The pains of ordinary Ghanaians

Painfully, I was whisked and shoved away – shocked, shredded and crestfallen. I was eccentrically sacked from a public university library – the City Campus of the University of Ghana library complex. The reason was simply hard believing – “the library is only meant for students - only students.” Really! How can a tax payer for a ‘better Ghana’ be handed a ‘bitter Ghana’ by been denied access to a facility his/her taxes construct?

Who knows, some books might have been stolen by some odd enthusiasts. Maybe, some non-students might have misused the facility, or broke some furniture. Then ‘bam!’ Everyone’s banned - a “sack all” policy option that blacklisted non-students from using the library. I don’t know how to explain this but I think it’s good defining it ‘a lazy leadership style, a popular approach and star leadership choice mostly common in Africa for that matter Ghana. Such leaders solve problems in crudely superficial ways without paying attention to details as to why and how problems occurred and how to fish out wrongdoers and deal with them. Rather, they use short cuts and broad brushes to exert coercion, power and authority. They could be likened to a static idol that forever faces one direction and knows only one option – unbalanced force use. Such leadership approach thinks less about the needs of the greater number of the poor populace and the diseased effects their actions and choices will have in the long run. As stated above, the actions of few miscreants imaginably caused the library to be shut to the general public.

Behind the curtain of this ‘firedrake policy’ is a corrupt “big manism” tactic that create flexibility for a few who are well connected politically, religiously, socially, monetarily and corruptly. I believe rather tearfully – if I knew some big man somewhere, who could lawyer me into talking to the chief librarian, I would have been allowed. Possibly, like the cupbearer in the narrative of Genesis 40:23, who forgot Joseph two full years, after he prophesied his freedom, I may also forget others in my ‘poor category’ persistently banging hard the library doors for access.

There was a time the state acted as a happy arsonist, dramatization horrible scenes of blazing infernos of set-ablaze excavators involved in illegal mining. The act which was not only state-endorsed illegality but poor approach to solving a difficult problem received waves of crested criticisms. Perhaps, for the avoidance of illicit scenes of seized excavators disappearing faster than the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) Guinea Fowls, scaling the border walls into Burkina Faso, these expensive machines and other equipment were burnt including other mining equipment with some of the victims legitimately securing their mining concessions. The “fire-happy” “arsonist regiment,” the military detachment responsible for the burnings, had no time and the meticulousness to fishing out the real offenders. Ghanaians, I believe cannot hand them guilty verdict because they carried orders from our “elected bests” who would always put their Premiership on the line than getting along with the masses in order to save the state from destruction. Some years down the line, when the “burn the excavator policy” by Ghana’s “policy maniacs,” as a policy response to galamsey, on the crucible of appraisal, about 60% of water bodies in Ghana remained polluted. The business as usual – galamsey is going in full blast even in forbidden forests. The tune then turned to “we wouldn’t burn the excavators again” as a solemn vote grabbing promise.

Borders, especially nonphysical borders in Ghana are ubiquitous as many as the population of Ghana, tall-walled and hard to penetrate. These borders are built with idiosyncratic integrity to disable mobility and “encroachers” to the emotional territory of those who erect them. These walls are securitized with aggressive behaviour and irrational attitudes that bars openness and harmonious integration. The root of this is distrust which starts from self. If you trust less yourself, how could you trust others? This suspicious tendency of everyone put all at war with all which mostly starts from our compounds/home, creeps into the church and plunge like Victoria Falls into our political leadership. A behaviour that the spiritual, physical and social revolution of Jesus, the Christ with all his practical wisdom and lesson-laden proverbs could not change in most Christians.

My worse, once upon a day, was when my stomach thundered on a hot afternoon after relishing some appealing fast food that woefully pounded my stomach, dragging me to the “white house” for a quick therapeutic fix. It was an unexpected nature’s call, like the coercive knocks of death at the gates of a lapsing heart which no one has ever refused. I crouched-walked, speedily- stagnant to the nearest office and crashed into the door handle of a washroom. Oh my God!! It’s firmly locked. I banged the door of the office adjacent with the strength of a sadist, then a sadist voice creaked out - who’s that!! A middle-aged man came out with a straight face and a stern question – “are you mad, why bang my door with such stark foolishness?” Am sorry sir I said, I wanted to use the wash-room but realised it was locked. “This washroom is not for public use,” he growled. “Sir, have mercy on me, the missile is just too close to explode,” I lamented “Leave here quickly before the tempest of my temper erupts.” “I allow people in your kind of emergency to use the facility but they mostly end up messing up the place and I have to clean it myself,” he said unsympathetically.

At this point, my pants were getting wet of the stenchy fluids leaking through as the braking mechanism was fast-failing. I quickly stepped out and met a young man passing “can I get some public toilet around,” he looked into my face, smiled and said and “I don’t know.” I rushed towards the main road with hopes of meeting a Samaritan. I met her. A young woman, I tapped her, she looked into my face and realised all was not well. Then he pointed at a building some hundred metres away after I put my crucial request. I believe it could be one of the 41,000-plus toilets built by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government than any other government in Ghana (Modern Ghana August 12, 2020), which purified Ghana to “open defecation free” (ODF) status. That was how the tense situation softened.

When will Ghana’s broken economy, leading us into poverty and shame-filled social status meet a Samaritan, a Messiah? This was the question that flashed across first and inflexibly fixed onto my consciousness.

In 2016 when “slogan enthusiasts” were at peak of what they best knew, Ghanaians were elated-lots as “frees” and “ones” filled the barns of their thoughts. Free SHS, “one village one dam,” “one district one factory” “one constituency one million dollars,” “agenda 111” and many others. These policies appeared virtuous on paper and amorous when presented on Power Point with oratorial dexterity. Wow – Ghana on the threshold of staging an industrial miracle, with well-moulded, well-turned builder boulders that would shock the western world that even Emmanuel Macron, the Paris man, whose presence we conjured another dreamy one - “Ghana beyond aids,” to give a miraged summary to our tonnes of mottos.

In research, best proposals are not those sweetened with loads of praiseworthy ideas. Mostly, grant winner propositions are focussed and directed at a specific problem. They demarcate clear paths, workable methods and appropriate time frames of solving the problem. The political promises of the NPP were very bright, heart-warming, giving a visioned vista of a golden Ghana galloping with spiritual hooves, catching-up and outpacing many, even industrialised states. However, these policies were sadly besmeared, interspersed and mingled with poor implementation corruption, nepotism, greed and sadist-heartiness that inflict hardship, extreme suffering on many Ghanaians.

Am so privileged that one of the agenda 111 hospitals – the Anloga District Hospital is sited at Agortoe, just yards from my village Hadota, in the Volta Region. However, “kwashiorkor” disease infected the project which by the parlance of NPP might be about 45 percent complete after several months of a “lifeless site.” Perhaps, if the $400 million National Cathedral, (Aljazeera April 18, 2023 by Kent Mensah) a blissful project symbolizing “our outward religiosity and inward paganism” could be perhaps sited on the hills of Aburi, I believe there would only be vegetations to clear to erect the sacred God’s shrine. However, very expensive and historic property like the Scholarship Secretariat, The Passport Office, The Judicial Institute, Waterstone Realty Apartment Complex, the Resident of the Malian Ambassador, Offices of the African Centre for Economic Transformation, and Economic Research Institute (Ghanweb.com Friday January 20, 2023) were all pulled down. If this road were not to be taken, which cost the state GH₵339.003.064.86, yet the project is still at the “hole level” there could be some funds left to be injected into agenda 111 and the demolished La General Hospital could grow past “bare-land level.”

How beautiful will it be if Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology was taken along where the design for the National Cathedral as a competition for students and the best design was used than pressing on the lap of Sir David Adjaye a total of GH₵113 million (Citinewroom.com January 2, 2023) just for architecture design.

Life is all about solving problems, however, our problem-solving efforts mostly target praise than sustainability because of which we scratch the surface as we bulldoze our ways with power to attract our praise-leaders. This is our result - haphazard economic hair-cuts as criminals given identification hair-do and led into economic prison in hard labour.