Tomorrow by this time, Ghana will….

Ghana’s current economic crisis with its attendant commentary on social media made me remember a bible story I read the other time.

The people of Samaria were experiencing severe famine, the famine was so severe that one day as the king passed, a woman called unto him for help.

This woman had gone into an agreement with another woman to kill their children in turns and eat (2 Kings 6: 28 -29)

The king was enraged that the hunger in the land had been so severe that mothers were prepared to kill and eat their own children.

Knowing about the God of Israel, the King vowed to deal with Elisha, the prophet of the land at the time, thinking that the “disaster” they found themselves in was from the Lord.

Elisha the prophet of God, hearing that the King wanted to deal with him, prophesied. He said in 2 Kings chapter 7 versus one “Hear the word of the Lord, about this time tomorrow, a seah of finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.

The messenger who was sent by the King to threaten Elisha, could not believe what Elisha said. This was a nation experiencing severe famine with no help in sight.

The prophet of God still had the guts to prophecy that just a day after women were eating their own children because of severe famine, food was going to be so abundant that a certain quantity of finest floor will sell for the minimum amount of money.

Unbelievable as it was it happened.
Economic crisis is not new in the world, it has existed even in bible times and in our time, there has been several global economic crises, memorable among them was the one that happened in the year 2007 to 2008 and in Ghana, the 1983 hunger situation cannot be forgotten.

The good thing is that economic crisis always come and goes, how we are able to rebuild ourselves to make such situations less impactful on the citizens is what we ought to be talking about.

Our response as a people to such economic crisis is what prompts this article today, in Ghana, it seems like, people are happy about it, the unnecessary hype on social media about how dire the situation is and how people are even motivated to increase their prices even if there is no need to leaves me in awe.

A typical example is the current cooking oil prices, some people in Europe started talking about the prices of cooking oil way back, but suddenly, it is a trend for people in Ghana to quote exorbitant prices or even hide their stock of products to create scarcity.

A lot of Ghanaians probably comment based on some factors, the personalities in charge of affairs at this time of economic crisis, the political party one belongs among other factors.

Very few comments on the streets can be said to be based on pure objectivity.

But what if, like in the days of Elisha, God turns things around and a gallon of oil sells for may be 100 cedis or less. We have seen it before, when a box of nose mask use to sell at 300 cedis and when it suddenly sold at 5 cedis with just one announcement.

Yes, concrete hard steps need to be taken to salvage Ghana out of this economic crisis storm and for me speaking positively, having the right attitude and wishing Ghana well, no matter the political party you belong to can go a long way.

So, like the Prophet Elisha, I will always say that Tomorrow by this time, Ghana will flourish.