Fellow compatriots let us dream. If for nothing at all, just for the mere fact that whoever sent us down here endowed us with that faculty. Definitely the one did not give us that ability for the fun of it. It was meant to be used and so let us dream. Ghana, our beloved country has over the past 51 years woven for itself a chequered tapestry - a strand of blue here, that of red there, then a green on top, a yellow below, a black across and a white in the middle. Indeed all our yesterdays had gone with tales of woes and tribulations with occasional conviviality as we prod along not knowing exactly what went wrong with us. Or when and where we started going wrong. Was it our gullibility? Was it our innocence or acceptance of offers that were in reality Trojan Horses? Or was it share miscalculation? Or was it the case of the falcon not hearing the falconer? Let us get to the basics. Our land is the most blessed in the whole wide world. It is the land flowing with milk and honey. Drop a seed by accident on any part of our land and return 100 days later to harvest cobs of maize. Our land is the nearest landmass to the geographical point where longitude zero crosses latitude zero and thus by using the Mercator projection becomes the centre of the world. Our time is the universal time. All times in the world is calculated based on our time, which does not change. The time in Britain changes, depending on the season of the year. They have summer time that is different from the universal time. We share the same official language with the most powerful nations in the world. We have the richest square mile on earth because the yield of gold per ounce of ore processed in Obuasi is the highest. Yet we say we are poor. Is it a travesty? Is it a misnomer? Or probably we did not get our calculations right so some smart Alecks scoop our golden soil virtually for free, because the machines that are used for the scooping must be paid for; the chemicals that are used to wash the soil must be paid for; the intelligence that assembled the machines and coordinated the effective scooping of the golden soil must be paid for. So at the end of the day the country gets a small fraction of whatever money that is made. Some say 25 per cent others say 10 per cent, depending on who is speaking - the Ghana Chamber of Mines or nongovernmental organisations advocating appropriate mining practices. Our Leaders are satisfied to be appendages so far as they get their share of the booty and could live comfortably with their wives and children in cosy and serene environment; drive the latest automobiles and spend the evenings quaffing beer and expensive liquor, puffing away clouds of smoke from cigars made from the choicest tobacco. In fact some of our Leaders would swear heaven and earth to expound that there is no way that Ghana can make it other than accepting a subservience role in a schematic world created by a few people for their own ends. In our land one could stay throughout the year with very little clothing. Elsewhere one cannot endure the winter or the drought. Anywhere the cassava stick is stuck to the ground it would germinate provided it is done at the right time of the year. Our forest has bountiful flora and fauna. We must thank whoever decided to make us Ghanaians. Opayin Kofi Boadi said it might be too late by the time we realised that the chirping of crickets was full of wisdom, for we have all taken it to be a bother. We have refused to react to the blinking warning lights. Why does the one privileged to sign a contract on behalf of the beloved country first ask - what is my cut? By which is meant what percentage are you going to give me if the contract were given to you? Utilisation of position to the greatest personal advantage is the norm and everybody seems to have joined the rat race. The maximisation of personal advantage has gotten into the head of many a Ghanaian that - do you know whom you are talking to? If you joke I will change your sleeping place - are common utterances. A Regional Commander of Police to show how much power he wielded ordered that a very Senior Journalist, who was on the beat should be detained for hours. The Journalist had gone to a scene of conflict to verify the truthfulness of a report his reporter has filed. One of the protagonist claimed that he heard the Journalist saying that the destruction should have been more devastating than it was so the Regional Police Commander ordered that his men should detain the Journalist without bothering to ask him any question. During the period of his detention no story was filed because the Journalist was the last Gatekeeper on duty. Major stories were delayed because a supposedly Senior Police Officer wanted to show how powerful he was. What he forgot was that if everybody in some position in this beloved country of ours decided to throw his or her weight about there would be complete chaos. How many times had the Last Gatekeeper watered down or completely killed stories that had the potential of inflaming passions and driving a wedge between ethnic groups? If the Last Gatekeeper had allowed all such stories to go could the Senior Police Officer have had enough men and ability to restore order? Providence has a way of doing its things. The Senior Police Officer left the Service in a rather interesting circumstance that can be liken to an episode in a movie starring Agya Koo. Our focus as a nation is wrong. We shall continue to be wrong and remain underdeveloped as long as we failed to get our coordinates right. If we decide to remain a grasshopper we would remain a delicacy for the chameleon. We have to break the dependency syndrome. If we continue on our current path the best we can achieve would be a perfect duplicate but never the original. We must put our acts together if we were to see our beloved country developed economically, socially and politically. A GNA Feature by Boakye-Dankwa Boadi

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