Sometime in 2015, I banned my mom from talking about Ghana. I’ve become my family and friends’ go-to news source since I’ve been a journalist. Every day, I’m called upon to do three things: to affirm or deny something they heard on the news, provide more details of a particular story and generally chat about running issues. At first, it didn’t seem like a chore, but after years of discussing scandals, Ghana’s failures, and successive governments’ mismanagement and corruption, I got weary.
I work on Ghana’s most listened-to breakfast show, Citi Breakfast Show. Due to the nature of the Show, I’m expected to understand more about everything we talk about. Therefore, I know only 2 out of 10 Primary 2 kids can read and write. I know 36 percent of Ghanaians with salvageable injuries die because of the lack of emergency care services. I am aware that the doctor-patient ratio stands at one doctor to 10,450 patients. I also hear about powerful shenanigans. I know which elected official hides money in Dubai with friends and family. Knowing what I know about the powerful, rich, and connected makes me very angry about how we live, work and play in Ghana.
It bothers me that some people live extravagant lives on taxpayers’ money while babies die in hospitals because of a lack of incubators. My heart breaks for able-bodied young men who spend their best years wiping windscreens for lunch while politicians spend millions on things like embossing Mahama’s face on buses. It’s scary to think what will happen to all these young people who hawk Chinese products in traffic when they’re old with no pension and no health insurance. Overall the state of the nation infuriates me – the filth, the lawlessness, the public and private corruption, and the broken systems.
The rage I feel about the systemic corruption and incompetence that permeates every aspect of our lives sometimes shows through my writing and radio commentary. I am told to mind my blood pressure and safety and ignore the establishment when this happens. “They’re going to steal and chop anyway,” I’m often told. I know they mean well; they don’t want my bosses getting emails and texts about my views to harm me, as some of their supporters have implied on Facebook.
I’m one of those naive journalists who thought Ghana could be Singapore without the authoritarian government. This wasn’t the job my father wanted for me. He didn’t want me to spend my days chasing after Soli. Still, I fought him because I had heard Matilda Asante grill powerful men on the radio and render them incoherent. Keeping the powerful accountable seemed like a good idea. I sincerely believed that speaking truth to power and keeping citizens informed would help. And our small victories show they do in some cases.
But I’ve been thinking, writing, and talking about Ghana since 2007. My friend Tee and I used to spend our evenings when we lived together talking about Ghana. We worried about the ineffectiveness of the National Identification Authority. We imagined how the government could provide comprehensive healthcare if it wanted to. We thought of ways education could be improved and made accessible to all. We were hopeful too. It was, after all, the season of hope. It wasn’t the era of rising Africa. The World Bank and other agencies say Ghana’s on the right track. The John Kufour government was praised for the nation’s stability and good governance. According to the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), 2006 to 2011 were the best years.
Even then, the hospitals were crumbling, and top officials were going to die at the Lord Cromwell Hospital in London and other places. There were over 2000 public schools under trees, maternal and child mortality was high, and hundreds were dying from avoidable diseases such as cholera. Despite this, we thought it could only get better. I figured we all needed someone who would build on what John Kufour attempted.
But we got John Dramani Mahama, a partisan who put together an incompetent government that thrived on corruption. Before him was John Atta Mills, who people say would have done better if he wasn’t sick. We won’t know how valid this claim is, but one thing is for sure: John Mahama will forever be remembered as one of Ghana’s worst presidents. He was the reason I banned my mother from talking to me about Ghana because his government’s inadequacies were lethal and their corruption legendary. I couldn’t wait to see the back of his government.
They have been gone for nine months, and we’re still reeling from the previous government’s bad decisions. Everyone I know is outraged that the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) spent $72 million on a software project while paying pensioners virtually nothing. The contract was poorly written, and the cost was clearly inflated since the contract went to the highest bidder. The details of the AMERI power deal, which was reportedly inflated by $150 million, have everyone who cares about Ghana in knots.
Last year I read Nigerian Writer Ayo Sogunro’s Everything in Nigeria is Going to Kill You. I couldn’t believe how well the details fit Ghana. Many readers can tell you some books instantly bring back memories. Ayo’s collection of essays is one of those books. In the book, he writes: “I’m quite serious about the intent stated in the title: Nigeria is out to kill you. The country is going to hell in a handbasket. This is not a drill. And we have arrived at this point simply because you don’t care.”
His analysis of all that ails many countries on the continent is so profound and insightful. His reasons for this death by country include corruption, incompetent presidents, sponsors of terrorists, high living costs, an inadequate health care system, and deficient social services. They’re not insurmountable. The problem persists because citizens have accepted that incompetence, corruption, and poverty will always be part of life.
Some Ghanaians think they can escape death by Ghana by providing private solutions to public problems. In order to avoid crime, they move to gated communities and buy 4-wheel drives for the bad roads, and send their kids to expensive schools abroad. None of these, however, is a shield from death.
But caring about Ghana is so damn exhausting. I’m tired of reminding folks that none of us, rich nor poor, within the jurisdiction will escape this imminent death because ambulances won’t come when a stroke or an asthma attack or some other emergency occurs. After all, we all know a rich, prominent and important somebody who died after making it to the hospital because there were no beds, doctors or equipment to care for them. I’m spent from all the conversations we have at work about the cost of living, crime and high levels of unemployment. It hurts to see the poverty in which most people live.
I get that we must care, that caring is the fuel to get our country fixed. But sometimes I want to have whatever Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the NDC, had to blissfully ignore the senseless policies and corrupt behavior of the John Mahama government. These days I wish to have whatever the Vice President, Mahamadu Bawumia, has every morning to enthusiastically to launch programs without detailed implementation plans.
As I do not have the connections or the money to insulate my poor heart and soul from feeling, I escape Ghana by reading. These days I just want to flee in my body because my country is killing me. Slowly!