Statement: Citizen Ghana reflects on 58th Independence Anniversary

Citizen Ghana, a group made up academics, lawyers, business people and journalists is asking Ghana's political leaders to show a lot more commitment towards the development of the country.

The group in a statement said Ghana appears to be "down on its knees struggling to stand tall and proud, and the complexity of the current dire situation cannot be explained away by any one single reason."

Read the full statement which begins with the National anthem.

God bless our homeland Ghana
And make our nation great and strong,
Bold to defend forever
The cause of Freedom and of Right;
Fill our hearts with true humility,
Make us cherish fearless honesty,
And help us to resist oppressors' rule
With all our will and might for evermore.
March 6 th , 1957. A lot of things happened on that day, the most significant being Ghana's official declaration of independence. Fifty Eight (58) years down that road, it is important to ask, check and see how the nation is doing. … Sadly, the nation seems to be down on its knees, struggling to stand tall and proud, and the complexity of the current dire situation cannot be explained away by any one single reason.

The status quo shows some progress – more access to education, better connectivity to the rest of the world through information and communication technology, and an indomitable spirit that combines frustration and disappointment with some laughter in order to keep from crying. The state of the nation in 2015, is no laughing matter. Economically, the nation is on a downward spiral - deep in debt; unable to pay public workers, widespread public theft scandals that are uncovered faster than one can count, knee-jerk, myopic economic policies that all seem to suggest that we engage in trial-and-error as our key strategy, and have no proper, comprehensive strategic planning.

Citizens are interested in seeing a prosperous Ghana, where there is freedom, honesty and a willingness, readiness and audacity to resist oppression of any kind – economic, social, political and oppression of any other kind, regardless of whether it is from internal or external oppressors.

On March 6 th , 2015, we stand, as a group of individual citizens who believe that things can indeed be better, who believe that the nation needs to be woken up from its slumber, and our leaders must be held to account.  We believe that all is not lost if only we can get our leaders to take all the calls for improvement in leadership seriously, and we as citizens can take up our rights and responsibilities seriously. 

To this end, we call on our leaders and citizens to do the following:

Our public leaders must show their commitment to the people by working with anyone who can, to think through and find solutions to our current economic crisis. We believe that this is an opportune time to put partisan politics aside and put the nation first, in order to raise Ghana from its knees.

Our public leaders must take the inundation of corruption scandals seriously and take concrete steps to put in place the right checks and balances to prevent theft and misappropriation of public funds. Beyond prevention, there must be full, prosecution of all known, cases of corruption. This will restore trust in government and ensure security.

Our public leaders must tell us the truth about our current plight. We feel insulted when we are all experiencing hardships including power outages, price hikes etc., and our public leaders tell us that all is well, and that we the people are cynics and ingrates. Our shared reality must not be rubbished, but be discussed with the view to finding solutions. 

We as citizens, in our own homes, workplaces, public spaces, need to be responsible and hold ourselves to high standards and not feed into the ecosystem of dishonesty and indiscipline that plagues the nation. 

We as citizens, must put Ghana first – ahead of any political, religious, ethnic or other affiliation, and ensure that we can live in a peaceful and secure nation, leaving a better version that we have found, to generations to come.