NTOABOMA—The leaders in Ghana are undertaking the following: (1) They will spend $22M on Toyota V8s for current Members of Parliament, which is not $22M on much needed Ambulances and Emergency Technicians for the nation and (2) They will spend $1.2B on a National ID System to prove citizenship at the ballot box, which is not the provision of well-equipped functioning hospitals.
The list is in no way exhaustive. Such prioritization by government elites has taken place in the country since it was formed from disparate ethnic groups located on what colonial terrorists once dubbed the “Gold Coast.” For decades, these elites—who are the replacements, some even descendants, of the erstwhile colonial clerks/thieves—have escaped the direct consequences of their inactions. That is, government elites have been able to fly into western nations, where they feel more belonging, for medical help, even for emergencies.
Still, once in a while the elite face some direct consequences of their own inactions. That is to say, sometimes they are unable to escape the decadence and the horror they have created in hospitals like Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. In fact, it has become apparent to the rest of the country, who are the only ones with skin in the game for good governance, that the direct costs of inaction by elites are no longer limited by and large to the poor alone.
A former Vice President of the nation fell victim to his group-think. Or rather, he fell victim to his own group-inaction. He was, like most other Ghanaians, carried to an Emergency Ward, after a Heart Attack, in what one cannot misconstrue as an ambulance—a pickup truck! Even then he was quite lucky that a four-wheel truck was available to at least transport his dying body straight to the mortuary.
Other Ghanaians are not so lucky. Their newborn babies can be intentionally placed in the only available incubators—broken incubators—at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital only to appease crestfallen mothers. Korle Bu is the last referral clinic, nothing exists beyond there: The last stop for many it has truly become. There are many grandparents who would weep at the mention of being carried to Korle Bu. They know they will die there. Immediately.
So, what can one expect when a dying newborn is transported there on a bicycle and then placed in a broken incubator? They die! The mothers wail. The “Doctor Elite Administrators of Korle Bu” (The DEAKs, pronounced “dicks”) have most likely transferred the working incubators to their own private clinics where they are actually employed full time. The Deaks are able to do this because their overseers at Flagstaff House, or Jubilee House, are even much worse: These elites purchase V8s with $22M while the next generation dies at Korle Bu, and they spend more and more money, $1.2B, on a national identification system for the ballot box, when the generation before them decay at Korle Bu.
If poor cocoa farmers near Forifori, Eastern Region, fall sick in Ghana and they are lucky, they are able to hitch a ride from the only owner of a “Buzanga” bicycle from the village to the closest clinic. From there, if they are so lucky, a Trotro, or taxi, will transport them to a regional hospital. If they are still lucky they will get well there, and return home in peace. If they are not so lucky and they are referred to Korle Bu Teaching Hospital near Accra, the capital, they will in all likelihood meet their end. They will die there.
After the unceremonious death of the former Vice President many have posed what is a crucial question about our leaders in Ghana: Are they capable of compassion for the very people they purport to lead? The question itself begs the humiliating truth. Most Ghanaians know, even if unconsciously that there is something terribly wrong with our elites. What?
Here our history books fail us, purposefully. But it is quite obvious if one is able to look a bit deeper: The slave-trading mentality of these terrorists we call leaders, and elites, in Ghana, hasn’t changed since 1650! The group-think, the group-inactions remains the same. They have no compassion for humanity let alone their own. In fact, the nature of their jobs as colonial clerks, or more accurately yet, colonial terrorists, in Ghana, for their masters in London and Washington, demands that men with no compassion for their own people enlist as leaders of The West’s Cash Cow—an African nation as Ghana.
Priority highly misplaced.
Chale, serious oh!
we elect them, and they are actually a true representation of how majority of our society think
It’s been too recurrent, pervasive and endemic and so i wonder if we have any modicum of common sense after all, by the way the we stands for the so called educated. Brother, what do we do, is the question we haven’t carefully considered or we are yet to consider. Historically, it’s the educated elites that have betrayed our people. All the legendary ancestors of ours were either semi-educated or common men and women. So the second question is are we going to fail as well? May I be of importance use for my people, Ase
We will probably fail. Our very education, away from the true traditions of our past, requires that we fail. When regurgitation of facts becomes a major past time even for adults, as in the NSMQ Entertainment, you know that our education requires that we fail. Hey, I am not mocking the quiz. I like it. But there are much more weightier matters that should occupy the minds of adults, and children alike, instead of reciting the Equations of Motion on TV.
Narmer, I recall that some four years ago, your brother Menes wrote this about Rwanda:
“But Rwanda is now a youthful place of energy, beauty, and a visceral presence of grace. Time spent there confuses and inspires and teaches lessons that don’t necessarily resolve.
All this progress and stability is simply because of Mr. Kagame and his government. To maintain such momentum is prudent if Rwanda is to fully recover and train the next generation to succeed her. It will be premature for Mr. Kagame to heed the calling of the west to step down in 2017.
What Mr. Kagame must remember is that his duty is to Rwanda and to Africa, to his ancestors that stepped forth into the day way long before him, and to the generations that will long inherit him – his duty is not to heed the sort of chaotic democracy the US and France wish to propose for or enforce in Rwanda!”
Every time I read that article again, I am shocked by its clairvoyance. Ghana needs a Kagame more than ever before!! But most folks would jump, twist and turn and say never!!!