Justice Reuben Adusei Writes: Ghana’s Unending Hardship; A Curse or a Destiny?

To begin with, I would like to open my article by quoting a verse in the Holy Bible from the Gospels according to John 12:8 and Matthew 26:11 which two of them say the same thing, “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me” (NIV). This was said by Jesus, the master himself.

Poverty is an economic and financial state in which one lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. However, in my understanding, hardship is a by-product of poverty confronted by humanity. As quoted above, in human society, poverty and hardships are bound to be with us however we strive to avert them. On the other hand, destiny is also expatiated as a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency. However, destiny is something, predetermined by God that can’t be simply altered or tampered with in any form. Ghana is a country located in West Africa on the African continent which is the second-largest continent after Asia.

It is a country well endowed with numerous natural resources which include Gold, Diamond, Bauxite, Manganese, Cocoa, Oil, Gas, and Salt among others. It has a total land area of 238,533km2. It has a total population of 30.8 million. This figure is sourced from the website of the Ghana Statistical Service, 2021 Population and Housing Census Report. However, the economy of Ghana is classified as Low-Income Developing Country (LIDC) by the World Bank. Undisputably, in recent times, the economy of Ghana is going through some turbulence, hence, hardship is abound in every sector of the economy ( general economic hardship). Now, the million-dollar question worth asking is, why is Ghana having all the needed natural resources to develop at its disposal yet remains a poverty-ridden country? Sometimes, however, one is tempted to believe that, as a country, we are cursed or something.

Zeroing on into the main subject matter for discussion, I would like to briefly give an account of how as a country, we got to where we are today as I write this article.

Poor Management of Resources

Principally, most of the natural resources gifted to us by God are not managed we’ll and properly by the people who we entrust them under their care. More often than not, the very people who are either appointed or elected to take charge in properly managing our resources end up rather wasting them. This causes a lot problems within the Ghanaian society.

Many years of Military Regimes/Military Coup d’etats

Ghana, has experienced myriad military coup d’etats. Historically, Ghana has had military coup d’etats between the periods of 1969-1985. These coup d’etats were masterminded and executed by people such as Gen. E.K Kotoko, Major A.A Afrifa, Joseph A. Ankrah, Flt Lt. Jerry John Rawlings among others. In analyzing the impacts of these military coup d’etats on the national economy, in fact, it is nothing to write home about. However, the military coups have contributed to the current hardships faced by Ghanaians today. 

Poor Political Leadership

Clearly, another, reason why Ghana is faced with untold hardships today is that, there has been the problem of poor leadership for far too long within the political landscape in the country. To say the true, over the years, political leadership in this country has not performed to the best expectation of the ordinary Ghanaian. In fact, the plights of the Ghanaian are not alleviated to the bearest minimum. This creates room for hardship among the citizenry.

Bribery and Corruption

Irrefragably, bribery and corruption has over the years been the bane of our economic and social life in this country. However, the annual report released by the Auditor General  gives  testament to the fact that, corruption is extremely pervasive in our system. In fact, one will be shocked and dismayed to the marrow  to read  the oodle amount of money lost to corruption practices in government establishments in this country. Incontrovertibly, this anti-socio-political act perpetuated by some of our uncouth and selfish politicians breeds the problem of inequality in the distribution of scarce resources in this country, hence, hardship is then experienced by greater percentage of the people in this country.

Suggested Solutions

The following are the suggested solutions to curb the problems as mentioned above:

Prudent Management of Resources

Our political leaders in this country must ensure that, the resources entrusted into their hands are managed prudently to benefit all Ghanaians in order to create comfort, prosperity, dignity, and peceful co-existence in the economy. Obviously, if the resources in this country are managed with some level of prudence, it will greatly alleviate or mitigate the mass suffering of the citizenry in this country.

Quality Political Leadership

The good people of Ghana deserve better and that, they should be served with top-notch quality political leadership in this political dispensation of ours. However, the political leaders no matter which political party they might belong to should ensure that, the good people of this country are served with quality leadership. Nonetheless, the degree of waste in the governance circus or system should be managed to the bearest minimum in this country.

Avoidance of Bribery and Corruption

Apparently, these two intertwined elements are known to be the causative factors of our national and mass sufferings in this country. However, I humbly, want to appeal to the conscience, hearts and minds of our leaders be it political, traditional, religious and what have you to possibly strive to eschew corrupt practices that may reel their ugliest heads in the course of discharge of their mandates in their respective sectors or corridors of operations as well as our national lives.

Deepened Democratization of our Political Systems

Democracy as defined by Abraham Lincoln as, ” Government of the people, by the people and for the people” is known to be the best form of choosing for ourselves, our political leaders all over the World. However, it is a fact that, when the people are freely allowed to choose their leaders and also speak up their minds and express their feelings, it releases them off their pressures, dissatisfactions and errorneous impressions. This however, creates some level of happiness and satisfaction in their everyday lives.

My Jugdement or Ruling

In consonance with the question upon which this article is written, I humbly and respectfully want to give my ruling or judgement that, Ghana’s unending hardship is never a curse nor our destiny. In fact, given the reasons above and several other factors alike, no one born of a woman dare concludes that, our hardships and sufferings as a country is as a result of us being cursed by a deity (God) nor we are destined to go through such a quagmire. I want to once again, reprise the fact that, Ghana is never accursed nor destined to go through the seemly unending sufferings and hardships of its citizenry but chiefly, it is as a result of poor political leadership, poor management of resources, corruption, many years of military coup d’etats and if you like, many years of colonization by the British.

By Justice Reuben Adusei