Ghana flag
The value of every country lies in its cultural values and norms. In the African continent, Ghana holds a chunk of important cultural values resulting from our historical events that happened before we found ourselves in today’s Ghana. Ghana remains the first African country to gain independence from colonial rule.
We own the absolute title to be called the first African country to be democratic and have since exhibited high level of professionalism in going about our governance system in our endeavors. Kudos to the freedom fighters that came before us. The countless bloodshed in the course of fighting for freedom, democracy and self-reliance is historic and cannot be replicated in any form.
The adage that ‘an army of lions lead by a sheep can be defeated but a flock of sheep lead by a lion can win a battle’ must resonate as the current generation makes points out of the results of the efforts of some people in making Ghana’s history. From historical writings, it is clear that Osagyafo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah lead the big six that won freedom for Ghana.
To give credit, the leader deserves more since among people in a group, the leader takes the group to the right destination. It will be wrong for anybody to say it is academically wrong to credit Kwame Nkrumah with the declaration of independence. It is sad to know that we are elevating some former leaders of Ghana while demeaning others through any means possible.
The celebration of founder’s day was a decision taken by the Mills administration in recognition of the efforts of the late freedom fighter and it falls on his birthday. Now, the story comes that we celebrate founders’ day which means another thing different. The record of the late freedom fighter cannot be altered.
Development is not about changing names of existing structures but adding value to the already existing ones with more structures to bring about expansion. Nana Addo’s government has introduced massive change of names of public structures including the presidency, Tamale sports stadium, Wa polytechnic, University for professional studies with some as liner ups. We expect more than renaming these institutions. It would have been wonderful if the people of Wa were given another university to be named after the late Hila Liman.
It would have been welcoming to build a standard market or another stadium for the people of Tamale to be named after the late Aliu Mahama than just renaming their known sports stadium. It would have been a good socio-economic step putting up another public university in honor of Nana Opoku Amponsah than renaming UPSA. These renaming are just initiated to please a cross-section of citizens since their relatives are blindly recognized.
As we progress, we must not start to redefine our history but to protect it. It is because of this history we exist. Hence, we equally have to start to make history. Those who made it moved us from Gold Coast to Ghana our beloved country. They pursued freedom to gain independence and it is our time to gain self-reliance for Ghana. Our continuous dependence on foreign grants and aids have made our proclaimed independence to warble. Our leaders cannot come out boldly to take effective and live transforming policies to make another history.
Ghanaians are hungry for jobs, suffering from poor education, poor health care and headache of sanitation everywhere. As a government that is the central controller of all policies, it is good we introduce feasible policies to serve as long term solutions to our multimillion problems that surround Ghana. ‘Education is a key to success’ hence government policies on education must aim at bringing standard education.
The stronger the academia, the proper our social, economic and political history will be reserved without selling it out for personal benefits. ‘For lack of knowledge, my people perish’ as said in the scripture is not a common statement but one with wisdom and in-depth meaning. It is as a result of our low knowledge that we mimic other countries without considering the future impact of such mimicries.
We willingly claim to protect our natural reserve but allow some section of people to breach such laws. Since the start of mining in Ghana, it is recent times we oppose it vehemently but the result of it cannot be measured.
It is time we as Ghanaians know our lives are in our own hands and governments have to respect the views of the common citizen. Let us remain resolute that our history cannot be altered by anybody since Ghana is ours and not for governments.
