Who liked Professor Attah Mills than JJ Rawlings

Everybody likes somebody than others or in the simplest term everybody has his favorite. Even among our children one may have the one he likes most. It is that person you will always wish the best for even though it might not be that obvious in order not to bring dispute you may pretend to hide it. Some parents may turn rather to be so strict on that person and could be misunderstood to be hatred.
In our situation in Africa we were taught to chew and poor in our examinations and that seem to kill the side of critical thinking which will bring forth to innovation and objectivity. It could also be a way for the developed world to suppressed the emancipation of the African so they indirectly encourage. I may not be condemning the competition in some senses but there should be a balance. Their system of education is totally different. Our heroes in Africa are people who can put in memory and write exactly as it is written in our various text books copied from the develop world even to the level of our universities. Our heroes again are good managers of somebody’s thought, companies etc. The complete education of African is a big failure if contains no ability of the individuals to be a critical thinker. In today’s world African’s can not be proud of the fact that they can manufacture their own chewing stick. The most respected in our society are the politicians because they have access to feel that the assets of the country belongs to them. It is very enviable to know that a colleague is bank manager because he has the chance to manage monies he has not work for. Again those who have the chance to do the chew and poor have to do it in such a way that nobody can make any real meaning of what they want to say like one English lecturer who writes from one of the State University in New York, Garden City Prof, Okoampa Ahoofe Kwame. He could have been much useful to his country if he had come back to write simple reading books that fits our setting as Ghanaians than releasing non founded jargons that keeps the head spinning and searching what his conclusion are really heading to.(Sorry) It annoys sometimes.
I remembered back at the University of Legon, the we turned to respect and feared those who failed student like Professor Acheampong of Mathematics department, Dr.Philip of Chemistry department Dr.Van of Geology just to mention few of them. We feared them because they completely ended up on impacting no knowledge on the students. A gain we ask ourselves of the essence of the formal education. In my opinion to understand this very well we need to ask ourselves what things does the human being need to live a comfortable life for sometime to die one day. Is education not only meant for an improvement in bringing ideas as to how a man can successfully live on earth? In my opinion the formal education is mainly to bring about an upliftment among those going through the process to be able to bring out something that would improve on the standard of life.
If one has a child who is not doing well, is it not the responsibility of the parents to try other means to see other areas that can help the child. What do we see on our continent! The lectures the teachers instead of encouraging the very people they are supposed to help discourages them from bringing out their full talents. There is always something that somebody can do better than others. In the western world they try rather to find out this hidden characteristic of an individual and combine them to bring about their development.
I remembered again at Legon when one asked question for an explanation in Acheampong’s mathematics class, he would become very angry and said” my dear friend you are worrying me” What mostly became the end result. Failing most of the student and killing their personal initiatives in a way of frustrating them to see themselves useless. He mostly remarked the best ones were taken to UST and the chaffs and good for nothing ones were dump on him. I know as I write now that department should be faced with problems of getting good lectures and that definitely might have kept these old people over there. Dr.Van would drink a lot beer and be creating a lot of jokes just to take the time off ending up impacting nothing on the students.
My deviating from the topic is to bring out clearly why most of us are not analytical. Another group of our heroes are our spiritual leaders, especially the Pasters. We admired them not because of the change they probably may bring to the society, rather because we see them to be rich financially without critically analysing how they amass the worth. Whilst the developed world are trying to understand what bring forth nature and trying to understand the very bit of any living and non living things, most of us African’s are thinking of some spirit somewhere that will improve on our living conditions. How on earth would a whole Professor give his whole life to a spiritual leader knowing very well his condition with respect to cancer! In the bible it was clearly stated and we understood right from our childhood that God is everywhere and everybody has a way to get to heaven if he works things out himself. Do we think heaven is only in the sky? Don’t we think our life on earth would bring about that imaginary heaven?
Our politicians feel they own the assets of the country. If I understood them then the people in the country that they govern are not part of their possession whilst in other system a politician would take pride in the ideas he provided to improve the lives of the people. How do they feel in the nice vehicles bought by the countries money as they drive around looking at the Kayaye in the street making every effort just to survive daily. How do they feel when they drive in Accra in the night seeing people sleeping by the gutter where a lot of mosquito are breed? How do the rich politicians feel when they go back to the very family people who brought them up in those bad conditions who are rather so concerned about them. How do they feel kicking the Kayayes from the streets without providing them alternatives to their livelihood? How do the pastors feel when they see the poor ignorant people giving them their last pennies hoping for a return in a miraculous ways. Don’t the politicians think the many houses they have in Accra, Kumasi and their hometowns without anybody living in them, if all combined can bring about industries or create jobs. Don’t we see how the developed nations put their monies in bit as a stock and starts businesses?
Africa would still be look at as a disappointed continent if the mentality is not change. The best one can do for himself is to trust himself and believe he can improve on his everyday life. Our politician go round begging for money everywhere ( former President Kuffour) in an exchange of our natural resources. They don’t care about the type of agreements they sign on behalves of the poor ignorant people. Their only ambition is the society to praise them for the assets they have at the expense of the poor people of African.
Our Pastors go to most of the voluntary set ups in the developed world begging for support for the needy only to sell the various items in the country for their own worth. Our lectures or teaches fail in inculcating the habit of innovation and critical thinking among us.
The true answer is we need to change the way we look at things, the mentality. The developed world is looking for ways to see how the various living things can continue living as they continue inventing and improving on human life, but African’s in this modern world could not find ways to provide the three daily meals! It is a shame! isn’t it?
To go back to the topic, what does Rawlings loose if he would not be allowed to attend Mill’s funeral?
In my opinion he has lost nothing. He had freely come out of his mind and he is free for saying that. The Muslims burry their dead two hours of no breath. What is the value of the dead like we do in Africa. Some of the communities in the develop system burn it because it is of no use? If any body can prove me wrong. Where did the African’s learn to tell a lie and pretence in everything we do. Rawlings prevention to attend Mills funeral would not wake him up. It is just a sign of respect. Until the African’s allow the right minded people to head them with some level of WISDOM we shall remain very primitive in thinking. I actually admire Pastor Otabil he is doing a lot in his education lessons. Here again there are some failures, he is concentrating too much on building a kind of worth to be proud on neglecting the very people whose contribution he is getting all that. It looks like commercialization of Wisdom. He has made the fees of the university too high to be easily affordable.
Let us look at ourselves as brothers and sisters and try to analyse the very reason any body would do or say something. Rawlings is mostly right, but to form another party he is wrong. If not Konadu’s intentions to be a leader of our nation almost everybody would still respect him. Mill might have decided to sacrifice himself for our dear nation by his refusal to follow the necessary rules to recovery in order to continue working till his death is also a choice and Ghanaian would praise him for his dedication, but Rawlings is also right from the human point of view. Some might blame me for mentioning specific names, I sincerely rendered apology for that but it is about time for us to call a spade a spade to make room for our push to improve lives for the masses and to be independent. African are still slaves, the whites would give out nothing if they don’t see any future benefits from it. The Accra modernization is highly artificial our natural resources are going we should have a second look at how we look for assistance.
Rawlings should be allowed to show the last respect to the person’s upon whose wisdom he ruled this country for so many years. I can still not have my sleep back, we lost a great man that we did not put in the right position, I still cherished his tolerance, forgiveness and his friendly nature.
To end up, it is good to emphasis to need for the truth and nothing else but the absolute truth and honesty to be re-preached as an in dependable factor in bringing up the development we crave for.