Wikileaks: Yet another distraction from issues of bread and butter

At the beginning of this week, our country was given a fresh talking point. It had nothing to do with providing our children with quality education; neither does it feature anything about how to get the many jobless youth into profitable ventures. Our headlines have been dominated by supposed leaked diplomatic cables from the United States embassy here in Ghana.

Upon the unset of this needless Wikileaks brouhaha, I have taken the pains to follow news in Countries like the U.S where these diplomatic cables were supposed to have been leaked from, by the whistle blowing website.

My mission was simple; to find out if Americans were also talking about non issues like we are wasting precious time on a certain Wikileaks down here.

They are discussing critical issues that border on national development as you may rightly guess. In the *Washington Post* edition of September 7 is talking President Obama’s employment package speech. It discusses the policies that would gainfully get Americans to work without the usual NPP/NDC twist we would usually tag it here.

The *Skynews* edition of the same date headlines an article on the havoc caused by wild bushfires in the Southern U.S state of Texas. In that article, there are talks of getting thousands of bushfire victims back on their feet.

An article on the New York Times website is discussing ten years of post 9/11 and the way forward. In that piece, the writer explores the unfortunate event that killed nearly 3000 people and destroyed the World Trade Center. It laments on several security loopholes in the U.S system and talks about how security can be improved to forestall future occurrences.

Online contributors to all of these stories are giving fruitful suggestions and comments, even though a few appear a bit untoward occasionally.

Our headlines are a sharp contrast of what is going on in the home countries those diplomats involved in the said Wikileaks expose. And who says any of the issues contained in that item surprises some of us?

In this country, there are alarming issues that could have engaged our intention if we were that serious about them.

We could talk about affordable housing; I’m sure the thousands of Ghanaians living a certain Agbobloshie slum would be excited at such a topic. We can talk about means of putting up more classrooms; I’m sure it would put a smile on the face of my 6 year old brother who I’m sure is tired of learning under that huge tree in my Asemasa hometown somewhere in the Western region.

Our cocoa roads are engulfed by ‘man-holes’ and that is a drain on the pocket of a poor farmer elsewhere in the countryside, he wants to hear what government is doing.

They say the level of discussion amongst a group, directly reflects the level of intelligence of that group.

Over the past few months, we have moved from a self inflicted politics of insults, through a certain mysterious Baba Jamal tape to some ‘bribed’ journalists and now a Wikileaks expose that is taking us nowhere.

Are we ever going to be serious in this country?