Ghana has tried an assortment of modules over the years in response to her multifaceted challenges. Under the Acheampong regime, secondary schools were required under one of such modules to grow their own food. That was the ‘Operation Feed Yourself’ programme. Schools were provided with tractors and during the time that the programme lasted, the country appeared to be on the verge of food sufficiency. The spirit of feeding ourselves itself was so valuable that it could not be quantified.
Individual Ghanaians were seen planting crops in their backyards as the spirit of ‘can do’ spread countrywide. That was one of the social dividends of the programme. Now it is history and we have relapsed nowhere near regarding food security as a critical national priority.
We have in the subsequent years not found it expedient adopting revolutionary approaches to addressing our challenges, especially in the areas of exploiting our God-given natural and human resources.
We can only come out of our current morass when we develop the unusual spirit of ‘can do’ otherwise most of the efforts we are putting in today would come to naught. Raising millions of dollars in loans which end up in an inexplicable black hole will continue to be a feature of our national life unless the ‘can do’ spirit is adopted with a vengeance.
It is for this reason that we find the alternative concepts being unleashed on Ghanaians by one of the two main political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as novelties worthy of adoption.
It is regrettable that rather than come up with alternative concepts, the NPP’s opponent, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), is rather relishing a ‘cannot be possible’ mantra which is the only response to whatever the other party puts across.
Ghana today needs visionary leaders whose revolutionary concepts are what we need to push the country out of its situation. The ‘can do’ spirit in our estimation is what we need to ensure an all-year round production of farm produce which for now is dependent on an annual rainfall pattern which over the many years is as unreliable as it is unpredictable. For how long must we depend on rainfall fed agriculture when we can float village dams and cottage factories to process some of our farm produce; a large percentage of which rot away on farms.
Those who think these novelties are not feasible are killing the ‘can do’ spirit and this is not what Ghana wants now.
We have tried, as pointed out earlier, various programmes none of which has answered our challenges but for the ‘Operation Feed Yourself’ programme which comes close to the revolutionary one dam one village concept, a ‘can do’ spirit which must be upheld.
The coming years demand novelties which should usher in a new dawn in our productive ventures. The business as usual is about attitude, one of whose features is the unacceptable ‘cannot do’ spirit which should forthwith give way to ‘can do’ otherwise we would be stuck in the whirlpool of underdevelopment. Revolutionary successes have come about as a result of risk-taking.