Barren minds go hungry on fertile lands

It becomes necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality.

The first step therefore is to make the African (Ghanaian) come to himself; to pump back life into its empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth.-Steve Biko

Tears began swelling in my eyes as soon as I read through the above quotation again, Steve Biko died in the most painful of deaths as a young man, fighting a system which had not just made the blacks in South Africa second class citizens, but had reduced them to hewers of wood and drawers of water, without political rights and restricted in their movements in their own country. A blackman, hungry and unkempt, uneducated, shabbily dressed in a well developed environment, was suspected to be a criminal.

The difference between the then leaders of South Africa and the leaders of Ghana of today is that the South African leaders had fertile minds aimed at suppressing the black race; the leadership of Ghana today is made up of barren minds who do not know how to plant seeds on fertile lands to feed its people.

In the process, a huge population of this country has migrated from very rich fertile lands into cities and towns, battling with unfriendly weather with no roofs over their heads. They risk their lives just to eke out existence when they could have lived comfortably with their families back home and worked on the fertile land nature has been gracious enough to offer them.

For those who have not lived or worked on farmlands in their lives, I dare say that it is very difficult cultivating forest farmlands than cultivating savanna lands for food production in this country.

The major difference however is that in the forest farmlands, rainfall is assured most part of the year and therefore farmers are able to work throughout the year, conversely, in the savanna belt, rainfall is not very reliable, am told it is just one period throughout the year.

Ghana is not the only country with such climatic differences, Burkina Faso which is our neighbor on the northern part of this country, has its southern part as our northern part.

How come they produce more tomatoes and onions and other vegetables in their southern parts which is our northern part for us to travel from Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi and other parts to go and buy for our consumption? What is the magic?

Small holder irrigation canals or if you like, dams that serve their lands so they can produce most part of the year. As a young man, just after Secondary School, I joined the Agege train to Nigeria and landed in Abuja whose construction had then begun.

The indigenous people on the Federal Capital Territory were predominantly, about 98 percent, peasant farmers. What I noticed then was that the farmers had dug small ‘dams’ which watered their farms and as a result, fresh vegetables were available most period of the year.

Abuja is in the middle of this big country and savannah in climate. General Acheampong did the major irrigation dams in the three northern regions as well as the Dawhenya Irrigation Project in Greater Accra, and food was no problem for this nation neither was the kayayei phenomenon a blot on our conscience, if we have any conscience at all as leaders of this nation.

The same fertile lands exist today, the hardworking people in those areas are still around, what is missing is that the irrigation and sources of water for agricultural purposes have died over time, thus making it very difficult to till the land in the most beneficial manner to themselves and the nation as a whole.

For 27 years, the P/NDC administrations did nothing to improve farming and agriculture generally in this country. At a point in time, this nation had 13 Ministers in charge of agriculture, yet we imported plantains and other vegetables from neighbouring countries.

Barren minds do not think anything new, sterile minds do not produce anything new, blockheads have nothing beneficial to the living today and the future and these are the people ruling this country today. ‘When one re-collects the ample resources of this African territory, for example, one wonders why she is a beggar country and the governing elite pride itself in its ability to beg. ‘This is the paradox’, (African Culture in Governance and Development, The Ghana Paradigm, Nana Kobina Nketsia V).

The paradox of our situation in Ghana today is that our immense resources are so criminally managed for the benefits of the ruling brigands and their parasitic beneficiaries and spokespersons who do not have the slightest intention of doing what is right for the people of Ghana today and those to be born tomorrow.

They are bereft of any sense of properly managing our resources, and all they resort to, each time they need money, is to go out there and borrow and pride themselves in that. Any sensible idea from Nana Akufo Addo that has the potential of improving the lives of majority of the people is scorned at by these barren minds and their paid spokespersons like Kwesi Pratt. This is a man who established the ‘The Weekly Insight’ in 1993, and yet cannot be seen on the news-stand neither can its contents be discussed on even the electronic media he appears on every day.

Since Kwesi Pratt has no idea of even improving his own paper, though he calls himself Managing Editor of a newspaper not worth wrapping groundnuts with, he thinks all other people are as daft as he is in thinking, planning and implementing those plans effectively for the benefit of humanity.

To Kwesi Pratt and his incompetent pay masters, very good at stealing public funds for their benefit and their hirelings, free SHS is impossible, 1 district 1 factory, is impossible, 1 dam 1 village is also impossible. They are impossible because they will benefit the poor and the vulnerable.

What is possible in the barren minds of Kwesi Pratt and the stealing brigands in government, is spending public funds on inflated contracts internally and externally, buying V8 vehicles for people who do nothing for the nation, including Kwesi Pratt himself,(he drives a 2015 January registered GXR V8, GT556-15) paying so-called judgement debts to people the nation does not owe, and going behind the scenes to take their cuts while the nation bleeds and the children cry for lack of education.

Fertile minds in Israel have turned barren rocky lands into haven of fruits, vegetable and other cereal production, while barren minds in Ghana have allowed fertile arable lands to go waste while the people dissipate and waste their productive energies and time carrying goods and produce from other countries like Israel and South Africa into the shops and homes of the affluent in the society.

Fertile minds have produced abundant food on the desert for the consumption of its citizenry, barren minds import food at higher cost for its hungry people sitting idly on fertile lands.

Agriculture on fertile land in relation to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has dropped from 7.4% in 2008 under Kufuor to 2% under Mahama. And if Nana Addo says he will literally litter the fertile lands with small holder dams to support the hard work of our farmers and ensure a reasonable farming activities throughout the year, the barren minds are at their best, scornfully laughing.

A nation would be blessed if nature has endowed it with various resources, but it will be more blessed if it has men and women who think, people who have fertile minds to transform those resources into useful outcomes for generations of today and those yet to be born.

Past leaders played their part, their shortfalls notwithstanding. Mahama and his praise singers are simply daft and think nothing good can come from Jerusalem. Nana Addo and his men and women will salvage this country.

Daavi, just give me three tots.

Writer's e-mail: Kb2014gh@gmail.com