Is Ghana Unconsciously Becoming a Protectorate of USA or China?

A telephone conversation held a few minutes ago with my senior brother in Canada, Mr Kyei Boateng, has dawned on me the eventual possibility of Ghana becoming a protectorate of either the United States of America or China. Has it already become without us knowing or it is about to become?

Whether it has become or will become, depends on the attitudes of Ghanaians as are in exhibition on daily basis. Ghana as a presumed independent State, but actually inextricably dependent on the Whiteman’s countries for the socio-economic survival of her citizens, cannot categorically be said to be free of the Whiteman’s indirect dominion.

Ghana as a said sovereign State has her own national currency called Cedi. However, for unexplained reasons probably bordering on absurdity, some Ghanaians, especially the well-to-do and the businessmen and women, want to trade their goods in US dollars. Simply put, they price their commodities in foreign currencies; accepting US dollars and British pound sterling in payment of their wares when purchased by a buyer. If this is not our conscious or unconscious wish to become a foreign State of America or China by extension, owing to our inherently deplorable consciousness of inferiority complexes and fondness for acquiring maximum material wealth at the crack of the finger, then I don’t know what it is.

Why do we quote prices, and accept payments of building plots in our cities in American dollars but not in our national or local Cedi currency? Where do the dollars originate from? Yes, I do agree if foreign currencies are accepted in payment of goods purchased from our duty-free shops at the airport on one’s departure from the country. The traveller may neither not have any Cedi nor not enough Cedi on them to make such payments hence the airport patronised by people of various nationalities, may be granted the right to accept payments of goods in foreign currencies.

Why on earth should our high street shops, shopping malls, restaurants and market stalls in the cities as well as our chiefs and land owners selling their wares and building plots respectively, be allowed to quote and their prices in foreign currencies, especially American dollars and British pound sterling? Something is wrong here, if we are to face the facts. Does this not permit the sellers to siphon money out of the country to deposit them into their foreign offshore accounts, depriving the nation of the needed funds to carry out infrastructural and essential developments?

Additionally, some people pay cash running into millions of American dollars in payment of building plots purchased in areas like East Legon in Accra. Where do they get that cash in foreign currencies from? Have we asked ourselves that question? Do we try to find out what work those people do and how they came by those huge sums of foreign currencies? No wonder that we shall forever be dictated to as underdogs by our White contemporaries. There is more money in the country but a few people are dubiously availing themselves of it while the majority of the citizens live in abject poverty.

In the Whiteman’s land, you can buy a building property with cash payment downright. However, this is seldom the case and should the amount run into millions as it is being done in a poor country as Ghana, a way of secret investigation will be sought or conducted to prove that the source of the money is genuine but not dirty cash. If it is coming from the super rich nationals of the Gulf States, then fine.

Our institutions are not working. Our judicial system that could right all the wrongs to put Ghana on a better footing to success were our lawyers and judges to act professionally, is rather the mother of all corruption hence nothing is working for the ordinary Ghanaian but the few elites.

What is the minimum monthly wage in Ghana if I may ask? It will probably be within the region of GHC700.00 should I base it on how much the newly graduate recruits into the Nation Builders Corps (NaBCo) are to be paid. This is about US$150.00 or £120.00. However, some people are able to pay millions of American dollars for a building plot in certain areas in Accra. Some politicians and Civil Service Heads are stealing millions of Ghana Cedis without the law or our governments doing fuck all to have them prosecuted. It is such abuses of power that led to bloody civil revolutions in in the histories of some parts of the world. The culminations of such revolutions were the births of some prosperously great nations in the world today. Laws consequently made were, and are, still respected and abided by.

Nothing is impossible. Should Ghana continue down the route of our politicians coming to power only o embezzle funds and assets as well as abusing their power, the nation will one day wake up to be faced with the shock of her life – civil revolution. Power cannot continue to exchange hands between two equally corrupt political parties thinking the citizens will continually sit on the fence doing nothing because Ghanaians are known to be cowards who like to enjoy their life and fufu hence won’t venture into any territory that will cost them such desires. One day, the coward will muster courage to do the unthinkable to the surprise of anyone who had always underestimated his/her resolve to fight for their freedom from black-on-black slavery.

We have Chinese in the country flouting our laws to do what they want. They are blatantly refusing to abide by the Government’s ban to everyone in the country from engaging in illegal surface mining (galamsey). This is partly because we have been running to their government borrowing billions of US dollars to carry out developments in Ghana but with greater part of the loan finding its way into the deep stinking private pockets of our politicians.

When is His Excellency the President going to allow the Special Prosecutor to swing into action in case the ramifying corruption could be crippled?

What is a protectorate? It is defined as “a country that is generally controlled and defended by a more powerful country”. Do we have an American military base in Ghana? Do we have Chinese money and their large number of nationals in Ghana developing Ghana by way of committing crimes and acts of lawlessness with impunity? Oh, poor Ghana is being sold cheaply on a silver platter to foreign overlords hence had better become their protectorate.

Can His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo indeed be the similitude of the biblical Joseph, Moses or David to save Ghana from corruption and collapse into China’s protectorate? If yes, then he has to make sure Hon Martin Amidu, a trusted man of integrity, is allowed to crack his whip on the back of the known corrupt officials without the Attorney General obstructing him.

Rockson Adofo
(Friday, 2 November 2018)