Do Ghanaian leaders dream big?

Greatness hardly ever comes by accident, nor is it imposed by divinity on an unwilling people. A country, like a person, must prepare—be prepared —for greatness.

It starts with dreaming greatness, imagining it, contemplating what it must take, and deciding that the venture is worth the risk, that we’re willing to invest the time, intellect and material resources to translate the dreamed into reality.

Do Ghanaians dreamed big? In words, they do, but not in deed. In the 1960s through the 1980s, Ghanaian “leaders” used to speak of “this great nation of ours.” But even they have abandoned that species of bad joke! Now, they speak of; "better Ghana", “moving the nation forward” or “delivering transformational leadership.”

But the rickety molue they claim to be moving forward is in reverse gear, headed, any moment, for a jagged gorge. Ask any Ghanaian official what “transformational leadership” they have delivered and you’re bound to hear such fatuous lines as, “I purchased 100 tractors to mechanize agriculture”, “I don’t owe civil servants any arrears of salaries”, “I bought chalks for all elementary schools”, “I have commissioned 500 water boreholes”, "I have uprooted 1500 schools under trees", "free maternity care for pregnant women", etc, etc.

It’s the 21st century, but very little of the language of those who run (that is, ruin) Ghana suggests that they are aware of what TIME it is. They’re conscious of the world, of course, but only in a slavish, opportunistic way. They, their relatives and cronies are at their best when they travel in style to the world’s most dazzling cities.

They unleash their consumerist impulse, eager to savor the most garish of each city’s sensual offerings. But it never occurs to them that the goods that make them swoon, the services they lust after are products of other thinking people’s imagination and work.

Ghana has long exhausted its stock of luck—but somehow keeps finding some more. It’s a country fueled by sheer, inexplicable luck. The place doesn’t make Truth be told: Ghana is already a miracle-in-progress. J. J. Rawlings, one of our former military dictators, famously confessed his surprise that the whole entity had not collapsed.