New Year, Old Realities: how will the transformation we are waiting for ever happen?

The Kasoa terminal of the popular Tema Station in Ghana's capital, Accra

I have been waiting here for more than an hour for the first “Trotro” to turn up at the Kasoa terminal of the popular Tema Station in Ghana’s capital, Accra; so that I can deliver the first sale of local rice from our family farm. What catches my attention now is not the time I am losing, which is critical man-hours for me though, but the unchanging situation of economic vulnerability that has baptized much of sub-Saharan Africa; where we say Ghana is a beacon of democracy and political stability even if the dividends of this accolade are yet to be realized in the realities of daily lives.

A yonder, I see two young women in conversation, a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes on the table serving their platform. Elsewhere, this beautiful baby would be lying in a cushioned cot or baby-sitter with a variety of dangling toys swinging in her curious view, here and there; under the eagle eyes of its career woman cum caring mother perhaps still recovering from prolonged baby blues and postpartum norms. But here, with the pain of childbirth long forgotten and the joys of motherhood veiled by the harsh conditions in an inner-city shanti, this baby not born in a manger now has its sphere of life clearly cut out in an unpredictable (to say the least because the future awaiting such a beginning is of significant predictability) circumstance.

A yonder, I see two young women in conversation, a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes on the table serving their platform

This is not an uncommon reality in this part of the global village. It is the norm that has found its way in numerous texts of the development industry. It is the face of at least the first seven Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) arouses us to pursue speedily when he declared 2020-2030 the Decade of Action for the achievement of the global agenda for transformation. This transformation we have been waiting for so long!

Tema station was designed as a main terminal for commercial passenger vehicles, commonly called “Trotro” in Ghana, but the critical housing deficit and draconian jaws of the phenomenal informal economy has seemingly endorsed into legitimacy, if appalled by legality, of critical service providers such as Kayayo and vendors who virtually begin and complete their mortal life cycle here; with intermittent vector movements to their hometowns.

This is why I was not again surprised when after a few minutes, at the same spot, a mother “constructs” utilizes and demolishes a bathroom and dressing room for her toddler.

The project was SMART, for in a few minutes she had accomplished her, perhaps, first objective of the day; and the little life was off skirting about a normal health threat: the never-ending sanitation problem which has endured every clean-up campaign organized by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).

Another “naughty” child, as some of us adults like to refer to children doing things we don’t like but don’t also seem to really want to solve, is seen visited upon by the “wrath” of a “caring father” who doesn’t won’t to lose beloved pension-child to Tema Station’s uncertainties; he gives the expected spanking before exhibiting the rare fatherhood that has left many a fatherless children littering Accra’s busy streets and markets.

These two children, girl and boy, are typical of the random sampling statistics on child delinquency, teenage pregnancy, youth unemployment, unstable marriages, recycled poverty and disappointed old age awaiting us in 2030-2045 when the current UN- driven SDGs have expired and the low-side mixed report is produced as a pre-requisite for another global development cycle. Will things ever change?

The Biblical book of Ecclesiastical is a stack representation of how changeless the norm of human existence may be: nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastics vibrates with repeated examples of how both the wise and foolish, rich and poor, powerful and vulnerable, young and old, now and then may forever remain the same and head towards the same ending. Its refrain, “vanity of vanities all is vanity” is underpinned by the context of mortality to which we will all submit; and qualified by the reality of the immortality of our soul and the eternal judgement awaiting each of us like how the Supreme Court awaits anyone who flouts the constitutional rights of citizens and people living in Ghana. The last verse in Ecclesiastical thunders:” For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastics 12:14). It is this hope of accountability that encourages us to know that things can change!

Will things ever change?

Life is consequential. We will all reap what we sow; and as a country and people, Ghana and Africans (indeed all humanity) must rise up to greater responsibility with hope beyond mere wishes. This is the view shared by all of us who go to bed thinking about how to make our country and sub-region, work efficiently for the good of all in a manner that ensures the increasing unwarranted inequalities is overcome by true meritocracy in wealth distribution.

We the ordinary people, including the guy who sorted my momo cash-out so I could quickly pay the Trotro mate for my farm rice delivery at Kasoa, agree we must do “Whatever it takes” to make the system work well for everybody!

How can transformation happen?

There are several perspectives to this, so a linear monolithic logic won’t cut it. Any holistic approach may have to comprehensively analyze multiple contexts, concepts and practical policy and programming contents of a creative development approach that targets wellbeing rather than selfish convenience. Such an approach must be simple but not simplistic because the challenges are comprehensive so the solutions must be encompassing but not complicated.

The multiple components of solutions, with their numerous elements and respective systems fairly framed to efficiently address by properly diagnosed problems must be framed into a cohesive harmonious productivity-oriented (not mere production) engineering machine undergirded by spiritual morality, that near-transcendental component of reality guiding our sense of right and wrong.

It’s critical to understand the kind of foundation we are putting in place for this concept of comprehensive solutions.

Let’s be careful of two extremes: first, those who think there is nothing like God nor the devil and that spirituality is mere superstition, designed by the smart to outwit the gullible and second, those whose idea about God and spirituality is all about “miracles”, unintelligent superimpositions and religious slough sloth and greed. In between is a delicate set of nuances presenting an interplay of multiple dynamics across the spectrum of reality that seem to defy both north and south of our global economic hemisphere. The global north has become almost atheistic, over-materialistic and power drunk with the continuous power-struggle between east and west and making talk about fingers on the nuclear knob still perceivable in this day and age of UN strides in peace making: Russia China and Iran on one side; Europe and America on the other; with Africa’s pretentious and opportunistic non-aligned posture strategically serving our present need. On the other hand, the global south is seen as backward and dumb; silly beyond true repair and good only as paper partners who should not have equal space and power on the UN Security Council. This sophisticated inequality between the global north and south has created a moral disability that the probably hollow spirituality of the world’s religions are struggling to resolve.This disability is what continues to worsen the situation of our physically impaired kith and kin and made my walk back to the office after delivering my bag of farm-Frisch Ghana rice, an experience of many cogitations as I passed by this long serving street beggar across the street towards the Auditor and Accountant Generals’ Department in the enclave of Ghana government machinery, the Ministries area in Accra!

Spiritual morality
God is real and we must take him seriously; not with mysterious complexity that benefits only those who claim to have a sort of exclusive access to him; in a manner that the rest of us need such middle men to help us know God; then the pounce on us and exploit. No!

God is not far from any of us. According to the Bible, If only we will remove our selfishness and sins out of the way, we can each reach his gracious goodness and benefit from his daily mercies like our Neighbours benefit from our greetings each morning. “Good morning my Neighbour!”

For those of us who insist to be Christians let’s be reminded that following Jesus is a practically relevant application of faith. So we should stop playing the hypocrite and become courageous enough to obey what the Bible teaches us about diligence in our work places. Godliness is the secular space is a spiritual act of worship!

Christians in the civil service must honour our Lord by going to work on time, delivering on our work place responsibilities and avoid the numerous “mini corruption” that has become so normal in the public service. This is what spiritual morality involves. let’s translate our loud, if not noisy, Christianity into tangible work place morality! A Christian must have an excellent spirit; including honesty and competence at the work place. Otherwise let’s stop making the noise with our numerous prayer meetings and “miracle” and magic services. Let’s not give the devil a chance to ridicule our Lord. This year, let’s demonstrate our spirituality in concrete terms by astute competence at work. Prepare your work plan, schedule your daily activities and execute them the best you can, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Our faith not just about speaking in tongues or playing HillSong worship in the office. It’s practical godliness! Let us stop blaming “the system”, and do our work well. We are the system! Of course, our superiors also have the responsibility to ensure that we have the tools to do our jobs and if the tools are not available we have to demand until they are available.

Unless we do something that works, we are not making use of the power of God in our lives. All the declarations we made on 31st Night will come to nothing if we only sit in our offices, give excuses and go to the bank moon-die to pocket state funds, in the name of due wages. If we claim our salaries are meager, we should also honestly ask ourselves, what did we tangibly do to deserve it, anyway?

Others can attend to public service without a strong sense of personal accountability, but a well meaning Christian sees public service as one of the sacred opportunities to serve the Lord Jesus. He is the Master Public Servant and we are walking in his steps! So let every Tom Dick and Harry who names the name of Christ stand up and be counted!

If we stop our lip service to the Lord, humbly repent and patiently and faithfully do our solemn duties in the civil and public service, the King of kings will be honoured and he will bless us with economic revival.

As for the massively corrupt leaders we have who are messing up the system and making things difficult for the little ones, we have to think hard about how to handle them; because many of them also claim to be spiritual people o. Spiritual morality and political corruption are not bed fellows. Sometimes it is perhaps because these corrupt leader also have people who patronize them and some of us are in that small corner, benefiting from a certain big man in our church, family or home town association.

It is our spiritual duty to economically dissociate from corrupt money. We may eat the crumbs that fall from their tables but we can’t sit with them to drink the blood of the poor!

The churches that accommodate these rich corrupt leaders, including business magnates who can neither be said to have clean hands nor repentant hearts, must change their ways. Christian business leaders should repent from conniving with godless politicians to rip off our national resources. Too many such businessmen are hiding in the church. They pay bribes to win contracts, hire laborers and refuse to pay them what they deserve, agree to serve as conduit for siphoning national assets into private pockets and come into the church with big tithes and offerings to receive fame and glory. We must repent!

Things can change. We should not allow Satan to win. Let’s be courageous in righteousness!

On the social front, many Christian homes are breaking down because of pressure. Couples are divorcing, children are running away, teens are committing fornication and house-helps and servants are abusing and being abused. Where are our family standards? Has the freedom of human rights distorted our moral virtues?

Human rights should mean human beings must do what is right not that human beings have a right to do anything. Deceptive intelligence, evil psychology and philosophies are distorting our socio-moral and cultural fabric.

Are we willing to change this? All things are possible to him who believes!

Productivity Machine
Towards the end of last year very useful ideas were shared by many notable people, regarding what our problems are as a country and how we can solve it. There are many more such ideas we must systematically document, integrate and operational construct into a productivity machine engineered by competent thoughtfulness.

Much has been said about the needed resolution of a common long term national development programming transcending partisan politics and the useful partisan manifestos by which our politicians lobby the electorate for governance rights. We need to bring this to a head and judge the way we have to go; and go the way!

Some have emphasized the need of an honest decentralization Programme that provides a reflective frame for recognizing rights, sharing responsibilities and allocating resources in equity to our regions districts and communities so that local development becomes the hub for national development projects instead of the current top- down approach which has numerous incentives for unrestrained corruption.

It is quite obvious that our accountability systems are not being well resourced to help us. The OSP has openly said that we don’t seem to be really willing to fight corruption. That’s an important matter to warrant a moral emergency. But who cares?! Corruption at the district level is a big matter. Some of us may have become so discouraged as to even assert that the canker is in the melanin! I don’t believe this, though.

OSP says that more than 60% of people fear retaliation if they report corruption! We must deeply interrogate why this is so; and actively solve it. Our churches should get up and lead this fight. It is a moral issue and the church is the major leader here. If we are failing against corruption, I dare say our churches might be failing us. Corruption is a huge deficit in the productivity machine. It’s a hole we must plug otherwise our engine oil will keep leaking and our machine can never run efficiently. We cant keep fetching water into a basket and expect to have it filled. Only insanity does that. No wonder Dr Yaw Perbi describes Ghana as a mad man. I don’t think we are mad, if madness is irreversible; because we can change things!

A productive machine is one whose various components work efficiently. A car has an average of thirty thousand parts. Each must work efficiently for optimal performance. The human body has thirty trillion cells, if one becomes cancerous, the whole body is far all threatened. Efficient machines have efficient individual parts. We must go to work to make each and every local community, in deed every household, economically efficient. We can build citizens’ capacity by strategically empowering the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and supporting local churches to systematically educate citizens and their members on efficient work ethics. Just like the sprites tan Work Ethic was significant in fashioning the diligence discipline and frugality of the West, we can develop a contextualised godly competence that could bring the transformation we need.

An efficient productivity machine must be holistic and comprehensive. Every relevant bit must be addressed. The temptation to gloss over the gross is the pathway to mediocrity. That’s where we have had some difficulty as a country. We like big thinks to happen a big way; almost suddenly. We seem to be very interested in ‘miracles’; that although we don’t work hard for what we need, some way somehow we will get it. This is not human. This mind posture also manifests in the entitlement attitude, where every family member thinks he has a right to the wealth of that one hard working family member who must distribute everything to everybody if he doesn’t want a bad name. Looks like our young people want quick big money; and our old people want to control everything. But we must learn how to appreciate the aggregation of pieces into the whole. We must not abuse our high sense of community by losing our sense of individual responsibility. We need each other but we must not take advantage of one another. The other extreme is the atomization that has eaten up others in different cultures until they now, in some places, have to import other human beings to keep their societies alive. Extreme self-dependence can produce self-centered, selfishness and self-destruction. They have lost their functional use of community, traded it in the market of self-ability to acquire the self-reliance that leads to selfishness and self-destruction.

If we take God, really seriously, his Wisdom will guide us in the right path.

By Emmanuel Kwame Mensah