#FixGhanaNow; Aluta Continua!

The other day I was going for a dental appointment to get a tooth extracted at the Legon Hospital. I left home early around 6AM so I can get there before the appointed time (10AM). I squeezed myself in the back seat of this trotro as people board and alight while we make our way from Oyibi to Amrahia to Adenta then Madina to Atomic and then Legon. These days the morning traffic from Amrahia to Adenta is getting crazy. There were nurses and other professionals in the Trotro with me living for work.

But I took special notice of this young girl in the new public school uniform going to school. At 8:10AM, she was already dozing off in the Trotro. “she is probably tired” I thought to myself. To be able to get to school on time, this girl might have been awake before six AM. She's squeezed in this trotro. The sun is already rising and it is getting hot in here. She is already tired and it is 8:10 already. Schools usually start lessons at 8AM. She is definitely going to get to school late when classes are already in session. How productive is she going to be?

Then the nurses. They'll be frustrated with all the stress in the Trotro before getting to work. Their salaries and conditions of service is nothing to write home about. Well if it was something to write home about, They'd probably be driving to work or be in a more comfortable Bolt or Uber. Even if they had a cars, the constant rise in fuel prices means most of their salaries will go into buying fuel. But somehow we expect them to go to work and give out their best?

When you are riding in the Trotro you'll notice all these young beggars on the road. There are two categories of beggars in my book: the unprofessional ones who are mainly children together with adults living with disability and then there are the second group who I call the professional beggars. They are in a uniform lacust shirt with some printed documents claiming they are taking money for some orphanages. These are young people and energetic citizens whose energies could have been channeled into more productive ventures. Here they are, begging.

And when the traffic signals red, you notice all the street hawkers. Those days, hustlers are usually unkept, not-so-good-looking characters. These days some of the most beautiful ladies endowed with all the curvatures are those hawking on our streets. You can't help but wonder what the future holds for these damsels. In the same breath, you'll notice good looking young men selling all sorts of things. While waiting to join the main Madina road from the Dodowa junction, I noticed this strong looking dark and thick tall young man trying to convince a mother to buy one of the sketch books he was selling. He tries singing a nursery rhyme to get the woman to buy the book but she wasn't interested at all. She is probably broke... We move!

I got to Legon around 9:40. Just on time to get my procedure started. The staff at the hospital were very professional. I noticed almost everyone in the dental clinic was young with ladies in the majority. They were extra nice and very welcoming. They explained what is expected and how I'll feel. They took me through what the X-ray revealed and what they had to do. They were so willing to attend to their patients and by midday when I was done, the place was empty. I left the facility very satisfied and wishing I can celebrate them in a better way than the mere “thank you, God bless you” I left them with.

I walked out of the Legon hospital and just by the commerical bank along the road opposite the University main gate, I noticed most of the young people loading the Trotro were actually Legon boys who were doing ‘lalasulala’ to have some coins in their pockets. Finally I boarded one of the Trotros and headed home to deal with the pain.

You see, from the young girl in the Trotro, to the nurse, to the young beggars, to the street hawkers, to the dentists at the Legon hospital to the young part-time loading boys, everyone is trying to fix themselves to survive. You can't live in this country without fixing yourself. Times are hard. Rents are very high. But we still manage to survive. All throughout that morning, I was listening to Bernard Avle and his team discussing the usual problems vis the emerging #FixTheCountry campaign.

I quickly logged on to Twitter to ascertain what was going on for myself. I noticed the leader of this project, Kalyjay was someone I actually muted among many other young influencers because I felt they were wasting their youth on social media discussing women, sex, debating who's important amongst Manifest, Sarkodie Shatta Wale and Stonebwoy instead of using the power of social media to demand positive change in leadership and governance like their mates in Nigeria do very often. I used to say that if you want to see how bleak Ghana’s future is, go to Twitter where the future leaders are and see what they're interested in. To see them trending #FixGhanaNow #FixGhana made me really proud realizing that there is hope after all. Revolutions are led by young people and most great leaders changed their countries rallying on the energies and dynamism of young people. Sankara was 33. Nkrumah became General Secretary and formed his own party in his 30s. But before Nkrumah could make headway, his pivot was his Veranda Boys. However, I felt insulted that with all the struggle we go through, people are telling us to fix ourselves first before asking government to fix the country. As if we are not doing that already.

No government deserves comfort in a developing country like ours. If we expect government to do right all the time, this nation will never prosper. Like Sir. Sam Jonah said, today many people have deliberately chosen to be silent instead of speaking out because for most of them in the media especially, their palms have been well greased by those who have power. They are satisfied so they will rather use their media platforms in conditioning the people into thinking all is well. Paul Adom Otchere is a leading example. But then, haven felt the heat of the very high cost of living and seeing how hopeless the future is, these young people have refused to be fooled by the very few well fed popular guys who tell them all is well when all is so not well.

I observed that in no time the online protests and hashtags started gaining prominence. The discussion around the hashtags were tetraheaded. People were voicing out different problems they are encountering with the system from different sectors and in different tones. Soon some celebrities joined. The media began reporting the trends in their news bulleting. Government got uncomfortable. So what did they do? They marshalled their battalion of young people popular known on twitter as ‘700Ghana Twitter’ to create counter hashtags, attack those complaining and in some cases forge documents to assassinate people's character. Kwadwo Sheldon was one of these counter revolutionaries (to borrow the words of Thomas Sankara)... But a young man like Kwadwo Sheldon who is a self acclaimed comedian with no history of personal wealth should be very much aware of the struggle we all go through to survive in this country. Why will Kwadwo and all these young people agree to come online to attack those who are genuinely suffering? Don't they also pay rent?

A single room self-contain apartment goes for about 200 Cedi a month. Landlords usually accept two years advance. Which means you have to cough up 4,800 Cedi upfront to be able to afford a decent single room self-contain. The average salary in Ghana is around 750 to 800 Cedi. With the minimum wage here, many are those who earn between 250 to 400 Cedi working more than 40 hours a week. How do these people survive? Are these young people defending the system not going through the stress we go through? So why are they willing to do what they do? If Ghana is fixed and working well for the student, the nurse, the teacher and the ordinary man to the extent that we do not have beggars and hawkers on our roads, won't they be happy?

Power belongs to the people. I expect these young people to soldier on. Today they are naming and shaming nonperforming politicians. I want this political consciousness and participation to continue. I hope they won't allow themselves to be bought like we've seen with the CJA, LMVCA and Occupy Ghana etc... I hope they can take it one step at a time. They should start with education, then to health, then to infrastructure, then corruption, a complete reduction in the size of government, better accountability, cut down on money wasted through ex-gratia, free fuel and so on... one heat at a time. Daily protests are not enough neither are online protests. There must be positive defiance like the Positive Action in 1951 that got Nkrumah arrested.

The police we have here are pathetic. They are among the most underpaid workers working in very risky conditions. The police need more fixing than any organisation but they have sold their souls to the devil and are always ready to be used to suppress and oppress the people. It is time to defy the police. A 100 thousand people occupying the presidency for weeks cannot be crushed by the lackluster police force we have. Positive defiance have brought down great empires.

In 1962, civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer attended a meeting about black voter registration sponsored by SNCC. A couple of days later, she traveled to Indianola, Mississippi, with a group of other African Americans and attempted to register to vote. When she refused to withdraw her voter registration application, Hamer lost her job and was kicked off the plantation where she had worked for nearly two decades. But it was then that Hamer, at age 45, found her voice and declared the now famous words “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!”... Her zeal and charisma leading positive defiance helped in the libration struggle...

If we want Ghana fixed, we must be ready for the long haul of discomfort. It will be tough and rough because those whose source of livelihood depend on the rot in the system will fight back through tooth and nail. Like Osibisa said in their famous Woyaya song; “It will be hard we know, and the road will be muddy and rough but we'll get there. Heaven knows how we will get there, We know we will.”

“For our patriotic struggle, for radiant future. Our homeland or death, we will win.” ~Thomas Sankara

Aluta Coninua, Victoria Ascerta ✊🏿 Rest Not! Ghana must be fixed!