While we do not seek to downplay the concerns of people over some subjects, there are criticisms which clearly fall flat in the face of reality and logic.
The instilling of patriotism and for that matter civic education in the citizenry is something which starts from infancy, one of which approaches is through national parades such as commemorative occasions. No occasion surpasses the commemoration of our independence from colonial rule as displayed on Monday in Ho.
On Monday, the country was gripped with the independence anniversary fever, an occasion during which many, the youth especially who were born in post-independence Ghana, got the rare opportunity to pick this segment of our history.
On the parade square, school children marched alongside security personnel from the Armed Forces, Police, Ghana Immigration Service, Prison Service and the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority to commemorate the occasion; they listened to the President and his representatives in the various regions speeches, which are about service to the nation.
Security personnel, be they in the military or the other services, have a heightened nationalistic spirit because of the nature of their training, an aspect common to them all being the drills on the square. The place of parades to commemorate our independence cannot be overemphasised.
We are by this commentary asking those who took delight in downplaying the importance of the parades to rethink their stance because it is warped and out of tune with the reality. Socialist and communist- inclined countries such as Russia and China as well as North Korea engage in a lot of parade choreography to instill the nationalistic spirit in the citizenry.
We have for many years endured the challenges posed by the dearth of love for country deficiency, which is why people employed as public servants do not give of their best for mother Ghana as they should. We can only depart from this unacceptable relationship with our country through such choreography during such annual occasions and others.
We are saddened therefore that a former President will join others in displaying such gross ignorance about the importance of independence parades as witnessed on social media and others. The former President should have risen about such hypocrisy and mediocrity, two negativities which are not in tune with his status as a one-time Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
He said he boycotted the independence parade because it had been reduced to a party jamboree, and, he being an Nkrumaist, he could not be part of it. Such logic from a man who says he has a lot to offer the nation.