Dr. Nii Agyiri Blankson, former Mayor of Accra under the J. A. Kufuor administration, at the Opening of a Conference of the Diocesan Methodist Youth Fellowship at the Methodist University in 2005, bemoaned the lack of role models for the youth to spur them to ingenuity and character formation. He apologized profusely to the over four hundred youth who had gathered to forgive the older generation for their inactions that has resulted in some of the challenges the youth of this present generation face.

Due to the inactions of the older generation, we witness the annual ritual of flooding in gargantuan proportions in the nation’s capital, Accra. Referencing no scientific data, I dare say that lives that have been lost over the years have been mainly that of the youth.

Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, moved settlers of old fadama to new fadama immediately after floods in 1962. This action was to effect a proper drainage system over that space to avoid future occurrence. Years on, some Ghanaians have settled on this same old fadaman land but with a new name,” Sodom and Gomorrah”. These settlers have defied all reasons and have built rashly and choked the main drainage with litter.

Similar buildings have sprung up all over water ways in Accra causing floods every year. But aren’t there laws governing this nation? Can’t our government clear this illegal structures? I dare say that our leaders have sacrificed common sense for political expedience. We will lose votes in an election, they fear. Even in the events where certain leaders have stood up to be counted by insisting that the bullet is bitten to solve the annual flooding situation, they had been vilified, victimized and “vomited”, just for insisting on taking the hard decision now to save the future.

Some people have questioned the relevance of the Town and Country Planning in the development of our towns and cities. Their functions are decentralized in every district and municipal assemblies yet we keep having such challenges. The master plan for the re-designing of Accra is yet to be enforced since it was birthed in 1992.

Our leaders, Why? WHY? WHY?

 I watched the visuals on the television on Thursday June 4^th with an alloy of tears and anger as lifeless bodies were carried into the bucket of a truck like chickens, from the flood and fire which ended abruptly the lives of over 200 Ghanaians, the previous night – June 3^rd. I kept my cell phone very close to me, dreading a phone call that will announce this unwanted and unnecessary news, I could but only blame the leadership of this country.

 This was the very geography I grew up into a man you know: Adabraka – Odawna. My formative years were in this locality. I had my basic education through to secondary here. Childhood friends and family still live here. I roamed this street right from Rev. Ernest Bruce Church through the Loom to the Commercial Bank and to the lorry station about ten times a day to escort friends and family who had visited.

I can say that the hundreds of lives that perished in the flood and fire were the youth, the productive force of the economy of our country. Aside those who could be plying that route at that material moment and had decided to take shelter from the rains, it is mainly the young people ( trotro and taxi drivers, drivers mates, iced water and chewing gum sellers, fun lovers visiting Vienna City) who congregate for night life. The pharmacy (Bediako Phamarcy)) that was razed down next to the goil filling station, has been there ever since I was a kid. The adjoining houses are occupied predominantly by my peers. I know them.

Pardon my tone, it’s the best way I can join the state of mourning declared by the president. Mr. President, you gave the orders in 2013 for monies to be released for construction of drainage and other things for this same cause, it was flatly disobeyed. After your crisis meeting with the heads of security services after the floods at Nkrumah Circle, you have again announced 50,000,000 cedis commitment for this same cause – hmmmmm

I nearly digressed. Accept my apologies.

My point really and the object of this piece is to send all young Ghanaians, eighteen to thirty five years of age (and all those who are convinced they are young in mind) thinking and join to resolve to take our destiny into our own hands. We must take active part in the choice of leadership for this country hence forth.

Our leaders after Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah have failed us. They are the cause of our woes. We still depend largely on infrastructural investment Nkrumah made decades ago – Akosombo dam, Korle bu Hospital, Tema Motor Way, Tema Harbor, State House etcetera. We have even collapsed all the factories he built. So the successive leaders, what have you added (those who are dead, please do not answer to us but to God)?

Interestingly, the Ghanaian youth in voting to elect our leaders during national elections, have been socialized to vote on party lines and traditions. We have ignored the realities on the ground and joined the bandwagon to vote for the very leaders and party we complain about. We have had brilliant leaders present themselves in the last two presidential elections. We can mention the likes of John Mahama, Nana Akufo Addo, Henry Lartey, Akua Donkor, Papa Kwesi Nduom. From this list, your guess of a good president is as good as mine.

We live in times when our leaders wage wars on our media airwaves and insult each other in unprintable language, investigations and committee reports find them guilty to have siphoned our moneys from our national kitty but nothing gets done to them and lately, they “kill” for political power. Shame!

Those of us who were born in the 1980’s have grown to know only two political parties – National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP). We have witnessed them throw salvos at each other as to who is worse in managing a particular situation or not. Political equalization is their term of reference.

We have a huge national housing deficit yet we watch affordable housing projects rot because one political party will take the credit if it completes a project the other started.

The NDC and NPP cacophony is ear-blocking. Is Ghana a two party state? Aren’t there individual Ghanaians who are self-made and with solid moral characters who will not need to steal the people’s money to become rich? Aren’t there individual Ghanaians who are establishing businesses and employing hundreds and thousands of Ghanaians? We need such leaders and trail blazers. The time we used to vote for people because their fathers were ministers in Nkrumah’s government or were prime ministers or attended Oxford University or led many street protests must be done away with! I  trumpet the sound and call on the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Rt. Rev. Prof. Martey sometime ago, “nyasa fuo mo wo hi”, to wit where is the wise?

Henceforth, we should resolve to vote based on policies that seek to create jobs for the youth (so we can disband Graduate Unemployment Association), unearth our potentials and create the opportunity for us to be innovative and inventive.

Henceforth, we should resolve to vote for the leader who has the solution to our energy and power needs ( so our younger siblings in the basic schools will not line up in front of shops to study at night, so we the young entrepreneurs can run our business without having to close down because of “dumsor”, so celebrities will not go on vigil marches).

Henceforth, we should vote for the leader who will seek our educational interest ( so we will have a clear cut education policy tailored for the job market, so our colleagues who study abroad and are subject to international ridicule can have their scholarship grants).

Henceforth we should vote for leaders who will be proactive to engage the right skill to manage our disaster emergency response to make meteorological department accurately warn the citizenry from impending rains and to have single emergency phone numbers that will not confuse anyone.

Henceforth we should vote for the leader who will consider passionately rail transport to ease our transportation challenges from our food growing areas and also urban movement.

Henceforth, we should vote for the leader who is capable of enforcing the laws, rules and regulations without fear or favour that will make us responsible citizenry. Let us ask the Singaporeans, Chinese and Malaysians how this is done.

Rather annoyingly, the rumour in town and among circle of gatherings after the previous two elections was that Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom was the finest and best candidate yet he was not voted for because his party was a small party. What a mentality!

I dream of the day in our political history when a totally neutral person will be voted as president based on his competencies even if he has to preside over a legislature with no representation from his party. It is called “people's power”. We will give it to him and tell him what to do with it. He will draw his support from the people. It is possible. It can be a coalition of all the smaller political parties with a visionary candidate. GHANA NEEDS A THIRD POLITICAL FORCE AND NOW!

It took 26 year old fruit vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, in the rural town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, who felt the political system’s harshness and confronted it by protesting and calling upon President  Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his regime to step down. About a month later, he fled. It was this momentum that set up the Arab Spring. He changed the old order!

Arise Ghana youth and let us make a strong political statement in the 2016 elections with our ballot paper by constituting and voting a third force into power. The NOW and FUTURE is ours, let us grab it!

 

e-mail : ankrahgabo@hotmail.com