Ghana’s lack of Progress , why you and I are to blame

Kojo Tamakloe

One thing very obvious to me about Ghanaians is that we love to blame . We blame every one else apart from our “blameless selves” . It is always the fault of some one else . It is like once we blame some one then the solution comes . So we solve all our problems by blaming ,the President, the Nigerians, Togolese, trokosi, the evil neighbor, the other tribes , the foreigners. I have a copy of a few comments by “ patriotic Ghanaians” on how to move the country forward

1 Prempeh
Date:
2012-07-30 19:52:21

Comment to:
Mahama commits to build a more inclusive nation
AAHHH, look. This pepeni has become prez over roayal Akans. Where are the Akan warriors? Adehyeman! Yen Akanfuor, yen s)re yen gyi ye man! How can we allow our coca farm labourers to rule over us

2 Author:
ANOKYE
Date:
2012-07-30 17:10:56
Comment to:
EWES ARE TOO GREEDY!

LET THESE GREEDY BASTERS FIGHT TO KILL THEMSELVES
2012-08-01 09:47:43
3 Comment to:
Akuffo Addo is ordaine to be a loser


APPOINT ANY TRIBE,NOT EWES ,THEY HAVE DAMAGED GHANA ENOUGH !!!!!!!!!!!
Here is the story of Ghana International , Derek Boateng who has also been the subject of racist abuse and that could also be the reason why the player’s head has turned .and so wants to leave his club in the Ukraine . We also read about fines to countries that practiced racist behavior in the just ended European cup and we see two athletes who tweeted racist remarks being thrown out of the Olympic teams. Our own Frimpong of Arsenal has just been fined 6000 British pounds for an insensitive tweet to a Spurs supporter .In the developed world,were most of these “ civilized know alls” live ,these statements will land them into jail. So why do they spew such garbage? Does Ghana need to pass laws to ban such and throw people like Kennedy Agyepong out of parliament as an example?
Christianity. I went to a Christian school and read the bible. It was “ Love thy God and love thy neighbor” . How can a worshipper of trokosi be motivated to be a Christian when Christians deride them? Should they not live as examples?
I visited some Churches even in the English speaking diasporas and to my surprise it was the same. They will speak Twi and if your do not speak it they make you feel unwelcome. I compared it to the Nigerian Churches . They asked where you came from , gave you forms to fill and made you very welcome. I was shocked as they were supposed to be 419 and criminals . I am not surprised that in the article about “the longer one stayed in the diasporas the poorer one got” , that the Nigerians fared better. Why will they not as they are more adaptable and more progressive. Visit New York and you see very wealthy Nigerians . I understand the steve doring business at Gatwick Airport is owned by a Nigerian , bought for 5.5 billion pounds sterling . Then visit the Ivorian and other French speaking Churches and you are welcome and you rarely hear them moaning and whining about other tribes and nationalities
4 Author:
Abeeku Mensah
Date:
2012-08-01 08:58:14
Comment to:
View About Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur


Most Ghanaians who have been brain washed by our education system do believe and accept the fallacy that schooled credential is synonymous with wisdom; it’s false. It is this fallacy that continues with our educated elite class who cannot help but list their credentials without hesitation because they know readers tend to believe content of written articles to carry weight if authored by credentialed individuals even when the premise is faulty and leads to intellectual dishonesty and or biased conclusions.
What should matter in Ghana and to individual African nations is not a collection of schooled credentials but application of those credentials and all the classroom learning. Ghana was not Gold Coast because it was fancy then and yet Ghana had not had anyone of our own yip yap citizens with every engineering, geological science degrees from here to Timbuktu come up with anything to take hold of our own gold. Our Gold is now owned by another nation. Ghana's bauxite is mined and sent out yet we have people who will list all the engineering degrees of the world after their names. What about electricity? What about architecture etc?
What we have consistently shown is acquired education with quick sand as its foundations. In the civilized world where most of us have collected our post graduate credentials, the proof of their education is and can be seen with the kind of society, communities they have built and enjoy. What good are awards from all those nations afar if IMANI and all the other so-called think tanks in Ghana cannot show one thing practical in Ghana that they’ve built to improve Ghana's infrastructure at any level if all we can say is we debated the elite class in Ghana or elsewhere? It would be nice if IMANI, Danquah Institute and all the other phony think tanks (more like paper weights) can put their intellect where their mouth is and create industries that produce something with raw materials and minerals in Ghana to show us all how it is done or could be done instead of what government officials should do and could do bordering on theories as usual.
Remember it is these very same credentialed people including Dr. Bawumia who look at the same global market and financial instruments the claim to have mastered that sat around and low consumers in Ghana to be cheated by a group of cheating banks in the Libor scandal. If these people lack the intellectual capacity to use the very tools available to banks to confirm what it is in the banking and financial industries that dictate on a daily or monthly basis the value of Ghana’s currency on the global market then they cannot hold any position of value in Ghana

Fellow Ghanaians we can see the last contributor is being positive? So when we boast about being entrepreneurs and free enterprise people let us practice it. Words are enough as that becomes noise. We need to pull together instead of the noise. From my piggy bank I paid for my Kon Tiki expedition to Mexico City when the G20 was taking place and none of our regions were there. The G20 controls 84% of the worlds GDP and with all the mouth I have been receiving I thought I will see our wealthy people but they were absent. I saw the Chinese delegation whose people one can describe as “ waiting for government handouts” with the second highest GDP . In 1948 they were no where but a peasant country. They like some of us also had a very rich past and history , but saw their poverty and knew they could not live on the past but move forward . They have and are still marching with innovation .The Soviets in 1917 were the same but by 1957 had gone to space These are lessons we need to learn . Remember the race between the rabbit and the tortoise? That is life ,keep moving else you will be overtaken
Nkrumah left us a rich legacy. We had Quayson Sackey the first African to be President of the UN general assembly. Dr Robert Gardiner also Chairman of the EEC, then came Kofi Annan , Secreatry General of the UN ,all from humble beginnings. We have done it before and can do it again . Let us follow the Dr Kwegyir Aggrey principle of playing all the keys of the piano. It gives the best music

Kojo Tamakloe is an Nkrumaist Pan Africanist . He believes African solutions lie in a United Africa