Goodwill, the hidden development capital

Other motherlands want to associate with a motherland doing well. That is goodwill, the unrecognised capital, in tons and tons of money, which fuels national development.

So much consternation and disappointment among compatriots of the motherland translates into hostility and enables not successful intervention. Among associates of goodwill are altruism, freewill, voluntarism and sacrifice.

With goodwill, admirers invite you, to offer gifts of support and encouragement. When you are corrupt they shun your company or you’re invited for caution, admonishing and scolding. Goodwill manifests as selflessness. It’s willing support for effort towards development success.

It’s found in the way the other nation motherlands (‘development partners’) engage with beneficiary governments. In practical terms, goodwill characterises the national development effort in the relationship between Ghanaian and Nigerian governments when there is a change in one.

The motherland has often been the beneficiary.

When Limann arrived in September 1979 with the national coffers completely emptied by a wealth plundering exercise dubbed house-cleaning and account 48 theft, Shehu Shagari was quick to support by offering vehicles (Peugeot and other brands) with a lot going to the police service.

That goodwill went cold when the murderous destroyers staged a coup on December 31, 1981.

Olusegun Obasanjo’s assistance to the motherland during the Kufuor administration was phenomenal. Crude oil credit and other material assistance flowed in. No wonder the regime named the Achimota to 37 Military Hospital Road ‘Olusegun Obasanjo Way’ after him. Too bad he was unable to support the unmasking of an STL engineered theft of the 2012 election.

Under evil Abacha, substantial help was said to have been offered. Much ought to have gone into the crude oil area.

There is little doubt, though, like the way he operated, a lot of what came from him went into private congress pockets. You can trust congress privately pocketing what comes in the name of the motherland.

So if today, the impression has been created that there is less goodwill towards the motherland in assuaging the congress made energy debacle, it is not so much that Buhari is unsympathetic as the former general’s aversion for the greed and avarice, the thievery that has characterised the sector.

He must be appalled with the raiding of the oil and gas proceeds by congress apparachiks the way his motherland has suffered over the years.

Locally, we were all witnesses to the groundswell of post-election 2000 euphoria, which swept through Abossey Okai (spare parts) and spread throughout the motherland. Backtrack to both 2009 and 2012.

On both occasions, it was shock, hostility and consternation written all over people’s faces.

[Goodwill may catalyse in kick-start the development agenda, enable it gather momentum or speed, and [facilitate its completion] finalise implementation/execution. Lubricant enabler catalyst impeder disenabler -in hostility you will feel cursed]

Corruption is the enemy of goodwill in nation-building. Throughout history, goodwill of a rich nation towards a less rich nation has helped to lift the less rich to a more prosperous level of economic achievement. The greatest example may have been the Marshall Plan aid America extended to Germany to catalyse the latter’s post-war economic recovery. Debt, forgiveness, AGOA, MIDA and indirectly, HIPC are more contemporary examples of goodwill towards our motherland. [Presently, there is no goodwill towards our motherland adjudged the second most corrupt in Africa.]

Anyone who is familiar with President Kufuor’s story of how a Japanese senator helped reconstruct the Accra-Cape Coast road would appreciate my point with goodwill in national development. Kwame Nkrumah got Kaiser to invest in Akosombo, although for the latter’s economic interest, goodwill towards a newly independent nation was a factor. And grants have been for years a useful support to the initiation and implementation of projects and programmes that spur economic growth and improvement in the livelihoods of my compatriots of the motherland.

Now, the motherland must be thirsting and hungering for goodwill within the international community. On many lips is the incompetence of a government who took a motherland with lights into darkness. Eyes are witnessing a motherland blessed with record gold and cocoa prices, with oil and gas revenues to add, wallowing in poverty. Such careless squandering of generated revenue cannot attract goodwill and that is why it not attracting goodwill. Indeed, whenever public money disappears into private congress pockets, goodwill disappears because sources of goodwill despise thievery in incompetence.

Goodwill, thy name is Akufo-Addo; incorruptible, believer in decency, sober, wise, deep-thinking and doer. With him in charge, at least half the motherland’s problems would have been resolved. Goodwill to help solve the problems would flow from everywhere, north, south (the treasures of the Atlantic Ocean), east, west and all the spaces in between those points. See incompetent corrupt minds celebrating incompetence in a mere little glorified genset of a power barge. Good gracious!