What Are We DemoCRAZY About?

Letter to Osagyefo

Dear Osagyefo,
You know something? You will always be the best thing to happen to Ogyakrom, no matter what your detractors say. The notion of Ghana being a one-party state would cause fiery remarks and constructive abuses from the hands and mouths of most Ghanaians. This is what you probably haven?t thought about; Ghanaians are really ?Democrazy?. No, not being crazy about demonstrations (a subject I will visit later), but stretching the limits of democracy to the fullest. I am here to surprise, to change and to innovate. Here?s my hypothesis, Ghanaians may be better without being ?Democrazy?.

Democrazy is beautiful. It is educative noise that you cannot hide from. Everyone can make some noise; it could be from an intellectual, tribal, economical or empty-barrel point of view. It almost seems like we are in political age, and that we have marginalized information technology and education into the background. When two elephants wrestle, it is the grass under them that suffers. Kwame, do you get my drift? Ghanaians are suffering from this political climate where we keep on making ourselves look bad just to get votes!

There is this notion of PHD (pull him down) in Africa where people don't want others to prosper, which is true. Asumasi is on the rise and Agyei does not want to see that happen. We need to be our brother's keeper and lead them to their full potential. I am tired of seeing people in opposition criticizing and debunking every single move by the incumbent government simply to score political points. People are complaining of the educative noise ruling our airwaves these days. These call-in programmes are useful, we live in a democratic world. While some are expending their energies imploring Ghanaians to work hard, others make verbal assaults left, right and center on each radio station. This does not augur well for the hospitality and peace we work to hold on to in our nation. Think twice, my people, be wise.

Linda was asking me the other day why we keep on discussing NPP and NDC, Kotoko and Hearts. Frankly, I am not in the position to answer that. Maybe, after taking some psychology classes in Legon, I will able to decipher this. I can deliver this much piece of information, Ghanaians have passions for various things. Some have a passion for a football club, some for a political party, some for an old school, etc. Here comes the question money can?t buy (yeah, not even a trillion pounds); ?Who has a passion for Ghana??

I do. I don?t wear a wedding ring to show it, but I love my passion. It?s about time we started talking about Ghana. Tackle the loopholes in our education system, and not what the NDC did wrong. Tackle the bureaucracies in our civil service, and not whether so so and so minister caused financial loss to the state. We need to talk about getting better as individuals, people and a nation. If we strive for own individual best at the expense of our communities, we stand to lose. Osagyefo don?t ask me why, you know better. We can choose to be spectators or difference makers. But what will we want to spectate? Educative noise about who supports which political party? I believe the film we all want to see is the one where we reach the Golden Age of Business.

The more we talk, the more we will know, and the more we will change. The malady of the ignorant is the ignorance of the ignorant. We need to send these dialogues of Ghana consciousness to the masses, to our workplaces, to our chop bars and to our social occasions. We need a mentality change, a belief in ourselves and a willingness to change for the better.

This is not a difficult thing to do, Osagyefo. If we can hold national debate competitions and have hours of talk show programming, we can definitely start to debate and talk about Ghana in its best interest. It?s like having one political party where we don?t need to score political points. It?s the rule of decentralization. It?s a revolution without force, a passion without idleness and a state where we are on focused on moving up on the same page.

Independent presidential candidates don?t have a dog chance to win a Ghana election anytime soon. However, I am proposing that we have an independent guy win the presidency so that we can unite and have the best person do the ministerial and governmental jobs irrespective of political affiliation or tribal background. Do we really want a rich man who would come to power because his political party did the most advertising? No. Do we really want a man who is popular with us but not with the notion of Ghana getting better? Daabi. Do we really want a man who does not inspire anyone to sit at the castle? Aanha? eenhe! We need a leader who knows the way, shows the way and goes the way.

Osagyefo, I can see us asking questions. Where is he? Who is he? What is he? At least we have started thinking the right things about our model president, but can we find him? Osagyefo, do we really have to wait for you to come down from Lincoln University and anoint you our saviour? ?Chale, make I think?. We do not need to keep on waiting. A genius doesn?t find an invention and wait for the investment to come. He creates the investment or he finds it. We can search the whole of Ghana to find him. It could be me, but I wouldn?t want it to be me. I want it to be you, the reader!

Yes, you? Uh huh, you are pointing to yourself. You could be the Osagyefo. You could lead by example, show the way and go the way. We need to inspire ourselves out of our mediocrity. We need to set bigger standards and do away with the sub-standards we have become used to. We need to move from our kiosks into supermarkets, from our chopbars into more Asanka Locals and from our gutter to gutters to Wembleys! Everybody is selling just to survive. Fighting for independence was a risk. Seeking self-rule now (then) was a risk, Osagyefo, tell them for me ooo!!! If we don?t change, how will know change is good?

Change is good my friends. We are growing, if you can?t see it, listen to hiplife, visit MKOGH one of these days or go to KNUST computer science department. We are geniuses and we are sitting on gold. I wish I wouldn?t be the one to tell us all to explore our opportunities and go the extra step. We need to shun the backbiting, the verbal onslaughts, the bickering, and focus on our passion, Ghana. If our leaders would not do it, do not wait on them!

Osagyefo, I rest my case,

I2I.