[This article was first published on www.fiifikoomson.com on the 11th of January, 2014]

I have always listened with cocked ears whenever a successful individual is telling his or her story. In fact I have also heard stories told of the rate of growth and rise of some big churches in our country.

In 2010, then a fresh graduate interning with one of the big radio stations in Ghana, I visited a big church in Accra. It was a great, mega church with an auditorium about the size of Russia’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour where the punk group Pussy Riot protested against the Kremlin. Worshipping in this building was fun, especially with its young, youthful worshippers. The guys wore the best suits and ties with shoes to match. Those whose outfits could not be classified as “best” sported, at least, a semblance of it.  

The young ladies were nice. Their heels were high. This meant that even the shortest was well-propped up to measure up to my height, six feet. I’m sure, like many modern women, they had also tapped into the belief that high-heeled shoes add a lot to beauty, enhancing the contours of a woman.

I enjoyed Sunday services at this church for almost a year until I was whisked away by a friend, Claudia, to another church at Lapaz, Gospel Ambassadors. It was a small church sheltered under an aluminium-roofed hut supported on thick pieces of wood. After church service one day, I asked Claudia why she brought me to this church when I belonged to a bigger one. Her answer was that: “Here you have a better opportunity to work for God.” I agreed.

Two years on, the pastor of my new church, Rev Kennedy Bentum, adopted a new book written by the head of my old church for Bible Studies on Sundays. The book titled, “Loyalty and Disloyalty” helped cure many of the church’s headaches.

Rev. Bentum also adopted a new mechanism to monitor his members. And barely three years after joining my new church there has been a revolution that’s unprecedented in the history of the church. Attendance rose from 100 to 270 over six months. The church is now on the threshold of great expansion as the leadership maps out plans for mega growth.

The success stories of the likes of Lighthouse Chapel International and the International Central Gospel Church have excited many people. They all started from a point.

This is why I was happy about President John Mahama’s recent expression of optimism about Ghana's future. This was at the inauguration of a classroom block for O’reilly Senior High School where he said Ghanaians must be patient because the country could someday become developed. It was at this same event that former National Security Adviser Brig. Gen. Joseph Nunoo-Mensah said workers who could not sacrifice for the country should leave.

Well, let me settle with President Mahama’s optimism. You see, it’s good to have high hopes about the future. And for President Mahama and his appointees, most of this hope is captured in statements such as:
“…. to enhance the prosperity of all Ghanaians.”
“… to achieve greater growth and development.”

“… to create the enabling atmosphere for growth and development.”

In fact, most of these are just vague statements that are deficient in specifics. Being president is as tough as it is exciting. Living in a heavily-guarded edifice, being chauffeur-driven with a police motorcade in front of you and behind you and travelling to Dubai for holidays with your family, may just be a cocktail of stress and fun. But that’s what being president comes with. I was happy when the President told the authorities in Dubai that Accra would learn from the success of Dubai.

I may not have a ten-point plan of action complete with tables and charts about the way forward. However, as a Ghanaian who has seen governments come and go, there are many things I believe President Mahama should be able to do or start to do over the next three years if any of those statements up there would be translated into reality.
 
Ghana currently has a doctor-patient ratio of 1:90,000 in some parts of the country including the Northern Region. This means that to every 90,000 patients, there’s only a doctor. What happens if one percent of them are ill at the same time and require a doctor’s attention? It’s not surprising then that the country continues to record high mortality in its ramshackle health posts, clinics and hospitals. It’s a known fact that Ghana’s universities could train more doctors if the medical schools were properly resourced. Every year, hundreds of students who qualify to study medicine are turned away because the facilities to train them are limited. Does resourcing our medical schools to enable them admit and train more doctors require rocket science? Malaysia, the country we claim to have been at par with some 60 years ago, had a big plan to increase its doctors over ten years. It worked. Ghana can learn from them. The late Prof John Evans Atta Mills showed some mettle in that direction when he sponsored 250 students to be trained as doctors in Cuba.

But training of doctors hinges on the education ministry. I was glad when the President appointed a university professor to head the country’s education ministry. Professor Naana Opoku Agyeman looks all fantastic. I know she’s aware that the Europes and Americas, which the President said were not built in a day, were crafted on scholarship. These continents did not invest in propaganda and empty promises. They invested in science and technology education. Today, we run to them to build roads to link our villages as well as construct markets for our mothers and grandmothers at Kotokoraba.

University graduates today have very little to offer. They are not qualified for the job market. No wonder they have decided to form the Unemployed Graduates Association of Ghana. Our universities teach us to write exams, pass and secure our GPAs. We’re not trained for the job market, not for industry. Indeed, the President, and by extension Prof Opoku Agyeman, have a brilliant opportunity to introduce real reforms that will change this state of affairs. Our graduates must be creative, developing solutions for a new Ghana.

During the 2012 presidential campaigns, the biggest promise by the John Mahama-led National Democratic Congress, was to build 200 senior high schools across Ghana. We’re told that the search for parcels of land for these projects is under way. What’s the big deal if JM only builds these schools? What would have changed in Ghana, a country he had the opportunity to rule for four years? Would the president leave with our universities still churning out the same quality of graduates, our mothers dying because there are no doctors, our medical schools still training the same number of doctors for lack of resource? Mr Mahama should go beyond the construction of 200 senior high schools to surprise Ghanaians!

Well, if a small church at Abeka Lapaz has been able to do it in its corner, our leaders can do it too. If President Mahama wants a bigger example, China and Malaysia are two countries to look up to.