Self Sustainability Is The First Step To Development

Self-sustainability is the first step to development. The woes of this continent is based on our over dependence on foreign imports. Foreign import in this context includes oil and gas, foreign aid and "foul" common sense. What is a "foul" common sense one may ask, these are policies been pushed on African nations as a pseudo-stipulations for all the foreign aide given to us. These aid may have benefitted such foreign nations but may not be a guaranteed success in Africa, hence it may terribly fail in our nation due to difference in our government. Most of the time, developed nations know these policies will fail and hurt us but they watch us "hang ourselves" in this since Africa has been the guinea pig for developed nations for years.

Front companies and organizations like United Nation and WHO are used to exploit Africans since time immemorial. A recent example being the recent Ebola vaccinations testing In Ghana, test subjects were paid $50 and a mobile phone, a combine worth of about $100. The Clinical and Pharmaceutical Research Centers in the United States pays test subjects for a non-medicated skin patch $1500 per study. This is simply a test to see if a person's skin will develop a skin rash to a patch as big as a band aid.

These patches have not been medicated, yet people who participate in these studies get paid $1500 dollars and in addition they are allowed free medical care for a month. Studies that involves actual medication pays test subjects up $4000 from what I have seen. Yet people of Ghana are exploited by being used as test subjects for vaccines yet to be proven by these pharmaceutical companies. Besides this is not a simple patch, this is one of the world’s most dangerous disease, yet our citizens are paid hundred bucks to their doom. The leaders of developed nations think through and plan every step they make, since our leaders think less, they get caught in the whirlpool of other people’s plan, this gives developed nations the power to move us like checkers and execute us when necessary. But how long are we going to be used for? Till we are self-sufficient.

Since the world is controlled by the flow of oil, smaller nations suffer the most from this energy source. Why can’t we shift part of our small nation’s energy source to something other than oil. There is solar, biofuel among others. Why can’t these be an option. And free ourselves from all the ‘crazy’ surrounding oil. Here is an analogy, let's say a barrel of oil sells for a hundred dollars, the minimum wage in the United States is 7.25 dollars an hour. If a person works for 40 hours a week, you are looking at around $1160 a month before taxes. This means most working people in the United States can afford to buy a barrel of oil for themselves if it were to be sold. For a hundred barrel of oil which is roughly 400 cedis, how many citizens can afford this in Ghana?

Currently a senior high graduates get paid around 300 cedis a month as private school teachers, how can these people and others in the same income bracket be able to afford a barrel of oil ? This is why the government has to subsidize about 50 - 80 percent of every $100 barrel of oil. These subsidies takes a toll on the government financially. Consider yourself and Bill Gates making an individual payment $1000 monthly and see who it affects the most in a long run. In this comparison, you are Ghana and Bill Gates is America. One may say, the United States is why bigger and has more people than Ghana, which is true but the United States has a GDP way higher than that of Ghana yet their government subsidize a lesser percentage than the Ghana government does. So in the long run Ghana takes a lot of damage and this hurt the nation in so many ways than you can imagine.

I do not want ponder about the wounds we have had since time immemorial but I'm asking why have we lived with it for this long and still does nothing to treat this wound.

The world’s dependency on oil and gas is a scheme to control smaller nations and always keep us in debt. Since all our presidents are not innovators and high thinkers they have failed to realize this. Do you think if America and Europe had enough sun as we do in Africa (I'm talking about 30 to 40 degrees Celsius all year round) the worth of oil will be as high as it is now? If they did, they would have focused the world’s energy to the sun instead of crude oil. Currently American is sitting on the world's highest natural gas deposit, far higher than Qatar. While they witness the whole world produce their natural gas, they patiently wait till they see a scarcity, that will be when they will start producing theirs using hydraulic fracturing and bump up the price for the whole world to buy.

If the whole world want to be slaves to oil that doesn't mean we have to. One slavery was enough for black people. Oil and gas is the reason why most European Union nations submit to Russian aggression. The only nations that somehow stand up against Russia is Germany and France. France and Germany are able to do this because they are self sufficient. Although Germany’s oil production is not as much as Russia produces but somehow Germany uses enough green energy that if Russia decide no to supply oil and gas to their continent Germany will still flourish.

I saw a documentary years ago of a German town with stable electricity supply from manure of livestock. Not only that, solar energy, wind energy and others are common and in use in Germany today. I do not know why we cannot do something as useful as that. The sunshine is all year long, very suitable for solar energy. There are vast acres of flat lands in northern Ghana, which is very suitable for wind energy. Yet we still depend on Akosombo. A dam purposely built to supply energy to an aluminum company, yet here it is supplying Power to 25 million people and counting. Yet we still do not understand why there is power outages in Ghana.

I wonder if the leaders ever see the different solar projects around the world. In France, molten salt is used in solar tower by using the similar to how the moon gets illuminated. With the molten salt solar tower, a high tower containing salt at the brim is constructed, the salt gets heated by the sun, and the heat is transferred from the tower to processing plants to be converted to electrical energy. Although it may seem complicated on paper, it is really easy to construct and manage. If a country like France with minimal sunlight per year as compared to Ghana can supports its nation energy system with such a thing, why can't we? The technology is not cutting edge, it is be doable. There are people who can execute such projects in Ghana, myself included; but I guess I am not corrupt enough to the president’s liking.

Speaking of things that are doable, years ago I thought about creating a machine that can process dirt, mainly faeces, with this extract drinking water could be extracted, manure is given out as a by-product and energy as the end product. Similar concept of reprocessing faeces has be worked on and created by American engineer Peter Janicki with the help of Microsoft’s former boss and billionaire Bill.

As to why I couldn't execute this brilliant idea I had, this is why: I grew up in Obuasi, a town the government has never cared about unless he's there to rob us off our own gold. Even though we are under the Ashanti Kingdom, to us the Adansis, the Asantehene is as useless as the red light is in Grand Theft Auto but that is another subject I may have to address separately.

The world is evolving and Africa is way behind. If we do not start thinking for ourselves and evolve with the rest of the world we may die and wither like a species that could not withstand evolution. If our leaders will continue to be poltroons and corrupt dolts, us citizens should start standing for what we believe in and for things that will make our lives better.

GOD BLESS GHANA