By: Richard Ellimah INDEED GHANA WE ARE BLESSED,WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL TO GOD. A week ago I left Ghana to participate in an action research training workshop in Colombia organized for human rights activists working in the extractive industry in the Global South. The workshop is being organised by Dejusticia with support from the Ford Foundation. After going through an agonising security search at the airport I found myself wishing I had not accepted to attend the workshop. This is the first time I have been subjected to such a humiliating search at the airport. Every piece of item in my luggage was checked. But then again I remembered my destination may have triggered this whole security paranoia. In the plane, I found myself sitting with a Liberian civil servant who told me he is a Director at the Ministry of Mines and Natural Resources. With ebola around us I can never be too careful. So I generously sanitised my hands before shaking hands with him! He simply couldnt stop talking about Ghana in such glowing terms. The expression You Ghanaians are lucky flowed effortlessly from his mouth on countless occasions. Not even when I explained that we are going through difficult times did he change his mind about Ghana. He only chose to offer explanations for our misery as a country. All fresh oil producing countries face high inflation and the economies are not in good shape. But with time you will be fine, he assured. Yes I know, the resource curse syndrome! In one breadth I felt proud as a Ghanaian. In another I felt sad for Africa. If the mediocrity around us, and which we live with on a daily basis is being celebrated as a success story by other African countries then I am afraid we have a long way to go. Mind you, in Africa Ghana is in a class of her own. I believe it is time we told the world that our classmates are the Malaysias, South Koreas, Singapores, and Brazils. The only fair assessment we can do of our performance as a country is through the mirror of these countries we started life with and actually stayed in the same classroom with and studied under the same teachers. BUT MY QUESTION IS; Why are they streets ahead and we still struggle with the basics of development?
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 09:32:52 +0000
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