Thursday,
April 17, 2014
My good friends,
there is no gainsaying the fact that much water has passed under the bridge
that President Mahama has erected for improving conditions in Northern Ghana (let
alone the entire country).
His decision to
establish the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) came across to
us all as a laudable initiative to bridge the gap between the North and the
South in terms of practical action to solve the problems that have forced our
compatriots to migrate from the north to the south in chase of non-existent
jobs.
Those of us who
are familiar with the plight of those migrants can testify that their condition
of existence in their communities is nothing to write home about.
Many years ago,
I had the opportunity to be in Northern Ghana, the Upper East, and beyond and
can say much about the abject state of privations and abjection there.
That was the
time when many Northerners were in Rawlings government but didn't make their
influence felt.
Now, President
Mahama has risen to the pinnacle to use the enormous powers at his disposal to
tilt the balance. Unfortunately, though, nothing seems to be changing for the
good of his own people.
It must be
placed on record that our compatriots of Northern Ghana extraction are endowed
with natural abilities that every sane human being will envy. So, why should it
be that their access to the national resources should be hindered to make them
come across as second-class citizens? Unacceptable!!
Forget about the
so-called claim that the Nkrumah government institutionalized the Northern
Scholarship Scheme that has benefited them. And that anybody not able to move
up the ladder in education must be lazy. It's not everybody who is
intellectually endowed to go for higher education or to even consider higher
education as the panacea to personal or existential problems.
Those who value
formal education will go for it; but formal education doesn't solve all
problems. That's why not all will want to go for it. Some have chosen informal
education and are better off, at least, in their own considerations vis-a-vis
the kind of progress that they have made to live their lives to the full.
Beyond these
considerations comes the good intentions of President Mahama to uplift
standards in his own backyard, being a Northerner himself and conversant with
the undermining and underprivileging of his own people. No malice aforethought
here.
But the truth is
that the projects that he caused to be established to open up the north and
carve a niche for him as someone interested in moving that part of the country
forward are not solving problems. They are worsening existing problems or
creating new ones that are fast detracting from his worth. Can he not know?
Precedent: Dr.
Hilla Limann had been in office in 1979 to 1981 and cannot today be accredited
with anything that he attempted for the good of northern Ghana.
President Mahama
is now trying to prove his worth; but the malfeasance that has characterized
the operations of SADA and any other initiative has dimmed his light.
What is he doing
to reverse this negative trend and prove that he is, indeed, interested in
making the difference?
When the day of
reckoning comes, can he genuinely tell us what he has done to bridge the gap
between Northern Ghana and the South? I leave it to him to contemplate as the
NPP harps on its choice of Paul Afoko (NPP Chairman) to doom him in future
elections.
I have, by this post, thrown a
huge challenge to President Mahama to be up and doing. If for nothing at all, I
want him to initiate moves for which he will be remembered (even by his own
people).
I wish that by now, he would have
adopted a community or two in Northern Ghana to pump resources into so that it
could become a model to be admired and upheld as his legacy. Is there anything
blinding him to such possibilities?
There is nothing wrong with
beginning from the North. After all, charity begins at home!!
Nothing but the coterie of
sycophants that he has surrounded himself with will prevent him from taking
such a step. The bitter truth, though, is that leaders are admired for what
they leave behind as monuments and not how much empty noise they can make while
in power.
The truth needs to be told that
life is transient. A good leader will want to do something for which he will be
remembered long after his death.
I challenge President Mahama to
take up this challenge to make the difference. Even if his predecessor (Dr. Limann)
didn't do anything of the sort, he should. Will he take up the challenge?
I shall return…
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E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
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me on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/mjkbokor to continue
the conversation.
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