Writer: Abdul-Karim Mohammed Awaf
Communication Studies
University of Cape Coast.