We like good things but cherish disorder

In Rwanda, there's a biannual public forum at the constituencies(local administrative units) with President Paul Kagame in attendance, where the Mayors render public accounts of their stewardship.

At these fora, ordinary members of the community are given the opportunity to, openly, question the Mayors on their performance, competence, conscientiousness, behaviour and accessibility.

And if a Mayor is not able to, satisfactorily, defend or explain the issues raised by members of the community, President Paul Kagame would step in, and right there, dismiss such Mayor(s).

Again, at the end of every year, President Paul Kagame holds a meeting with ministers of his government where each of them is made to render account of his/her stewardship, and this is live on TV.

At these meetings, any minister who is found wanting to Key Performance Index(KPI) tied to the office occupied, the minister is fired right there on live TV. In Rwanda, accountability is uncompromising.

I was in Rwanda in April 2016, and I always joked with some locals I came into contact with that, they should lend us their president for just 6months, because of discipline and orderliness I saw.

At every traffic intersection and all vantage areas in the city of Kigali, are well- armed police and military officers, respectively, with their fingers on the trigger. And the people are comfortable with it.

For sacrificing some aspect of freedoms, Rwandans are building for themselves, a beautiful, orderly, functional and secure nation. You might say they live under dictatorship but it is serving them well.

Juxtaposition of this to Ghana, the picture is in the reverse. In Ghana, our understanding of democracy is waking up in the morning, and without brushing our teeth, engage in noise-making till dusk.

We have CSOs whose sole objective is conscientizing the citizens into thinking that in a democracy, we are free to enjoy every freedom under the sun, but, with absolutely no responsibilities. Sad!!

So, whenever the government comes up with a policy decision that'll benefit us in the long term, there's always a pushback at the instigation of CSOs. We love the good things of life but cherish disorder.

We love an environment with clean water bodies, lush green avenues and natural untouched forests. But a government that tries to make this a reality by fighting galamsey, is threatened with elections.

What I find ironic is when Ghanaians travel abroad and splash on social media, pictures of beautiful streets of their new destinations, when these are the very people that throw garbage into gutters here.

When we travel abroad, we comply with rules and regulations with utmost religiosity. But we come back, and go back to our old ways. There's this saying that 'trave and see'. But we travel without seeing. Sad!