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Listen To Us, Mr President

By Daily Guide
Editorial Listen To Us, Mr President
NOV 14, 2014 LISTEN

There is a popular axiom of truth in Ghana that he who constructs a path does not know how straight or crooked the path may be until that information is made available by someone who observes from behind.

This axiom brings to mind our current situation in Ghana where every body – apart from government appointees and persons near the president – is complaining that all is not well with the economy and calling for a change of direction and focus.

Civil society is complaining, labour is complaining, the private sector is complaining, corporate Ghana is wailing, the clergy is complaining, students are complaining, investors are doing same, health workers are unhappy, and the security services, by their rules and regulations, cannot complain publicly but they are murmuring loud enough that even persons with hearing deficiencies can hear and comprehend what they are saying. Even the founder of the very political party on which ticket President Mahama rose to power, is complaining that times are hard and that there are corrupt elements within government.

Yet our government spokespersons and propagandists of the ruling party continue to tell us it is well.

The president, in a recent trip to the UK, told the Ghanaian community there that those of us back home do not have genuine complaints, but we only exaggerate the situation to make them send us some remittances.

Some of the persons walking the corridors of power have even described our genuine complaints as soar grapes and generally regarded the issues as political criticisms coming from rival political elements.

Mr President, we wish to draw your attention to the fact that when you have various groupings and sectors of the people you lead – all singing one chorus in harmony – as though they were in a coordinated orchestra, and the only persons singing a different tune are the few ones around you, it means those around you are not on the same hymn book page with a vast majority of the people you lead.

It means the persons around you may have either lost touch with the realities on the ground or are simply not telling you the truth that times are hard and becoming increasingly excruciating on a daily basis.

Ghanaians are generally a peaceful lot, very understanding and tolerant. But when our complaints continue to fall on deaf ears and we have persons who should respond to them (complaints) treating us with scorn and disdain, it increases our agony and kills all hope that it shall be well.

It is said that death, in itself, is not the greatest loss in life, but rather what dies inside us while we are still alive; it may be happiness, trust or hope of a better tomorrow. We do not want to lose hope but the sort of infantile responses we get to our complaints make us wonder whether those in leadership positions still have clues to resolve the challenges confronting the entire nation.

Every child knows that realising there is a problem is fifty percent of the solution. But we live in an era when our leaders say there is no problem when the evidence on the ground proves otherwise.

The responses are insulting and uninspiring. They are abusing us to the brink.

One doesn't have to be the smartest philosopher or sociologist to know that a gentle answer turns away strife and that a man, no matter how peaceful he is, can do the unthinkable when pushed to the brink.

We remind our president that leadership is not about rhetoric, but rather a good leader listens to the concerns of his people and finds prudent ways of addressing the challenges with a sense of urgency.

Show me a leader who does not listen to the complaints and concerns of his people so as to find ways of addressing them, and I shall show you a waiting disaster.

 

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