A Nigerian businessman, mindful that armed robbers often assaulted commuters en route to their destinations decided not to carry all the cash he needed for his transaction in one place. He split his cash and hid some on his person, keeping the remainder in a briefcase. Several miles into the journey, armed bandits who demanded cash and belongings waylaid the commuters. Come the businessman?s turn, he handed the bandits his briefcase and pointed out that it was all he had. After repeated ?are you sure this is all?? and ?tell us where the rest is hidden? fell on deaf ears, the bandits decided to search the man.
The hidden cash was unearthed in the search. The lead bandit, stolen cash in hand, approached the businessman menacingly. He thrust the cash angrily in the businessman?s face and admonished thus: ?you see?? ?This is what?s wrong with Nigeria today!!? ?We asked you nicely and repeatedly for all you had, but in the usual Nigerian style, you found it easier to tell us lies.? ?Now, do you see why Nigeria isn?t progressing??
A Nigerian friend told me this joke. At the time, he swore this did actually happen in Nigeria!
It should be readily apparent to the reader that the bandits were blissfully oblivious to the exponential impact of their loathsome activities on the demise of ?progress? in Nigeria. I hereby ask, is the everyday Ghanaian blissfully oblivious to the phenomenal impact of their everyday activities on the enduring and appalling state of affairs in Ghana?
?Na customer service we go chop???
Many Ghanaians are notorious for being dismissive in such manner. In a recent visit to an African store in the area, I inadvertently became embroiled in a political argument with a patron of the store. He claimed John Kerry at the helm of the Democrats meant Bush didn?t stand a chance at reelection. I countered by pointing out why Bush at least stood a chance. He disagreed, citing the massive loss of jobs, the downtrodden economy, deaths in Iraq, etc, etc. I stated Bush intended to use ?security? as a central campaign platform at which point, he interrupted with: ?are Americans going to eat security??
Similarly, some Ghanaians would mistake the heavy import of sound customer service by asking, ?are we going to eat customer service?? Good customer service shouldn?t be the purview of government; the government can ensure contracts are readily enforceable thus, a customer would have a reasonable expectation of the subject matter being ?fit for its intended purpose? when contracting for goods or services but ultimately, it?s up to the service/goods provider to capture customer satisfaction to secure an adequate repeat customer base. Ironically, many Ghanaians own their own business(es) in Ghana so where should change come from? The government?
Recall the joke I narrated earlier? It affords me the opportunity to piggyback my comments off two excellent articles I read in the recent past on GhanaWeb. One is by Owusu Myles entitled ??Ghana Style? is Killing Ghana? and the other is ?We Are The Cause of Our Own Problems,? by Nana Osei. The latter article comes in two parts. The articles were all written in the first-person narrative, which yields the necessary horsepower to impart a sense of d?j? vu as one tags along with the authors. Both articles clearly signify to the average Ghanaian that we remain ignorant of the significant impact of our individual acts in our own society.
?'Good morning, please I would like to see the Chief Executive' What's your problem? replies the secretary!?
Mr. Osei?s article opens with the above exchange. In text, the secretary?s response seems benign enough but for any Ghanaian who has spent some appreciable time in Ghana, it?s easy to envision the coarseness of the response. Can you really blame this secretary? What are the consequences of offering less than desirable services in Ghana? Are complaints taken seriously in Ghana? What continuing education do secretaries (working folks) get on a regular basis toward customer service or on matters deemed an integral part of a job skill?
Osei?s article is replete with encounters where people-skills are grossly inadequate, or where the intelligence of paying patrons is insulted in the crudest of fashions. What would be the value to Ghana and Ghanaians if the issue of bad customer service were tackled aggressively nationwide? I see a huge potential that remains untapped!
On a similar theme, but with a somewhat different approach, Mr. Owusu opens his article with a highly memorable specification. He?s told it is ?Ghana style? by a homeowner who chooses to urinate against his own front wall when fully functional restrooms stand less than thirty-five meters from the front-wall-urinal. I?m assuming this homeowner is literate, but this illustration clearly depicts why we may be functionally illiterate.
Time to be candid!
My secondary school education was in Ghana. I have heard accounts of ?wild varsity? days. I can only imagine how ?wild? the varsity days were, (being an older population with more freedom) but believe me, secondary boarding school was wild enough ? I was there!!
?Wild? has a different connotation based on where you reside. Binge drinking, partying, and perhaps shacking up with a love interest is likely invoked when reminiscing on wild college days in the U.S. Where things escalate to bodily injury, defacing, or the loss of property, the ?wild? event usually morphs, ending in arrests and police/criminal records. In Ghana, going ?wild? usually ends with something remarkably different.
Secondary boarding school and going wild in Ghana implied you could abuse school and other people?s property with ?wild? abandon. The ?wild? people, (revered amongst peers, mind you), sometimes stood on verandahs from third-floor buildings and peed directly to the ground. Freshly painted walls soon bore the stains and stench of the incessant abuse. Cooking and serving utensils were often removed from dining halls and discarded in dormitories or in the bushes. An ?uprising? (typically because of questionable food quality) resulted in rampages where furniture, glass pane windows, books, school transportation, etc were destroyed.
To my knowledge, few people were ever punished for partaking in such activities. The wild people with their ?bad selves? were usually the ones impressionable and fresh lower-class-students were often tripping over themselves to emulate.
Come vacation, students usually occupied themselves in social conversations swapping wild war stories with others from competing schools with an intense sense of pride and achievement. Some even went further, oftentimes, overstating their involvement in the wild activities in an attempt to portray to others just how superiorly destructive they could actually be. The mental makeup is clearly not proper in such cases and it will not go away unaided.
Are a majority of us functionally illiterate?
Many of you may, at this juncture, have a feel for where I?m going with this article. An undeniable thread underlies my rendering of what happens in a typical secondary school in Ghana, right through the generally atrocious customer service one is subjected to in Ghana. It spans a spectrum encompassing rampant objectionable behavior but if the import still escapes the cursory reader, then let me be blunt by submitting that it is my ardent belief many of us are still functionally illiterate ? from the university graduate right up to the sole Makola proprietor who lacks customer service skills.
It is copiously illuminating to share in the experiences of Osei and Myles as they traverse the Ghanaian landscape. A few scattered adaptations follow:
***A ?waakye seller? offers prompt service to a smartly dressed gentleman (who looks like a recent addition to the Ghanaian landscape) over those who had remained in queue for a longer period of time. Multiple questions spring to mind but I ask why this same waakye seller would find fault in a big man?s son gaining admission to a school for which her son was better qualified. My guess is she?d remain mum on the subject only to feel honored in the presence of the cheating big man and his son. This same waakye seller may be ?illiterate? but to be functionally literate, what would it take?
***Accra, its suburbs, and many townships in Ghana are mired in filth. I?m willing to bet an appreciable sum of money that whoever heads the AMA, (or another city) has on some occasions found a need to urinate and has done it against a wall or some such odd place -- whether in suburbia Accra or an obscure city. Would this person?s mental-makeup be really at par with what we know must be done in our cities to rid it of unsanitary conditions? This person may be ?literate? but what would it require to be functionally literate?
***In addition to some of the unsavory things I may have engaged in as a boarding school student, I removed plates from the dining hall to the dormitory on several occasions. Many of these items never made it back to the pantry. The broader impact at the time was simply mislaid on me, or I just didn?t care. If it was that I didn?t care, why was I unconcerned and why did I get away with? Mind you, I was in school to be educated and the average Ghanaian is usually proud of the Ghanaian education...but, where did my responsibility to the Ghanaian society go off track? I may have been made ?literate,? in school but functionally, what was I lacking?
Some answers
Education: My scattered adaptations above stress one thing and one thing alone ? education. I am not referring to the mainstream education that we are generally subjected to. That form of education has its place and must be continued in its leanest and most effective form. Undoubtedly, it is the best thing for the nation but what is non-existent in that form of education, as practiced in Ghana, is what concerns me. School is where people must be captured first, and made to do the right thing by the Ghanaian society.
The approach above would obviously leave out the waakye seller who may perhaps not have spent even a day in school. This is where a concerted effort needs to be made by trade associations, governmental entities, universities etc in giving seminars, workshops etc (with frequent follow-ups) in the benefits of excellent customers service, salesmanship, good hygiene, good product or service identity, etc to the providers and consumers of goods and services. The obvious strategy here is not about enhancing the ability to calculate the telemetric path of a space shuttle but to add value to what is of primordial importance to us all ? our society. Many of our highly educated citizens often possess skills that cannot be readily utilized in the current society.
Strict enforcement: Obviously, many people may inherently do the right thing but we know the world functions with outliers. In order to buttress the gains from education, people must not go unpunished engaging in destructive or objectionable behavior. In schools, and in the general society, people must be subjected to a rigorous enforcement cycle aimed at deterrence because apprehending ALL offenders is often a daunting task. Schools, because of its controlled closed environment usually afford an opportunity unlike any to nurse massive social changes ? carpe diem!!!
Reward results: Finally, reward results. In order to sustain the inroads made using the approaches outlined, a system to reward results must be implemented. For instance, trade associations could carry out frequent and anonymous surveys within a market area to determine which waakye seller offers a combination of the best food with service. This seller could then be singled out for an award. A plaque they can display proudly to customers? New cooking utensils? The options are practically endless.
In the school setting, a headmaster who ensures that pupils are either punished for destructive behavior or totally stamps out objectionable behavior must be rewarded amply. In fact, I?d advocate a grading system where the performance of the heads of our institutions can be readily compared. We know what the performance criterion is for each of our institutions. The formulas that compute a person?s credit worthiness can easily be adapted to track the performance of leaders of the institutions on which a nation pins so much hope.
And oh, the headmaster of my secondary school was first, a businessman. Matters pertaining to the school were secondary. Was he even aware of the impact of his activities on the state of affairs in Ghana, or was it that he just didn?t care?
1) http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=49276
2 -- i) http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=49601
3 ? ii) http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=51150
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