Ever since the brutal over throw of Osagyefor Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana is yet to have a government in power who really believes that leading Ghana to become a developed nation among the world’s richest nations is not only possible but necessary. Ghana's political elites appears to know about democracy and sell it to the people, however when it comes to practicing a real democracy, these same elite politicians falls so low disgracefully. The question that Ghanaians should be asking themselves is, have their politicians failed the country consciously or out of ignorance and has Ghanaians themselves failed their nation? Ghanaians are never hesitant to call their politicians corrupt but always fall short in admitting their own contribution to building a corrupt nation. Ghanaians lives in a society where children get admitted into top schools and universities because their parents are rich or “somebody”, people get jobs not based on their merit but because they agreed to sleep with the boss or through family connections, A rich man pays the police to arrest a guy whom he thinks is sleeping with either his wife, girl friend, or daughter, the police and the army who are put on the street to check for bad vehicles receives money to allow dangerous cars to move around on the street without stopping to think that the same vehicles may result in accident killing mass people, Law enforcements who are paid to protect the people receive a bigger sum for not protecting the people who employs them.Ordinary Ghanaians receives money to allow toxic goods into the country which inevitably will harm the environment and the people, politicians receive money to sell the country out without a blink of an eye. The fact is, the mass majority of Ghanaians are either corrupting or being corrupt to the scale that it has become the norm in the minds of most Ghanaians. When a corrupt system becomes the norm in any society, it blinds the people from having a vision of true prosperity and development for all and the disadvantage is that it creates the selfish vision of making life better only for ones own self. So the painful reality is that, Ghana’s elite politicians have consciously and ignorantly failed the nation which they serve. Nonetheless, Ghanaians themselves via naivety have failed their nation too and my assessment is that, the corruption name calling will not solve Ghana’s problem. However, Ghana has a better chance becoming a developed nation for all if Ghanaians take the initiative to educate themselves.
Ghanaians must educate themselves to gain knowledge of the world which is outside their comfort zone. In other words, acquiring knowledge of this globalized world will open the eyes of Ghanaians to demand better Governance from their leaders. After all, the elite politicians come from the people and are voted into office by the people. Therefore, if the people of Ghana educate themselves well they will eventually raise the bar of accountability and good governance high. Inside the minds of Ghana’s political elites are any things but vision of what mother Ghana ought to be. Therefore, it is right for any reasonable person to find them guilty of the lack of development in the country however; they share this blame with the Ghanaian people whom they govern. The whole system in Ghana signifies the blind man leading the blind person and because “vision is the art of seeing things invisible to the others”, if Ghanaians educate themselves well enough to see things that appears impossible for the elite politicians, they will not elect these corrupt leaders no matter how convincing and neither tribe or education background will entice Ghanaians to vote for them. Hence, I will put the responsibility of Ghana’s social and economic development solely on the shoulders of Ghanaian people because the power of democracy lies within them, even though it may sound harsh.
