Love Ghana As Best As You Can

LLoving Ghana is the best we must do for a country we call our own. Such love cannot be exhibited through mere rhetoric but by deeds.

Memorising the national anthem and acting in a manner which is injurious to the image of the country cannot be a show of love to Ghana no matter the level of the decibel of the recitation.

The past few weeks were laden with roller coasters presenting for the non-patriotic. It was an opportunity to muddy the waters with lies and acts which cannot pass for 'love for country' and by extension 'for God.' Our God, the omnipotent, is pure and without blemish. It stands to reason therefore that to be godly is to eschew evil tendencies such as lies and the like for political points regardless of the effects of these on the health of the country. As it were, we virtually had our hearts in our mouths when the attention of the word transfixed on us as the kidnap story played out. As a people, were we going to come out of it unscathed or not? Eventually, we did survive the credit going to our security agents who through a multi-sectorial effort brought a closure to the black chapter in our recent history.

We took notice of the call by some countries to their nationals to be wary of Ghana because terrorist activities could take place here as they put it. For those who have followed the activities of terrorists in recent times, the call for us was uncalled for because, after all, Ghana has an unblemished security record in the West African sub-region. Its neighbours – Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and even beyond – are still managing subdued security flares. Not so with Ghana whose only fear now is the fire next-door. The Sahelian security challenge is not limited to Ghana but a regional one with international repercussions otherwise the UN would not be present in Mali.

For us, therefore, the security alert from Britain was too loud and exaggeratory.

Ghana, of course, has never had a terrorist attack as has Britain and other Western countries and should not be categorized in the bracket of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

We can confidently state as our President said recently that our country is the safest in West Africa. That, of course, accounts for the influx of citizens from ECOWAS member countries into the country.

While we bask in the real label of the 'safest country in the West African sub-region', let us nonetheless be on our guard, and to blow the whistle when we find any suspicious movements from especially non-citizens in our midst.

Even while being on our guard, let us not ignore our traditional hospitability for which we are world-acclaimed. As the President said we must not depart from our normal way of life among many other reasons that would be playing into the hands of the bad guys.