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Ghana: The Despised Neighbour!

Published by toyin on Tagged Abroad, Corruption, Counsel, Governannce, Instructions, Nigeria, Vision

When a fool fails, he pins or blames his failure on others! This seems to be the latest past time of our leaders when their abjectly poor performance stares them in the face. Firstly, it was Senator Hillary Clinton who drew their ire when she spoke about what simply the truth is concerning our nation. Today, batching Ghana, our West African brother and neighbour is the IN thing now among our elites who think they know it all. They have taken impudence to another level. While they are slow to acknowledge the progress of other nations, they are quick to deny any problem at home thinking in the process that they are been patriotic. Please enlighten me on when patriotism means telling lies and denying glaring truth and facts!

Recently, our Minister of Defense, General Godwin Abbe  was quoted as saying, ‘the volume of water generated in Ghana is not enough to flush toilets in Lagos State, the number of teachers you have to pay salaries in the whole of Ghana is not more than Western Nigeria so that is that. And the whole of Ghanaian Armed Forces, if you choose to know, is not more than just two brigades of the Nigerian Armed Forces, period.’ Now what bearing does this have with our precarious socio-economic situation? What is (are) really our achievement(s) with our size in terms of everything the Minister quoted here?

When the Minister of Education felt under pressure with the questions from journalists concerning the protracted ASUU strike, he, perhaps wanting to massage his paymasters’ ego declared that the total number of lecturers in Ghana is not enough for a single Nigerian university. This is of course absurd and absolutely untrue. I am aware that the University of Ghana, Legon has student population of close to 40 thousand and is probably bigger than most Nigerian universities. But this is not my concern. Why should we continue to engage in unproductive comments about another country when ours is on the brink of collapse? Our leaders must know that the people are tired of all these nonsense.

The fact or otherwise of it that the economy of Ghana is probably as big as that of Lagos and Rivers states does not remove the stereotype of Nigerians as fraudulent people all over the world. Neither does this put electricity within the reach of the populace. This also does not deduct from the fact that while our national team is struggling to qualify for the world cup in South Africa, the Ghanaians are already home and dry with two games to spare. Our Flying Eagles crashed out to Germany in the second round of the ongoing Under 20 tournament in Egypt on Wednesday this week even as the Black Starlets have picked a ticket to the semi finals of same competition.

Most importantly, all these do not change the fact that while Ghana is forging ahead, we, at best have remained stagnant for the better part of the  10 years of our new democracy; particularly the last two. I would feel more proud if my country can produce electricity for 20 hours in a day and definitely be ecstatic when the security situation improves and compares favourably with our belittled neighbour.

Whether our leaders acknowledge it or not, Ghana has left Nigeria behind and it’s not only in terms of democracy and electricity. There is a sense of security in Ghana that may take decades in Nigeria to become a reality. Any wonder that most attention is now focused on that country rather than our beloved country? The first black president of the US decided to visit the former gold coast rather than come to the most populous black nation in the world!

Only a fool goes to sleep when his roof is on fire. No serious and ethical investor would ignore our lack of sincerity in doing basic things and move in to Nigeria when there are better alternatives elsewhere.

Our often touted population may soon become insignificant if we continue on our suicidal journey of economic sabotage and treasury looting thereby enhancing our already endemic unemployment and poverty. While we continue to day dream and lay claim to the superficial title of being the ‘Giant of Africa’, so called ‘smaller’ nations are leaving us trailing (and far behind too) in all indices of governance. Mauritius scored 72% in the Mo Ibrahim African Governance ratings while we managed a miserly 48%.

What is the population of Norway? Just 5 million people and yet they command enormous economic power and pride of place among the comity of nations. A country that does not manage its population to its advantage and advancement is a foolish country. We should learn from India and China on how to turn our mass into cash and push our country to industrialization rather than indulge in ill informed and poorly conceived statements on other countries.

And to show how short sighted some of these people, one Nana Yaw Aboagye of Ghanaian High Commission in Abuja wrote to remind our day light patriots that the entire first generation of Nigerian military officers, including Generals Olusegun Obasanjo, Hassan Katsina and Adebayo were all trained in Ghana. He went further to say that Ghanaian army generals have commanded UN troops in Lebanon, Liberia, Rwanda, Darfur, etc over the years. This coming from him when we had no answer to the fact that a Rwanda officer is taking over from us in Darfur aptly captures our reality!

While our leaders are getting away with their disdain and lack of respect for the rest of us due to our poor electoral process, they should keep this at home. Exporting this feudal tendency across our borders WILL not augur well for the already battered image of our dear country!

If we cannot match the achievement of others, we should not be involved in slighting them. As it is, we have enough baggage already as Nigerians; we do not need further aggravation of our already sore wounds!

October 11th, 2009