Why this ruinous stupid mentality of the African?

Do I seem to be insulting the race of people of my birth? I don’t think so but just stating the truth as is empirically observed and proven beyond all reasonable doubts.

I believe this problem I’m about to discuss is not unique to Ghanaians, Nigerians, or Africans alone, but to black people as a race. However, I will limit myself to Ghanaians and Nigerians.

I have always come to find that chronic attitude by the Ghanaian not patronising made-in-Ghana goods completely absurd, ruinous, and self-defeating in their anticipation for a better future.

They cannot continually linger in their belief that made-in-Ghana goods are inferior hence they had better stay away from them while still expecting jobs to be created for the people, money to come into their pockets and life become enjoyable and easy-peasy for them. That will not happen today, tomorrow or the next hundred years until they change their deplorable attitudes.

The Ghanaian prefers imported polished long-grain perfumed rice from China, Thailand, Taiwan, or the USA to the unpolished mineral-rich-home-grown rice.

The Ghanaian will in any day choose imported second-hand lady’s underwear, clothing, refrigerators, and you just name it, over brand-new ones produced in Ghana. Is this not stupidity and troubling myopia capable of inhibiting the advancement of Ghana and Ghanaians as a people?

God has in his infinite wisdom given Ghana an innovator-cum-inventor in the person of Dr Apostle Kwadwo Sarfo. God has bequeathed to him the intelligence to make cars, electrical appliances, and the best methods of cultivating food stuffs.

Apostle Sarfo has practically demonstrated the visionary gift bestowed on him as said above by producing cars named Kantanka cars. He has manufactured TV, sound systems and many more, yet, Ghanaians having cultivated absurd taste for foreign goods are refusing to purchase his products.

Some of them cannot be bothered while others are citing quality, safety and high prices as constraints keeping them away from patronising Kantanka products.

If the whites had failed to purchase their own home-made goods when they were initially produced, behaving irresponsibly as Ghanaians are currently doing towards Kantanka products, could they have progressed to improve upon them to the state in which their goods are found today? No.

Why are Ghanaians and in this matter black people, so myopic and thoughtless? Why have we condemned ourselves to mental and physical slavery by our deplorable attitudes and reasoning?

Right from the government to the ordinary Ghanaian in the street, we can’t see the importance of nurturing and growing our home scientists, innovators, and inventors if we are lucky to have any. If we could see their worth, we would hurry to support Dr Apostle Sarfo by purchasing his products all the time.

Why should the government loan each member of parliament US$100,000.00 each parliamentary term of four years to buy cars from abroad? Why can’t the government rather buy them Kantanka cars to encourage and boost Ghanaian-made cars to ensure Ghana acquires the needed technology in our competitive contemporary global world?

Either the government discontinues with lending money to parliamentarians to buy cars altogether, or it buys them Kantanka cars to encourage inventions and innovations by native Ghanaians to guarantee our worth, respect, and presence in the invention and manufacturing arena of the world. We cannot continue to denigrate ourselves, consciously reducing ourselves to subhuman by our disgusting attitudes.

In Nigeria, they are also behaving similarly stupid as Ghanaians. Are they not black people or Africans after all? Almost all black people in their majority think and behave the same no matter which nooks and crannies they find themselves in the world.

A native Nigerian has established Air Peace with a fleet of thirty aircraft and thirty-three more ordered. However, many a Nigerian is refusing to patronise it but rather going for Virgin Atlantic and British Airways, citing safety concerns. Nevertheless, the aircraft, their pilots, etc., had been subjected to, and passed, all international safety checks.

The airfare is cheaper on all routes plied by Air Peace as against other airliners plying same routes yet, the African mentality is militating against the future success of home-started airliner.

The awkwardness of the African knows no bound.

I shall be back to treat this topic exhaustively until Africans begin to patronise their home-made goods, behaving responsibly as human beings.

If you are an African and you feel offended because of this article, so be it. Change then!

Rockson Adofo