It Takes One Generation

A UN police commander just said on Al Jazeera that they are training the local police in Timor L’Este to take over law and order duties. He said it took one generation to achieve such a thing.

This brought my mind to the Ghanaian police and the changes it needs right here right now. It should also take one generation, no? One generation should it take to shake off the mentality it acquired post-colonially, and everything else. I'm talking about the bribery, the poorly investigated cases and the bullying.

All education, training, regeneration should take at least one generation to change things developmentally. How long is a Ghanaian generation? Twenty-five years? Maybe thirty. We best start finding that transformational education now.

“Cocaine Ghana”, Ghanaian Cocaine, Ghana & Cocaine

Cocaine and Ghana are easy to link. I cannot tell you when this began, but it has been helped in no small way by the current breed of politicians. I used “breed” deliberately (think of it). It does not matter in which government our security system became lax or in which period the State was suspected even of sponsoring the trade. So when our elected MPs spend the taxes tortured out of us empty-barrelling about whether it is Cocaine-NPP or Cocaine-NDC, then I’m asking for my wasted vote back with interest. 

Paying Crude-Oil Tithes to Ghana’s Western Region

Battle lines over revenue. Ghana. Ten regions. Oil in Western Region. Western Region chiefs want ten percent. Politicians not giving. Chiefs angry. If Western gets ten percent, do other nine regions get ten each too?

Snow Ploughs & Fractured Syllabi in Africa

A curious, colourful tale is spun about 1960s-Ghana. The facts are diverse and sometimes do not agree. Nobody has proved that it happened, but nobody has denied it too. I am going to tell you why I am about to tell you the story. Then, I will tell you the story itself. 

You already know that my pet topic is educating our young people – the practical, usable, developmental type that they are not getting. Well, the story is an analogy for our kayoed school syllabi not just in Ghana but many other African countries.

In the 1960s, the government was very committed to farming. Vast swathes of lush land were set aside for State farms all over the country. The government did not want to dump labourers on the land to till away like serfs. The country was still fresh from independence from British rule, and the government wanted to treat its people nice.

The government flew local experts to (I think it was) Czechoslovakia (remember that country?) to study from their own collectivised farms. Our experts were impressed with everything they saw. The preparation of the land, the sowing in neat, geometric rows, the tractors, detachable trailers, combine-harvesters; everything was agricultural heaven.

Our experts thanked their gracious hosts and resolved to come back and practise what they had learned in Ghana. Before they came, they ordered some of the wonderful equipment they had seen on the Czech farms.

A few months later, back in Ghana, the machinery arrived. Oh joy! They were trucked to the State farms all over the country and quickly put to work. BUT THE TRACTORS WOULD NOT WORK! It baffled the local experts because they had seen this same equipment on Eastern European farms.

The story does not end well. They did not live happily ever after. What our ‘experts’ had seen were not tractors. No! They were huge SNOW PLOUGHS! Our people had seen snow ploughs in temperate Czechoslovakia and imported them to equatorial Ghana.

Think back to my analogy about our school syllabi. Do you not see glaringly sad similarities?

(Picture credit - escocorp.com)

BlackBerry Call Card

My funny cousin, Nani, just told me something scant believable (by me). A man prints his BlackBerry PIN on his call card! This need of people to be ‘seen’ and contacted. Smh.

Where’s the Cheap Telecom Rates You Promised?

In the city of Accra, they promised candy-coin rates for telephone and internet use. They guaranteed that this nirvana would ‘snow’ on us with several network providers. We should have known from ‘snow’. We’ve waited for two years and more. The phone and ‘net’ budget is still running deep in citizen coffers. They play pretend-promotions and scrimp prizes you’ve paid for anyway through your bills. If you wanted a car or a phone or a paid dinner somewhere, you would have known where to go to.

(Picture credit - en.wikipedia.org)

Africa’s Dictators-in-Waiting

You brood of venomous vipers! How can you criticise the never-going leaders, when you yourselves have dominated the opposition for 20 years without letting new blood in? Wouldn’t you also (have) become stone statues in power?

How can there be only 1 person fit to govern or oppose out of millions. May whatever it was that exterminated the dinosaurs wipe you out – both the never-going leaders and the dictators-in-waiting who will become leaders who never go.