It’s Time to Admit That Ghana Is On The Verge Of Collapse
Zaya Yeebo
November 27, 2015
I was sitting in the upper deck of a London bus minding my own business when a Caribbean chap, a Rasta, took a look at me and asked, “Where do you come from?” I proudly answered “Ghana.” His response was: “That country. Accra stinks.”
If only I could hide from the stares of the other passengers. So I returned to my newspaper. But that is where we have arrived. Recently, a colleague confided in me that in his youthful days, and up to university, the mention of Ghana gave him a certain tingle of proud satisfaction.
It has been so for many since our independence. However, this phenomenon is changing as the country faces enormous challenges resulting from the failed post 1966 leadership.
We were marked out as a dirty country. No one can dispute this fact, no matter how shameful it might sound.
Recently, Ghana was listed as one of the countries in the world with poor sanitary conditions. In simple terms, we were marked out as a dirty country. No one can dispute this fact, no matter how shameful it might sound.
During the last World Cup, Ghana became synonymous with corruption as the Ghana Football Association demanded the government of Ghana airlift millions of dollars to Brazil. All our attempts to emerge as winners of the continental Africa Cup of Nations tournaments have ended in failure. The last time we won this cup was in 1982 when I was minister for youth and sports.
When Ghana won independence, it became the beacon of Africa’s quest for self-determination. This was possible because of the charismatic leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, whose commitment to pan-African unity, and African independence, was unparalleled in the continent’s history. Then, on February 24, 1966, the forces of retrogression struck. This was the beginning of Ghana’s downward slide to ignominy.
There was brief respite in the middle 1970s when the General Kutu Acheapong regime tried to bring the country back on track with “Operation Feed Yourself” and “Operation Feed Your Industries,” but these were doomed as Ghana was placed under severe sanctions for daring to question the way national debts had been contracted. General Acheampong’s outburst of “Yentua” – We won’t pay – was a defiant statement that Ghana’s western partners could not ignore.
This era signalled the complete destruction of the social and political fabric of Ghanaian society.
Jerry Rawlings and his 1982 takeover was meant to restore national dignity, help the economy recover as a self-reliant one, and ensure Ghana’s pride of place as a rising star on the African continent.
Rawlings failed as soon as he killed hundreds, crushed civil society, fired workers and torture and executions became a random national policy. Ideas were spurned in favour of brutal force and torture. Then, as if he hadn’t done enough to damage the country he let outsiders impose the Structural Adjustment Programme, which crushed agriculture and industry in Ghana for good. This era signalled the complete destruction of the social and political fabric of Ghanaian society.
Yet, Rawlings’ foreign friends declared the crippled country a ‘success story.’ Other Africans repeated this nauseating epithet. Ghana’s slide as the rising Black Star of Africa was given another stab in the back, pushed along by so-called development partners, while a clueless and spineless ruling class held the whip to our backs as citizens.
The Ghana that was once the beacon of hope for Africa, the Black Star, is unrecognisable. In Parliament, the opposition has been decapitated by its own lack of an effective political tool as they battle each. Politics has become a vehicle for amassing wealth.
Public officials chop everyone’s money, while citizens adopt the ‘ebe ye yie’ approach to life.
Public officials chop everyone’s money, while citizens adopt the ‘ebe ye yie’ approach to life. The judiciary is corrupt. Trade Unions sit silent in the face of hardships faced by workers. The student movement was long ago manipulated and crushed by Jerry Rawlings and remains where he left it: decapitated.
Hence, Ghana today exemplifies the all the malaise facing the continent: rising food prices, a shambolic education system, and high unemployment, all leading to a declining country. We have silently gone back to the 1980s.
And that Rasta was right, Accra does stink. Huge piles of rubbish, clogged open gutters, open defecation, lack of running water in homes, and overall poor sanitary conditions are everywhere. Cholera is quietly raging through the country while families can’t even afford their medical bills. We all pray that it does not rain for too long: the consequences, too often, are deadly. History teaches that no country can go through such a severe decline without consequences.
Ghana’s leaders and policy makers are intentionally creating a dangerous cocktail of social and political problems.
How long can a nation tolerate the massive theft of public resources through judgement debts and similar scams? How long can we remain silent when our youth are unemployable and, selling packets of gum on our streets? When will the nation see leadership from our leaders?
It looks as if Ghana’s leaders and policy makers are intentionally creating a dangerous cocktail of social and political problems, an environment in which they can benefit from corruption and the silence of citizens, waiting for it to simmer until it explodes one fine day.
A friend from another African country told me: “You Ghanaians like burying your heads in the sand.” Perhaps he is right. The nation needs a renaissance.
November 27, 2015
I was sitting in the upper deck of a London bus minding my own business when a Caribbean chap, a Rasta, took a look at me and asked, “Where do you come from?” I proudly answered “Ghana.” His response was: “That country. Accra stinks.”
If only I could hide from the stares of the other passengers. So I returned to my newspaper. But that is where we have arrived. Recently, a colleague confided in me that in his youthful days, and up to university, the mention of Ghana gave him a certain tingle of proud satisfaction.
It has been so for many since our independence. However, this phenomenon is changing as the country faces enormous challenges resulting from the failed post 1966 leadership.
We were marked out as a dirty country. No one can dispute this fact, no matter how shameful it might sound.
Recently, Ghana was listed as one of the countries in the world with poor sanitary conditions. In simple terms, we were marked out as a dirty country. No one can dispute this fact, no matter how shameful it might sound.
During the last World Cup, Ghana became synonymous with corruption as the Ghana Football Association demanded the government of Ghana airlift millions of dollars to Brazil. All our attempts to emerge as winners of the continental Africa Cup of Nations tournaments have ended in failure. The last time we won this cup was in 1982 when I was minister for youth and sports.
When Ghana won independence, it became the beacon of Africa’s quest for self-determination. This was possible because of the charismatic leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, whose commitment to pan-African unity, and African independence, was unparalleled in the continent’s history. Then, on February 24, 1966, the forces of retrogression struck. This was the beginning of Ghana’s downward slide to ignominy.
There was brief respite in the middle 1970s when the General Kutu Acheapong regime tried to bring the country back on track with “Operation Feed Yourself” and “Operation Feed Your Industries,” but these were doomed as Ghana was placed under severe sanctions for daring to question the way national debts had been contracted. General Acheampong’s outburst of “Yentua” – We won’t pay – was a defiant statement that Ghana’s western partners could not ignore.
This era signalled the complete destruction of the social and political fabric of Ghanaian society.
Jerry Rawlings and his 1982 takeover was meant to restore national dignity, help the economy recover as a self-reliant one, and ensure Ghana’s pride of place as a rising star on the African continent.
Rawlings failed as soon as he killed hundreds, crushed civil society, fired workers and torture and executions became a random national policy. Ideas were spurned in favour of brutal force and torture. Then, as if he hadn’t done enough to damage the country he let outsiders impose the Structural Adjustment Programme, which crushed agriculture and industry in Ghana for good. This era signalled the complete destruction of the social and political fabric of Ghanaian society.
Yet, Rawlings’ foreign friends declared the crippled country a ‘success story.’ Other Africans repeated this nauseating epithet. Ghana’s slide as the rising Black Star of Africa was given another stab in the back, pushed along by so-called development partners, while a clueless and spineless ruling class held the whip to our backs as citizens.
The Ghana that was once the beacon of hope for Africa, the Black Star, is unrecognisable. In Parliament, the opposition has been decapitated by its own lack of an effective political tool as they battle each. Politics has become a vehicle for amassing wealth.
Public officials chop everyone’s money, while citizens adopt the ‘ebe ye yie’ approach to life.
Public officials chop everyone’s money, while citizens adopt the ‘ebe ye yie’ approach to life. The judiciary is corrupt. Trade Unions sit silent in the face of hardships faced by workers. The student movement was long ago manipulated and crushed by Jerry Rawlings and remains where he left it: decapitated.
Hence, Ghana today exemplifies the all the malaise facing the continent: rising food prices, a shambolic education system, and high unemployment, all leading to a declining country. We have silently gone back to the 1980s.
And that Rasta was right, Accra does stink. Huge piles of rubbish, clogged open gutters, open defecation, lack of running water in homes, and overall poor sanitary conditions are everywhere. Cholera is quietly raging through the country while families can’t even afford their medical bills. We all pray that it does not rain for too long: the consequences, too often, are deadly. History teaches that no country can go through such a severe decline without consequences.
Ghana’s leaders and policy makers are intentionally creating a dangerous cocktail of social and political problems.
How long can a nation tolerate the massive theft of public resources through judgement debts and similar scams? How long can we remain silent when our youth are unemployable and, selling packets of gum on our streets? When will the nation see leadership from our leaders?
It looks as if Ghana’s leaders and policy makers are intentionally creating a dangerous cocktail of social and political problems, an environment in which they can benefit from corruption and the silence of citizens, waiting for it to simmer until it explodes one fine day.
A friend from another African country told me: “You Ghanaians like burying your heads in the sand.” Perhaps he is right. The nation needs a renaissance.
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