Dear Ama Ghana,
I am worried as a son of the Sissalaland, a citizen of Ghana, and an African. I’m highly concerned about the way, over the years, our education seems to have not prepared us quite adequately to contribute massively to our nation-building. We always seem to depend on foreign expertise to build our infrastructure, etc.
It wrecks my heart the way our nation is replacing with lightning speed, our values, culture, food, education for everything foreign. It seems there’s no conscious effort to improve upon the foundations to the highest peak what our predecessors have left for us which is what civilisation or in contemporary times development is all about. We have suddenly acquired some foreign tastes and seem to look down with great disdain what is ours.
It’s evident in our choice of names- we prefer Abdul’s and Williamson’ to our Antogo and Batong or Kweku. Our ladies are becoming fairer than they should and grow abnormal nails and eyelashes like Kyeiwaa waiting to fly at night but we call that fashion. The young men prefer easy ways to make money while the young ladies have become experts at twerking and have discarded the love for acquiring knowledge. I say its madness.
I am scared that we care more about free things than when we used to take pride in what we have worked for. Where’s our communal spirit. Ubuntu is lost. In place of it is greed, selfishness, arrogance, pride. These traits always led Kweku Ananse to his doom. What happened to the ideals of lifting each other up.
I am equally sad that we are producing leaders who care more about their stomachs and amassing wealth for themselves and their families than the people they serve. Most, unfortunately, I’m wrecked beyond salvage that in this age of technology and information, we have graduates and so-called highly educated folks who instead of abhorring these unethical behaviours actually are champions and gladiators of the same.
We have not prioritized building strong leaders who will take after us. What we focus on is building foot soldiers who will sink their canines in you and suck to the last drop of your blood if you criticise their bosses just so that they can pass some bread crumbs to us. The hat has happened to the spirits of Gelibaka, Yaa Asantewaa, Ndewura Jakpa, Etc.
Society is actually decaying faster in the more enlightened society we have today than the unenlightened one we had yesterday. Indeed corruption has become the national anthem that rallies us all together. It seems the foundation on which this great nation was built is shifting right beneath our feet.
There’s nothing to hold on firmly to. The Blacks Stars that used to bring us together have been disappointing, making us lose interest in Nationalism. Politics has divided us more than ever. As for ethnic bigotry and religious intolerance, the least said about it the better.
Our institutions have refused to work for us, justice has been shortchanged for familiarity- the constitution, that protects us only protects the select few, has been trampled on with impunity and the people grow poorer by the day. In one breadth an act is bad because it doesn’t favour you. In the same breadth, the act is good because it favours you. What level of hypocrisy?. We have lost our conscience and our soul.
In the words of Douglas Mccarthy, “History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.”
Maybe I have lost my senses and not thinking straight but if I’m, I call on the ancestors to press the reset button so we can start all over again. For if we continue on this tangent, we may turn the next generation into cannibals.
For God and country.
Sincerely yours,
Chief Bukari Kuoru
