The Enemy Within Us

 A nation in many ways is like its citizens, its character, outlook and  culture is derived from the collective characters, outlook and behavior  of its people. Every nation has its negative mark or character . For example, most people see USA as a country with high crime rate. While this is true, it is also true that most Americans are overwhelmingly law abiding, as most visitors to USA soon realize. As the saying goes, a few people can give a bad name to a group, clan, tribe or nation. The fact is that most of the negative character or reputation of groups, clans, tribes and nations are created by a minority of its  people, There is a threshold, represented by a fraction of the social group exhibiting a negative behavior, which once reached, causes the group to be assigned  that character by those looking at the group from outside. It is hard to put an exact figure on this percentage, it could be 10%, 15% or 20% of the group. You may surmise this is a prelude to  tribalism discussion. While it is true that the above statements could be used as a basis for tribalism discussion,  its not my objective in this write-up. I may say things that will offend some of our dear brothers in Ghana, Nigeria or other  countries in the world with large concentration of black Africans, for that matter.

When I first came to the US, I heard a lot of complaints from black businessmen about how black Americans did not patronize black businesses (they do now). This is a character flaw that one will observe in any country with large black populations. Black Africans, seem to be the only ethnic group  who exhibit this flaw. Jews will walk miles to patronize Jewish businesses, passing several businesses which offer similar product or service by other nationalities along the way.

The ENEMY within us is not an individual, but our collective flawed mentality. It is the way we perceive successful professional blacks, especially our own citizens who have studied, worked and acquired experience and expertise  abroad.  Some of us exhibit this flaw to a greater extent than others.  Our first inclination is to assign their success to ‘luck’, anything else but their hard work,  we just plain discount and devalue  their knowledge and expertise. By so doing we justify in our minds  why we bypass them to seek the services of a foreigner. I have written several articles on this topic. this write-up was initiated by an email forwarded from a friend which described the experience and observations of a Ghanaian who went to settle back home from the US. My writings are fuelled by my frustration with how we Africans as a people, through our actions, behavior and mentality, have relegated ourselves to a low social status globally and earned ourselves a  negative reputation around the world. People everywhere associate  negative connotation to anything connected to Africa. Enough of us exhibit the negative character and behavior flaws, which have earned us all, a whole continent, this low status and negative perception.

I get very perturbed when I hear some people continue to blame the white man and/or colonialism for our problems. Take Ghana, at the time of independence, our per capita income was higher than those of most Asian countries, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Portugal, and most eastern European nations  After 50 year of self rule, what do we have to show to the world?  Our leaders have looted our national coffers. While this is a major drawback to our economic advancement and progress, the biggest one by far is the lack of work ethic, integrity, accountability and oversight in our socio-economic system   No one us is blameless, all of us are collectively guilty for our dire economic situation. We refuse to criticize our leaders (president, ministers, DCEs,) because of political and/or tribal  affiliation, when there is clear-cut evidence of corruption or ineptitude. No matter how egregious the offense, the culprits never lose their position nor face any public sanction.  We want things easy, good wages and salaries without the hard work, integrity, and discipline required by a job position.  We choose to award business contracts  to foreigners when a Ghanaian could do an equally good, or better job. Some of us are unwilling to take directions  from, or work hard for a fellow Ghanaian, but will readily do so for a non-African with lesser expertise. Collectively, we hold the power to put our countries’ economy .on a growth path, but greed, small-mindedness and petit-jealousy prevents us from seeing the greater goal, the objective we should aspire to.

It is not MAGIC my dear friends, other nations, Malaysia, Taiwan, China have all  advanced their economies through the use of  their own nationals, we can do it too.. These countries  actively recruited their nationals with wide range of expertise from all over USA, Canada and Europe. No country has been able to generate and sustain economic growth through the exclusive use of foreign nationals’ talent and expertise. They use foreign labor, like USA and Japan do for jobs their own citizens shun, but not foreign expertise. Look at what happened to the US. After decades of  ignoring their educational system, and using a lot of foreign technical expertise (mostly Indians in IT and Engineering), they have now realized the need to bring real change to their education system. They never substitute foreign talent for their own local talent almost exclusively, as we seem to do in Africa. We need to  open up to awarding business contracts and projects to fellow Ghanaians as the preferred  and first choice. There are Ghanaians here in North America with the expertise, work ethic and discipline in all areas of technology and management  to transform our sleeping and hesitant economy into a roaring economy in less than a decade. Our brothers and sisters in position of authority back home refuse to acknowledge the presence of, and are unwilling to tap into this pool of talent. Why?, These people come up with reasons which reveals an underlying petty jealousy and small-mindedness, and a resentment towards those with valuable western business expertise and experience. Their primary concern is not the welfare of the people nor love of nation, but their own self-interest and aggrandizement

I will not take any government regime seriously until  one comes along which is willing to tap into this human goldmine.  You individuals back home can play your part,  commit to use Ghanaian talent first. Let us stop the petty jealousy that  devalues and overlooks the expertise of fellow  Ghanaian professionals abroad. They have done more to help build our nation than those of you at home give them credit for. Their remittances is third only after  Gold and Cocoa exports. Let’s face it most of our fellow Ghanaians have not had the experience of interacting with or conducting business with top executives in the industrialized world, nor worked on complex projects. Most do not have the depth of experience and expertise some Ghanaians abroad have. I am not saying the government should be handed over to them, I say use their expertise. Use them as technocrats, assign these individuals to tackle and solve problems facing our nation. They do not have to be part of a political machinery. There are models from the Asian countries that we can copy, It so frustrating,  we tend to make relatively simple problems seem  insoluble and intractable. There is no Magic to problem solving, it takes commitment from those in charge, to recruit  people with the right expertise not just within the country, but also Ghanaians abroad, give them  the authority and resources required to tackle the problem or project. When will we learn? Will we ever learn? When? The economic train has left the station and my fellow Ghanaians and Africans, no African nation is on that train, Pass this on to anyone you know, please  Stay tuned ……….follow up later.

Vince Kontoh