Our Pride And Dignity

Ghanaians are proud, they can talk and are “big mouthed”. These are terms some of our African brothers and sisters use for us. Many non Ghanaians find it comfortable being in our company, and this can be proven by the number of them who attend our social gatherings, wherever we find ourselves on the globe.

When we travel, we take our culture and our religion with us. We establish our Churches and worship our Creator the way we do back at home. When we’re together, we make a lot of noise and shout at the top of our voices, but harm no one. Enter the house of a Ghanaian family anytime during weekends and the first thing you see are all the lights in the house switched on, the television set switched on, and the Hi-Fi system “blasting” Ghanaian music (gospel or the latest highlife). The lady of the house will be wearing her pyjamas with a net cap on her head, making her telephone calls or putting things in order. The man with his khaki shorts, bare-chested and barefoot, sometimes with the remote control in his hand, will be the one watching T.V. or listening to music. Two or three kids will be doing their own thing, either video-gaming or playing with their toys.

Yes, that’s the typical, average Ghanaian family life in Europe and we’re proud of that. We are all Ghanaians, we recognize that. But within our own country(Ghana), we’re proud to be Akans, proud to be Gas, proud to be Ewes, proud to be Dagbanes, proud to be Guans, etc. The list could go on but I will limit myself and move on to the argument. Nothing stops us from being proud of this or that, but what about our dignity as a people?

Where’s our pride and dignity when, young girls will take to the streets in the night to prostitute. In countries where one can find menial jobs like dish washing in restaurants, babysitting house and office cleaning etc. the youths in these countries do such jobs earning something to help finance their education. In Ghana some of our young girls are forced to prostitute because there’re no jobs, they’re hungry and will do just anything to survive. On the forum a lady by name AWURA AMA gave a website to visit, I clicked to see a disgusting thing happening in Ghana.(TO:AWURAMA, Please do let us know the site. I did not find the courage to insert it in the article) Our beloved country is turned into a brothel. Some of these girls will be infected with HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and other STDS and will in their turn, transmit to others. The ff. statement is among what I saw and read at the site” Ghana is a beautiful country located in West Africa next to Ivory Coast. Although the country is quite beautiful, the best thing it has to offer is its sexy Ghanaian women. If you have never been to Ghana, you’re really missing out”. The man who wrote the article on the site went to Ghana as a tourist and claimed he had sex with several women including two sisters. I read somewhere once on ghanaweb, and I know it’s true, about several houses in Ghana without toilet facilities, which force the people living there to use unconventional means of defecating. Where’s our pride if women, children and men line up at the seashore to defecate? In some countries, seashores are dotted with high-rise buildings for tourists. These hotels provide jobs for thousands of people. But though we are blessed with sunshine and beautiful seashores, we of Ghana use these shores as places of convenience, even as we dump refuse into our lakes and rivers and expect hand-outs from the white man. Most of our people continue to live in mud houses, zinc and asbestos shanty towns while we go about being proud of this and proud of that.

For over a century, Ghana has mined gold, diamonds, manganese, and bauxite. It has exported timber, shear butter and cocoa. Yet our mothers, wives and sisters walk miles to fetch mud water carrying babies on their backs. The revenues from the products we export have only gone to enrich a few greedy individuals. These people shout socialism from the roof tops but secretly embrace capitalism with all its comforts. They send their children to the best schools in Europe, in the U.S. and in Canada and push our children to study under trees. They obtain overseas treatment when they are sick and send our wives, children and loved ones to sleep on benches and on floors at Korle Bu. We go to sleep sharing our beds with reptiles, with mosquitoes whining all night long whilst they go to sleep in air-conditioned rooms with three or four people guarding them. Countrymen, it does not matter where you come from in Ghana, if we do not close our ranks and demand a better deal from our policy makers, they’ll continue to ride on our backs. When the man from the north drinks mud water, it’s the same water the man in the east, west or south will drink. After fifty plus years of independence the country cannot even boast of ten major highways that link all the regions. Where then is our dignity and pride? God bless our homeland Ghana. By: Obourba Asante Taado.