Ghana: gateway to Africa?

Even though, New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) are in court as respective petitioners and respondents in the just-ended Presidential and Parliamentary elections which was held on the 7^th of December, 2012, it is convenient to say that, the whole of Ghana is in Court, since our multi-party system basically revolves around these two main political parties and any result thereof from the suit will be binding on the whole nation.

Evidently, many Ghanaians are not enthused about the school of thought that seems to suggest that, the lawsuit is or will deepen democracy while primary concerns are left unattended to. Democracy has since stopped making sense to the people because they are hungry and by extension, angry.

The law suit that seeks to annul results from various polling stations across the nation to either instate the flag bearer of the biggest opposition party or re-run the elections is yet another failure from our leaders. 

They have failed abysmally because this is not what we bargained for when we set out to vote for leaders across board. The good people of Ghana whose consciences were pleaded to before the voting, were also not told that, nine judges, and I mean only nine people would decide the fate of who our President should be after abandoning everything and queuing in the hot sun to vote as part of their civil rights.

This lawsuit is not about the people, neither is it about democracy. it is about all the stakeholders who represents in court every day. It is about those who stand to lose or win in the suit and I can give you myriads of reasons why I think the lawsuit is not about you in the first place. 

If the lawsuit was about you, I will bet my last pesewa that, you would have represented at least once or twice in court to follow proceedings, because televising it alone, is not enough for a prime stakeholder who has to monitor proceedings. It is also not about you, because, this lawsuit is running on cost which could have been re-distributed or channeled into other sectors that can help the trivial many, regardless of whether the money belonged to an individual or the nation.

I have not been anywhere outside the borders of Ghana but I laugh at the “Ghana is the gateway to Africa” mantra and sometimes it even makes me sad to think of the other African Countries to which we are a gateway to. Admittedly, if Ghana is a gateway to Africa, then the other countries must be a sad sight to behold by all and sundry and it also makes me wonder how we came by this accolade.

Ideally, Ghana may be the gateway to Africa if it could tap into all the resources it has been endowed with and managed well for the benefit of the people who matter most, but I don’t see how going about with cap in hand to finance payments of judgement debts and lawsuits, misappropriation and embezzlement could amount to Ghana being the gate-keepers of the African continent.

Ghana is bedeviled with constant light-offs that have been christened ‘dumsor, dumsor”, lack of potable water, razing down of public institutions or markets twice or thrice in an average of six months to which causes are not found, let alone the perpetrators. People can hardly feed thrice a day and access to good schools is just elusive and all our politicians do, is to pay lip service by stashing everything into their proverbial pipeline and Ghana is still touted as the “gateway to Africa”?  Then, Africa as a continent must be joking to say the least.

Money certainly is not plucked from trees, which would have made it quite impossible for relatively short people to pluck, but rather placed beneath our feet, to make it possible for even a child to reach out to. God in his infinite wisdom deposited money in the form of various minerals such as bauxite, diamond, gold and recently, oil beneath our feet, so it can be triumphed upon and made to amount to nothing, but unfortunately, it is what matters most. 

Nonetheless, our Politicians have made it very possible that the money beneath our feet does not make it into our hands. Life is so difficult for the very heartbeat of our society; the masses who invariably are the builders of the economy, guided by the few elites few who are mere facilitators. And to add insult to injury, most of these workers are either not paid at all or not paid on time which necessitates the cyclic strike actions that have engulfed our nation from various sectors of the working class. Infact, money has become the most scarce commodity man has ever known in this 21^st century of ours.

Our big men have successfully taken over from where the white man left off. In the past, we were exploited of our mineral reserves and anything that matters to the growth and progress of the nation, but fast forwarded to now, our own kinsmen steal from the masses only to deposit in other countries for themselves and their families while communities down here lacks basic amenities such as toilet, parks, hospitals and potable water.

Our leaders have even made it more difficult for the people by deducting their cuts (kickbacks) from the hard earned grants and aids they go begging on behalf of the people. Everyone who takes part in the transaction, a mandate they get paid for, still ensures, he received what was due him until there is none left for the building of basic amenities and public institutions, such as, markets, hospitals, parks, toilets and connecting potable water to the people for which these monies were granted in the first place and you call this democracy?

Which democracy are we deepening by even channeling man-hours into the court room to litigate on matters that will not enrich anybody or is it the democracy that allows everyone with a phone to call into radio programmes and insult anyone they like? 

Ghana is blessed beyond reasonable doubts with regards to what ensues in other nations but our leaders are mismanaging the economy, taking us for granted and not driving us out of the doldrums of poverty but rather making it difficult for us as a nation, by incurring debts for generations to come through their incessant borrowing to which they hardly put to good use. 

Conclusively, to live up to the “Ghana is the gateway to Africa” mantra, we, the cheerleaders must boo at those who are wrongly steering the affairs of the nation and also help in our own small ways by discerning and not following them down the blind alleys. We also have to move away from party politics and have a renewed mind towards nation building and that is the only time, deepening our democracy won’t be a mirage but a reality.