Yes I am Ghanaian and I am advocating ruthless patriotism. Country First! Long Live Ghana! National Interest! God bless our homeland Ghana!In my not-so-humble opinion the only reason anyone will join or associate themselves with any of these two political parties is that they are either benefiting directly from the association or they are mildly tribalistic and subscribe to or share the tribal undertones that define these political parties. Then there’s the “I hate (Rawlings/ Kuffour/Mills/Akuffo Addo)” crowd. If that describes you, I understand your situation.
Otherwise, I believe every fair minded citizen, who cares about the future of Ghana, should strive for objectivity in judging the actions of our leaders with a bias towards the long term interest of the country.
In Western society politics is generally ideologically divided into Right Wing and Left Wing. In Ghana, NPP claims to be the right wing free market party whereas the NDC claims to be the left wing socialist democrat party. As for the CPP/Nkrumahist ideology the least said the better.
Nkrumahism was a good idea in the 50’s but that ship has sailed – even communist China is a pseudo capitalism state. None of these parties really practice any of their supposed ideologies because there’s hardly a market economy in Ghana let alone a free market economy. On the other hand we are too poor to be socialists – in a true socialist economy the state owns and control assets and we hardly own anything anymore.
Our current station in life as a country demands that more of our citizens are fiercely pro-Ghana and nothing more. Of course we all have to vote for a political party during elections but we can’t let these political divides cloud our judgment of what is good for Ghana.
Our current station in life as a country demands that more of our citizens are fiercely pro-Ghana and nothing more. Of course we all have to vote for a political party during elections but we can’t let these political divides cloud our judgment of what is good for Ghana. 
Nice piece. I'm glad that you are advocating "ruthless patriotism". Not sure how much "Ghana" thinking our leaders are delving in. I'm still surprised that the sitting President of the Republic of Ghana issued an official directorate that government appointees are to allow aggrieved NDC foot-soldiers access to them. What about the rest of us?? Are we not Ghanaians? Do we not pay the salaries of these appointees thru our taxes? Clearly party interests are blatantly being put above national interests. This is sad that this is coming from the top.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback Abena! I just want us to call them out on all these things regardless of who we voted for in the elections. Lest we become like our younger yet larger brother Nigeria. When I was in Ghana last month the things I heard from some very educated Ghanaians were disturbing. Someone made a statement like "Minister XYZ is very very smart, he doesn't put his signature on documents from his Misnistry in order not to incrimate himself". So what happened to doing his job. i.e. approving and being accountable for whatever comes from his ministry. And why is a well educated Ghanaian calling this Minister smart?
ReplyDeleteSubtlety is better than force. ..................................................
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