Opinion: #Fixing Ghana: Are We Ready?
Ghana isn’t as entirely bad as the #fixthecountry fanatics are making it look like.
Most of the people who joined in this protest are totally disillusioned, ignorant and oblivious of many common policies and interventions of successive governments.
Ask them to proffer any solution in tackling one of the many issues to be fixed in the country, and there you’ll see sheer oblivion and ignorance at play.
There’s some sort of joy and glee, it seems, in joining the bandwagon of #fixthefountry. This, methinks.
Invite some of these #fixthecountry protesters to the table of discussion in #fixingthecountry and there, I mean there, you’ll see full emptiness of substance.
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| Some #fixthecountry protesters at a protest on August 4, 2021. Photo credit: The Fourth Estate |
Ever since the #fixthecountry trumpet was blown, government and other responsible organisations – both state and private – have initiated measures in seeing to the realisation of such objectives.
Most of these initiatives, if allowed to take their natural courses, would affect many others in so many ways.
But, the right things must be done.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, in doing his bid to see his part of the country fixed by calling us all to #LetsmakeAccrawork, had to evacuate onion and other traders from the Agbogbloshie Market in the central business district of the capital.
Hell broke loose.
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| Henry Quartey addressing onion traders at the new Adjen Kotoku Market Complex. Photo credit: KBoy | RCC |
Many people vented and ranted at him. Others jeered at the sight of him, saying the government was insensitive to the plight of local traders who were striving so hard to make ends meet.
“Why would and should government evacuate them?”, they quizzed.
The Minister had said on countless occasions that the place [Agbogbloshie Market] was, according to reports on Google, the filthiest place on the planet with electronic waste (e-waste). The topic on e-waste is something that I’ll address a bit later.
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For the lives of the traders and people around; and for the betterment of Ghana, the place needed to be cleaned and cleansed. This called for the evacuation of people.
Again, I say, hell broke loose.
Yet, these are the same people that want the country to be fixed.
The demands we’re making [#fixthecountry] also demands sacrifices. Sacrifices of personal comfort, freedom and somewhat some luxuries.
These sacrifices, are we ready to make them?
Will the man that has his family home on the waterway evacuate the place? Will the tomato seller on the high street of Accra move from there?
What about the gentleman selling jeans and electronics at Lapaz on the N1 Highway, would he also move from there?
And the trotro (commercial) driver who has begun using the newly commissioned Pokuase Interchange as his new station, loading right on the edge of the street, would he also move from there?
And should all these people decide to move or be moved, would they do so without any resistance?
Won’t they swear Heaven and earth to “show the government” when the next elections come?
But, the right things must be done. The country must be fixed, and must be fixed soon.
So you see? It’s not just enough to ask government to #fixthecountry. We owe it to ourselves as a responsibility to make the needed sacrifices when the need arises.
Again, I ask, these sacrifices, are we ready to make them?
Ghana shall rise again! 
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