I refuse to pray that 2026 will pamper you. I will not ask for gentle days or effortless advancements. I wish you a year that provokes you, a year that wakes you, a year that refuses to let you sleep through your own destiny.

Nations are not built on comfort. Progress does not come to those who admire their dreams rather than pursue them. I am not condemning you. I am challenging you with the same defiance I summon against myself at the beginning of every year. May 2026 unsettle your comfort and drag out the greatness you have been too cautious to chase.

Mr President, there is strength in the steps you have taken. You have demanded fairer treatment of Ghana’s gold through GoldBod. You are investing in domestic industrial capacity, and your voice on the global stage reminds the powerful that Africa refuses to remain at the margins. You speak boldly of reparations and sovereignty.

You are rekindling the flame of Nkrumah’s unfinished dream. However, courage cannot walk with one leg. Even as you condemn the world’s exploitative structures, we observe you entering agreements that quietly concede the sovereignty you defend.

When the United States imposed visa restrictions on Ghana, your government agreed to accept deportees, not Ghanaians, but migrants from other African states in exchange for easing sanctions. How can we preach Pan-African dignity yet allow a foreign power to decide which Africans we must host? That is not sovereignty. It is selective boldness.

Contrast this with Burkina Faso. When pressed to host American deportees and comply with America’s immigration pressures, they refused, fully aware that sanctions would follow. When the news reached Ouagadougou, ordinary citizens danced in the streets. That is leadership paid in consequences rather than applause. Look also to Botswana.

In 2023, the IMF warned them against buying a larger share of their own diamonds from De Beers. The absurdity is breathtaking. When Africa claims its inheritance, economic doctrines suddenly shift to protect foreign advantage.

Even Rwanda, admired for discipline and order, faces pressure to host foreign refugees and adopt policies shaped by others. When we allow external power to shape internal decisions, stability becomes a leash instead of a shield.

Mr President, we cannot speak boldly at conferences and whisper at negotiation tables. The West already knows your intentions. Diplomacy must now serve truth, not conceal it. Moreover, the winds blowing across the world are shifting.

The old order that privileged Western hegemony is trembling. Capitalism is finally meeting resistance from people who refuse to kneel. Grenada has rejected attempts at geopolitical imposition at its airport. Across Latin America, the era of quiet obedience is collapsing as citizens challenge the bombing of oil tankers and military interventions disguised as drug enforcement. The global playing field is no longer silent. It is noisy with disobedience.

Social media has shattered the walls that once hid global injustices. We now hear their confessions, see their excesses, and witness their hypocrisies in real time. Samuel Huntington warned that the defining conflicts of the future would not arise from ideology but from clashes between civilizations with rival value systems and identities. His prophecy is unfolding.

The West no longer holds uncontested cultural power. New civilizations are asserting their right to self-definition. A multipolar world is being born, and Africa must not remain a spectator. We must stand as architects.

Mr. President, Ghana’s foreign policy must serve as a compass for Pan-African unity. When the mantle of African Union leadership comes your way, seize it to transform that institution from a polite meeting place into a purposeful engine of continental power. Leadership is not staying safe in the crowd. It is stepping forward when history demands it.

And now comes the most decisive test: our own Constitution. The Constitutional Review Commission listened to the people and delivered a mandate for reform. Parliament has silenced that work for more than a decade because the most transformative changes threaten the comfort they enjoy. They will delay. They will distract.

They will pretend the people are not ready. Leadership means refusing to wait for those who fear the future. You must demand that Parliament immediately introduce the amendment bill that will allow the good people of Ghana to decide in a referendum.

The sovereignty of this nation does not sit in Parliament. It lives in the hearts and hands of the people of Ghana. If this moment is missed, history will ask why you paused at the very doorway of transformation.

My fellow Ghanaians, change requires courage, not only from leaders but also from the governed. We cannot expect a prosperous Ghana while clinging to habits that keep us poor. We praise Buy Ghana yet chase foreign labels. We condemn corruption yet demand shortcuts.

We brag about culture while ignoring our languages and devaluing our traditions. A new Ghanaian must emerge, disciplined, self-reliant, proud of our heritage, yet globally competitive. Patriotism is not a costume. It is a commitment. It is hard work, honesty, sacrifice, and waking early to build a nation worthy of pride.

We must embrace our cultural liberation, with African names replacing colonial relics, Ghanaian history shaping our dreams, and indigenous languages raising confident children. Only people who believe in themselves can build a homeland worth defending.

To Africa, our eternal homeland. The world leans on us far more than it admits. It is our cobalt that powers the devices in their pockets, our cocoa that sweetens their markets, and our gold that steadies their currencies. If this continent shut its gates for one week, the capitalist world would tremble.

Yet we remain vulnerable, not because we lack strength, but because too many among us lend that strength to the very forces that undermine us. The architects of our misery often sit in foreign capitals, but the executioners are too frequently African hands.

We must grow together, not apart. Our industries must connect. Our defence must coordinate. Our cultures must unify. If Huntington is correct that civilizations will define the new global order, then Africa must refuse to be the turf where others fight and instead become a civilization that negotiates its own destiny.

Remove the visa walls between sister states. Break the trade chains that separate neighbour from neighbour. And when Africa speaks, let it speak with one currency, one market, one unstoppable voice.

Let 2026 disturb our comfort, expose our excuses, reward our courage, shame our hesitation, and honour our daring. Let it play the part of the stern teacher who refuses to pass the lazy student. Let it be the blister on our heel that reminds us we are still on the journey and not yet at the destination.

Our ancestors did not endure chains and humiliation so that we would inherit excuses. History has never built a statue for hesitation, nor sung a song for those who preferred comfort to courage. Our children are waiting. The world is watching. Destiny is calling.

If we embrace this restless year, Ghana will become a beacon, a place where hope goes to live and where no one can bury it again. When the bell of progress rings, may we not be found asleep in the palace of excuses.

May our New Year be restless, for only the restless rise.
Happy New Year, Ghana.
Happy New Year, Africa.