State of the Union Address

“I am optimistic that unarmed truth and unconditional love would have the final word. This is what makes me so hopeful about our future. I believe in change because I believe in you; the American people and that is why I stand here as confident as I have ever been before that the state of our union is strong.” These were the concluding words of the final address of the 44^th elected President of the United States of America, Barack Obama to Congress and the American people at large. These powerful words were met with a thunderous round of applause from both sides of the house who gave a standing ovation to a man that has come to be seen as one of the best orators of his time. Barack Obama had done it once again but in a different style this time. At the beginning of his address, he made it clear that this being his final address to Congress as President, he was not going to look at what they would seek to achieve in the year ahead but in a visionary style outlined a vision for America at least for the next decade. He made mention of 4 issues: An Economy that Works for All; The Spirit of Innovation; US Leadership in the World and A Better Politics. He has in the past though shown visionary traits as a leader so much so that when he was even elected in November, 2008; he alluded to Anne Nixon Cooper in his victory speech and asked the American people the change they would see if their children lived so long as the woman who was born a generation past slavery? In a masterpiece in which the President set some records straight, he succeeded in outlining an impeccable vision of where he sees America in the next few years and also suggesting policies to which congress should cast a vote. As I watched the President ‘do his thing’, I said to myself that President John Dramani Mahama would in a matter of weeks also address the people of Ghana and what precisely was he going to say? Many Ghanaians have undoubtedly grown tired of his government and with the increased utility tariffs and talks of looming price hikes in some products coupled with some demonstrations across the nation already, what was he going to tell Ghanaians? I drew my mind away from the President to myself and wondered what if I was given that golden opportunity, what would I tell the good people of Ghana?

I take up this opportunity knowing that Ghana has a lot of problems to be solved. We have an economy to fix, a depreciating currency to revive, a public sector to get efficient, corruption to root out, work on infrastructure development to continue, improving our agricultural sector, keeping the promise of an end to the long power crisis among many other things. These are issues I believe would be on the mind of the President as well as the expectations of many Ghanaians. But what if I took you on a ride just a little bit away from these issues to speak about two very pertinent issues. This is not to say that the others are not very important as well.

I would tell the good people of Ghana that we have to go back to building our institutions and getting our systems working again. This same Barack Obama told us in our house of representatives that Africa does not need strong men and that it needs institutions. I am not writing oblivious of the fact that no system is perfect nevertheless we must continue the good work of fixing our broken system and have our institutions working once again. I believe that if we get our institutions to work and efficient systems alike to run, the many problems we face in our country today would be swept under the carpet.

Secondly, I would tell the good people of Ghana that the government cannot solve their every problem. We must come to the awareness that elections which most people think and know is the means to make our voices heard is not the change we seek. It is only the chance to bring about the change that we seek by electing people to office to man the daunting task of running the affairs of the nation. We do not have to leave the work of discourse on our national issues to a few pundits on the radio and television and I believe firmly that listening to radio and watching the television nowadays, Ghanaians have taken a lot of interest in issues of national importance. The recent Guantanamo Bay issue is great proof of this. I however, do not want to believe that this is due to the hard times we are going through as a nation in recent years. At some point in time also, we have to make conscious effort to solve some basic problems in our communities through rallying support to address those challenges and not leave them and call on the government to come and solve them. We must also make attempts to see the back of the culture where we allow problems in our society to degenerate deeply before we call out for help.

We must know as a nation that if we give up in these hard times, we forsake a better future. We have to build a nation that would cater for the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to be able to meet their needs as well. We have to collectively come together to set Ghana back on the path to reclaiming the promise of our founding fathers as the beacon of Africa of whose script we long lost as a nation. May God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.

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