Independence Day Comparisons And Other Rhetorical Questions

By kind courtesy of GTV... Sorry, sorry, sorry! In one journalism class, we were told we should not be saying "By kind courtesy of" but rather "Courtesy (of) the thing or place" depending on where you want to put it in the sentence, the beginning or the end and sometimes middle. This is because they told us courtesy and kindness are from the same bloodline or kin. Most journalist trained at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (now an institute of the University of Media Arts and Communication (UNIMAC) forget this grammatical rule. I am one of the few (former) journalist who would try and remember the rule and follow. However, the fact that experienced journalist or presenters always say "Kind courtesy" it makes those of us who remember and use the rule feel we are rather wrong. Under such circumstances, I try as much as I can to reference my source with the word "courtesy". But I am not here to say what the journalism school taught us about 17 years ago but about the state of our independence.

I chanced on a 6th March 1994 video of the Independence Day celebration on Facebook and other sibling social media platforms. The video accumulated a plethora of praise and admiration as evidenced in the comments section. The icing on the cake was the fact that erstwhile leader His Excellency Flight Lieutenant Jeremiah John Rawlings was the president. Many criticized why the formation, drill and marching by students had deteriorated from three decades down the line. There seems to be no seriousness in the Independence Day parade now as compared to the 1990s.

I don't think we should waste time comparing 6 March parade in the past 1990s to today. I tell you those in Nkrumah's era was also better than Rawlings' time. There was a high sense of nationalism or patriotism in Ghanaians in the First Republic than any of the remaining three. The painful and most overlooked truth in this country is that nationalism, patriotism and the urgency of making Ghana better has been waning after each Independence Day celebration. It's axiomatic that the only part of the country that makes one better is politics and until recently, religion.

As for religion, wealth creation is from philanthropic donations and contributions by Ghanaians to those allegedly chosen by God to do His work and take money on His behalf. There's way any Ghanaian can win the argument of misuse of funds, affluence or personal comforts derived by men of God at the expense of most of their congregation whether the congregants are destitute or affluent. Unlike the churches coax Ghanaians to fund the religious purse, politics coerce Ghanaians to fund the public purse. The is nothing as heartbreaking as a Christian leader who joins politicians to milk the state in the name of gifts from alleged prophecies on 31st December nights every campaign year, open campaign and songs with regards to "Dw3, dw3, dw3... dw3 dw3" (if you know, you know)

For some time now, young persons with no salaried and paid SSNIT work experience just enter politics after National Service because they feel the old folks are chopping the money and leaving them behind. What amazes me the most is why someone abroad (US, UK, or Europe) leave a high paying job in Cedi equivalent for a political job that pays half or quarter of previous job abroad?

There's no sense of urgency for development of the nation. For education, the system is structured that majority will complete the universities with no ability to apply pragmatic knowledge to find solutions to simple problems. At the pre-tertiary level, a new curriculum has been introduced without provision standardized textbooks. The alleged LGBT content in a few of the pages of some subjects might have been the cause of delay because of the abhorrence of majority of Ghanaians on that nascent gender issue.

Little to no infrastructural development due to deliberate snail pace of projects. It takes averagely not less than a decade to construct basic roads in Ghana. How can we accelerate projects when contractors are shareholders and financiers of a party in power?

In terms of housing, the cost involved is closest to those priced by private real estate agencies. The security services and a handful of government workers with better means of income through higher allowance etc. will be the first to be thought about when there is housing. Most of government workers especially those in education and teaching are left in the lurch.

Why must a cluster or apartments built by government, with shared privacy, be far more expensive than building on your own? In such apartments, on your, left, right, top, back of your walls, there's another neighbour. Walls of rooms I mean, not houses, just like we have in the university hostel system.The only difference between hostels and these government flats are that they are without shared bathrooms or kitchen. A single room self-contained which they term as studio apartments is equivalent to building a three bedroom on your own. Who are these buildings built for? The poor Ghanaians and government workers?

I was among a group of teenagers during the Independence Day celebration in my district and they argued about something I have been contemplating and convincing myself not to believe. To them, they'd prefer the colonial masters come back to run the country for us because we have always been worse off under our leaders. "How come the average Ghanaian worker take him a salary between 100 to 400 Dollars for a whole month", they added. In addition to this they believed even if the colonial masters were directly controlling us, they'd had done better than this.

These are teenagers who are technically JHS and SHS students. This should tell us that, it's an open secret that the more we move forward, the more we fail. Nothing makes sense. Religion which originally gave us some solace is just a rose by another name in terms of politics. The open secret is there's nothing materially independent about a failed state. Until we strive for building Ghana for the benefit of all Ghanaians instead of a particular political party, in government or not, we will drown in self-helplessness. The best people to lead either are pushed out or die before their time. In as much as we blame politicians, we should spare a little time to blame ourselves for making corruption apathetic to our leaders. There are instances where "poor" teachers get into politics as Members of Parliament or government appointees and in the first year, his people put every basic responsibility on him or in a few instances her. Such responsibilities including payment of fees for wards of their constituents, hospital bills, huge funeral donations, brown envelopes for recruitment of constituents for jobs they are sometimes not qualified for, etc. If the politicians use money for all these, what money will remain for acceleration and completion of projects? We glorify corruption and failure of governments because we also benefit from them. We are accomplices to those at the helm of affairs we have been blaming for the failure of the system and underdevelopment.

By
Martin Elorm Dogbo
Bilingual Communication, Education and Management Specialist

[email protected]