A Wake-Up Call For Ghana! Things Exigently Need To Change For Our Good!

So, are we really surprised what Donald Trump described Africans? If you live in a country like Ghana where the police could stand on the road and he is so greedy collecting 1 Ghcedis! If you live in a country where a public worker in a noble institution like Ghana Education Service can forge his own letter to promote himself, and nothing is done about it.

He is rather reshuffled to another region in a bid to massage the wrong. If you live in a country, where people who are not qualified could forge their qualifications and be able to work in a whole institution like SSNIT for years without being caught.

If you live in a country where a software could be purchased at whooping 72 million USD. If you live in a country, where a proper budget cannot be prepared by a whole ministry and a website could be developed at 800,000 Ghcedis and for it to pass parliament unseen.

If you live in a country, where rains fall and people carry garbage and toilets and go throw into the gutter so the rain carries it away. Then do not be surprised at which ever adjectives someone uses on you! We want to be respected and for people to be circumspect how they describe us? Let's change our attitude and the way we do our things in this part of the world!

Sorry to the Haitians! Haiti is a country that we cannot blame much for their current state. This is a country whose geographical location hadn't helped much. On January 12, 2010, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake ravaged Haiti. More than 230,000 people were killed.

Another 300,000 were injured. More than 600,000 people left Port-au-Prince to stay with families outside the capital. The quake displaced 1.5 million people. Makeshift camps sprung up to shelter them. In total, the quake affected 20 percent of the nation's 10.4 million population. It's really unfortunate and very sad for them to have found themselves in such non-anthropogenic disaster. So sorry Haitians!

Indeed, Donald Trump doesn't hate Africans, he rather detest those who behave like Africans and the way Africans live their lives and do their things! You cannot tell me there are no blacks in his cabinet. But to the Africans, instead of seeing it as hate speech, the president's statement should rather be a wake up call to us all and the leaders therein in particular!

We need to change our attitude, become selfless and carve our own niche in going forward! I had always maintained that we Africans need to first accept and recognize that we got problems and make real strategic concerted efforts to changing our ways and solving the problems confronting this continent! We cannot continue with business as usual politics and expect to achieve differently and make breakaways from our problems!Our problems are indeed gargantuanly enormous!

We need strong institutions with selfless and less greedy people working in them to achieve for the greater good of our nations. We need selfless leaders with their own style who put the needs of the people at first. We need to move from our dependence on raw materials to educating and empowering more people on the continent to man our own affairs! With education, we become more powerful capable of managing everything in various sectors.

And the education should imbibe in people the exigency of the matter at hand and the need to eschew selfishness, stealing, corruption, to love our nations above any other thing, to working so hard and getting results for the masses. Africa has PhDs who can really manage things very complex in the society and turn things around for the greater good of her people.

Africa has vibrant youth willing to explore opportunities and make it when given the opportunity. Africa has the skills. Africa has women willing to achieve for themselves when empowered. Africa has children who will take over when the aged are gone. Africa has raw materials. Africa has good soil. Africa has forests. Indeed, Africa has everything at it disposal to make her great and strong and go beyond poverty!

What leaders need to do is to redefine our ways. We need paradigm shift! And we need to see the matter at hand now as exigent and face it head-on! I mean leaders cannot continue to sleep in big cars and live extravagant lives with the tax payers' money, when the very down people are going to bed hungry. We cannot continue to pay ministers millions of cash and give them everything free because they chose to serve the nation, when the very people they represent are miserable.

Presidents, ministers, members of parliaments cannot be so rich and continue to take home ex-gratia, when graduates are coming out of school and not getting jobs. When our hospitals are so ill-equipped. When our roads are so bad. When there are still some schools under trees. When there are kids who walk several miles and kilometers to school. When floods are still killing us.

When our cities are engulfed in filths and "borla". When there are countless living in slums. When many cities and villages do not have access to safe water. When the girl child cannot afford a common pad. When we got energy crisis. When our agriculture is still rain-fed.

When malaria continues to kill us, among all heinous sorts of tropical diseases. When we cannot feed our people. That creates inequalities, that creates injustices, that does not create equity, that does not create fairness, that breeds ground for unnecessary competitions, that creates room for bribe taking, that creates room for corruption, that creates armed robbery, that creates insurgency, that creates insecurity, that breeds wars and conflicts, that creates refugee crisis, that creates brain drain, that indeed does not create a better society! And indeed, any constitution that supports things like these is a questionable one!

Finally, going forward and taking exigency steps to correcting our problems and making our place better so we stay in. And more so, to prove to someone we are indeed, not what he thinks we are and that we are capable and better than this:

1. Let government of Ghana begins to pay all unemployed, everyone, till the one gets gainful employment. Fair distribution of national cake!
2. Let young nurses in our hospitals respect pregnant women who go to labour and not insult them.
3. Let's protect our girl child and the boys as well. Indeed, pay every child and see to it that they are well fed on good diets and given proper medical care. Children are assets and foundation of every nation.
4. Let's protect our pregnant women and give them special attention by giving them house, safe place, medical insurance and proper nutrition all at best and free.
5. Let's the police stop that thing they do on our roads, taking one Ghana cedis and all. It's not nice and it speaks bad of them!
6. Let give scholarships to all brilliant but needy students, who are not able to afford fees. They need not come beg the public before they raise money to go to school
7. Let train more PhDs in our country and support them with funding for research. PhDs can turn nations around. They are highly skilled in various numerous capacities to make nations great!
8. Let turn all our collapsed factories and industries into museums and make them revenue generation ventures to the economy, instead of us making them to lie idle!
9. Most importantly, let's change our attitudes, work and deliver for the greater good of our nation! And we do so devoid of corruption and cutting corners, and stealing what belongs to the masses!

This article was written by Albert Kobina Mensah. He is PhD fellow at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. His research areas include remediation of degraded and contaminated gold mine soils and water; water resources; and environmental impact assessment and policies. He is also a Senior ResearchFellow at ILAPI Ghana and an advocate of better society. He has a number of scientific publications in academic journals; and also writes on social issues and need for good governance and leadership in Ghana.