Is the Government Being Hounded by the Three ‘Ghosts’?

By Alex Bossman Baafi

I have grown up to come to terms with the fact that procrastination is truly the thief of time. To be successful in every field of endeavor, one has to be bold to draw a line for the past and move forward. Many people have not been able to achieve anything remarkable because of indecision which is one of the fatal handicaps that prevent people and more especially leaders from achieving their goals.

Because future is unknown it takes visionary, courageous and ambitious people to break new grounds to bring things that are not there or improve upon and add value to even the existing ones. To be successful one has to be optimistic and avoid what I called the three ghosts which are indecision, doubt and fear. Indecision is not been able to make decisions quickly and effectively. Doubt is feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction or better still, questioning the truth or facts about something. Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain or harm. It can also be described as the feeling of the likelihood that something unpleasant or unwelcome will happen. When people are not too sure of themselves because of lack of vision with clear objectives, lack of adequate planning and preparation, they tend to have doubts in every move they want to make and therefore tend to postpone critical decisions for fear of failure and criticisms.

I once found myself among other friends who were sojourning in another country after pursuing some academic considerations. Then it came a time for us to take a decision as to whether to continue to sojourn in somebody’s country and be contented with doing menial jobs, continue to go through indirect and direct segregation of unequal opportunities among others or taking a bold decision to return home irrespective of what the home may have in store for us. Fear of failure was staring boldly on our faces with no money and no jobs at home. I am glad I chose the latter and have never regretted even though the going was tough. To cut long story short the friends who could not decide and stayed put have kept on complaining and are not happy with their general conditions of lives. I can say with adequate certainty that even though it is not too late, indecision, doubts and fear have made them to remain in self impose bondage which for me is very difficult to comprehend.

Indecision means irresolution or wavering or hesitancy or uncertainty and it hampers progress at all levels of our everyday activities wherever we may be, whether at home, workplace, church or what have you. At home, the family head’s indecision may cause serious problems, at workplace, the managers indecision may cause the organization to loose billions of dollars and so on and so forth. On the national level, leaders’ indecisions go a long way to cripple the whole national progress by blocking many opportunities both home and abroad.

Because every failure brings with it the seed of equivalent success, leaders have to be optimistic and be always against the odds. They have to be conscious of the fact that time is priceless and one of the most precious commodities, at the same time, time is unemotional, uncontrolled, unencumbered and waits for no man. In this sense time is our number one enemy. Our political leaders should know this and prioritize well and stop cheap politics.

We must make every efforts to create the opportunities for our jobless people to work for a descent living. What culminated into the Galamsey horror (see the front page story of the Daily Graphic, Thursday November 12, 2009)? The current level of unemployment among our young men and women in the country is a ticking time bomb to say the least. Does it have to take the president or his vice to successfully organize the Hajj? My apologies to the Hajj pilgrims and I stand to be corrected, many down trodden Moslems cannot make it to Saudi Arabia because of financial considerations. Spend more money on our dear successful Moslems who can more than afford to embark on their pilgrimage at the expense of the masses who wallow in poverty and deprivation in the Moslem communities was not the best. Was it just to score cheap political points? Are we prepared to do same for other religious bodies? How long are we prepared to sustain that? Have we now included Religion also in politics?

I want our political leaders of this country to know that indecision is the seed of doubt and the two blend to become fear. Fear of failure, fear of criticisms and fear of loosing power through the ballot box. The blending process of indecision and doubt giving birth to fear is slow but sure and dangerous. Fear is a state of mind and nothing else but it is sufficient to destroy every chance of meaningful achievements in the governance process. The idea of overturning everything inherited by government from the previous administration was informed probably by fear of incurring the wrath of those on the other side of the political divide whom we perceive as king-makers who voted the current administration to power. It was also perhaps underscored by doubts. One fine example here is the way Vodaphone saga was handled. Was it a fruitless exercise? Indecision, doubt and fear have ganged together against the move of the presidency from the Castle permanently into the Jubilee house. This is creating a state of despair both home and abroad and in the area of diplomatic relations between Ghana and its Indian counterpart. The government should take a bold decision and move the presidency permanently into the Jubilee house barring all fears and criticisms in my in the interest of the nation in my humble opinion.

Fear is capable of many things; it paralyses the faculty of reasoning and destroys the faculty of imagination. It undermines enthusiasm, discourages initiatives and encourages procrastination. It turns will-power to nothingness and invites failure in every conceivable form. For us to seriously tackle the problems of joblessness, poverty and underdevelopment, the government must take inventory of them and with courage take decisive critical decisions by eliminating the ghosts of indecision, doubts and fear. For as a government, our number one enemy is time and not the opposition.

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