Growing up, several folktales were told us of the ever cunning Kweku Ananse. The primary theme or moral lesson these stories were consciously meant to teach every child was the destructive power of greed.
Apparently, these stories, and the moral lessons thereof, was (is) lost on President Akufo-Addo and most of his critical appointees. Sadly, unlike Kweku Ananse, their greed did not destroy them. Alas! They have taken the hope of an entire generation into the ditches and sold the destiny of a beautiful nation, Ghana, to the swines in exchange for tasteless crumbs, which, they gorge unashamedly into their insatiable stomachs like refugees who were denied food and water for centuries!
From their high tables, with no sense of remorse, they watch with excitement and total shock, the fools, whose future they have toyed with, defend and hail them as their Messiahs and the best and most competent thing that has ever happened to them since independence!
But let the drums be beaten! Let the gong-gong beater take his virgin “gatingo”! Let the restless ghosts of the forebears, whose blood and toils bought us the freedom and secured us the mineral fortunes, arise! Let the orchestra of posterity pick their instruments. Let them in unison, sing the symphony of lamentation about Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana, a nation that once was the beacon of hope to an entire continent, Africa, and a threat to their colonial masters. Let the soloists echo it, “The Black Star of Africa is fallen!”
When the story of this fallen Kingdom, the “Black Star of Africa,” is told to the younger generation one day, may they be reminded that, a cunning, sweetly tongued and acclaimed patriotic President, once destroyed a beautiful nation bequeathed to him — a nation bought with the blood, toil and selflessness of past generations; a nation whose purse and fortunes he has vowed to protect — yes, may it be told that, he, together with his folks, have erased every progress ever made by our forebears and destroyed this blessed country with nothing, but, GREED! Yes, let it be known that their greatest legacy is GREED!
Yes! The history books will do well to remind us that it is dangerous to encourage young people to have ambition and to train them in vision, leadership and strategy without training their character. The voice of the deities will keep reminding us that we need to be just as serious about teaching integrity, humility, compassion and emotional health as we are about raising up powerful, ambitious and anointed leaders who will change the world.
Here goes the soloists again: “Yes, it is nothing, but, GREED and PRIDE, especially of this Akufo-Addo led government that has wrecked Ghana and currently made us companions of swines, begging for crumbs and yet, being denied it, and bathing in the ditches of hopelessness!”
Listen! Here comes their voices, piercing through the thick wreckages of what has become of our lands! The past and the future, humming a dirgeful duet of pain in honour of what their GREED and PRIDE has made of us. May these tunes spark a holy anger in us to arise and fight to rescue this nation from these greedy and proud unapologetic “Saviours”.
There’s a Hero in you; unleash it!