Matthew Nyindam (middle) on TV3's NewDay
It may come across as queer to many, but it is a fact that a sitting Member of Parliament saw a traffic light for the first time in 2001.
Matthew Nyindam, the First Deputy Majority Whip in the Seventh Parliament under the Fourth Republic, first saw a traffic light at the age of 26.
He had then travelled from the Northern region to visit his sister in Kumasi in the Ashanti region, he confessed on TV3’s NewDay on Monday.
The MP made the historic trip down south after completing Dambai Training College.
“I don’t feel ashamed saying this; the first time I saw traffic light was in somewhere 2001, you won’t believe that was the first time I saw traffic light.
“I saw it when I came to Kumasi to visit my sister. You won’t believe it. I had completed training college by then.”
The Member of Parliament for Kpandai constituency, Northern region, made the revelation to counter suggestion by his co-panel that leaders in Ghana are not keen to change the status quo of the deplorable stage they grew in.
“I don’t believe that because I didn’t get it right from the beginning somebody shouldn’t get it,” Matthew Nyindam told host of NewDay Johnnie Hughes.
He was discussing how quality education can be provided for children in deprived communities with educationist Anis Haffer, centred on TV3’s social development program, Mission, on a dilapidated school structure in Sabonjida in the Northern region.
Anis Haffer did not mince words on the “irresponsibility” of persons in authority whom he said are interested in “self-aggrandizement”.
According to him, the leaders lack the zeal to lead any drive to revolutionarise Ghana’s education system because they have “no respect for the young people” and due to that, “they grow up, they also pass on the disrespect”.
The educationist passionately argued, “There is no sympathy, there is no empathy, there is no passion for the children in this country and it is indictment on all of us”.
He, therefore, suggested that children from deprived communities should not be made to write the same examinations with their colleagues from well-resourced schools in developed communities.
“We don’t teach everybody the same thing at the same time,” he argued why the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is an “old fashioned institution” that encourages “chew, pour and pass”.
