Backdoor Fixing Tactics

For starters, ‘fix everything now’ is a non-starter. The focus is too broad. I have watched and listened to organisers of the agitation list lack of a long term national development plan by making reference to ‘Vision 2020,’ corruption, dumsɔ, taxes and many other things that they expect to be fixed now. They demand immediate fixing by a government still being formed. The objective of long term Vision 20020 was achieved by President Kufuor’s government in six years.

Currently ongoing with speed projects and schemes should address the issue of employment and other earning opportunities. Education is seeing tremendous strides. Results in that sector don’t manifest short term. But anyone who cares to research would realise that this motherland has survived because of Kwame Nkrumah’s massive investment in education. Results of today’s free SHS would be clear only after years to come. That is fixing, though.

Our recurring complaints of poor roads is a direct result of past governments’ allowing the railway system to collapse. Economies along the railway lines would see a revamp. Businesses would expand and jobs would be created.

Industrialisation, as in the one district one factory strategy, is creating jobs. Seventy-six factories are operational. They don’t have to have constructed with public money. What we should be concerned about is the opening and expanding job avenues.

We wanted self-government now in 1949. We are still not self-governing 72 years later! Possibly, the tactics could have been faulty. For maximum results, it would have helped strategically prioritising to select the doable within the shortest time frame, for attention.

As things are, it should be more effective strategising for the quickest beneficial results. For example, in the area of fighting stealing from public funds, instead of a nebulous fix everything, the group could pick Komenda Sugar factory, Saglemi housing project and dirty oil in 2017 for quick urgent investigation and action.

We all shoot ourselves in the foot if we allow thievery to accumulate and blame one person for it. A game changing campaign is the one that succeeds in getting the anti-thieving of public money mechanisms to work. ‘Facts rarely wilt outrage’

It’s unhelpful to shut eyes over the uncompleted Kufuor affordable houses (abandoned for over 12 years) and shout that people need Saglemi. A crusader would focus on getting the two housing issues fixed within one year. We need fairness to all or we’ll continue to falter.

No one forced the completion of the footbridges along the Madina-Pantang highway from 2009 to 2016, even though in August 2014, Caroline Boateng of Daily Graphic reported 20 deaths on the stretch within six months. When a death occurred after 2016, the government was ‘forced’ to fix it. That was focused action that yielded results.

It would help fix our problems if all of us compatriots, in our individual capacities, should consider doing right where we expect others to do right. We could balance covid contraction risk and government delayed attention to issues of immediate urgency. No one seems to seek to question personal contribution to our motherland building yet many want to question why others are not doing their bit.

It doesn’t make sense asking government to do today what a government of 2009-2016 failed to do with record revenue resources of first-time oil money along with highest ever cocoa and gold earnings. It’s inaccurate to equate today’s conditions to those that prompted kume prɛko. The residuals of military rule, such as a Regional Minister’s bɔ n’asomu instructions to party functionaries, which prevailed at the time, are far far from what pertains today.

Demonstration could be, or lead to, rupture. This motherland, can no longer afford any of the ruptures of a February 24, 1966, January 13, 1972, June 4, 1979 or December 31, 1981. Looking back on their outcomes, not even one of them justifies the pain and troubles my compatriots had to endure. The individuals who initially benefitted but later suffered wouldn’t even approve of them today.

Times are hard, but they are not as hard as in 1995. SHS parents are still breathing relief from unaffordable school fees even if they have to struggle with higher cost of living which is not worse than in 1995. Nkrumah’s progressive education is what has kept the country from collapsing. Besides SHS, there has been massive infusion of funds including large scale recruitment of lecturers and administrators.

COVID times are hard times, but things are hard all over the world. The Constitution people are complaining about isn’t Akufo-Addo’s doing. For once, let’s come together and brave the storm as we wait PATIENTLY for 2024. Let us use all avenues, but the socially convulsive ones, to check stealing of public money. COVID demonstration will compound suffering and not reduce it.

I can see some congresspeople dreading the spectre of losing election 2024 and, therefore, either fully involved in planning a demonstration or egging others on from the sidelines. It’s backdoor tactics. When front door access to the house is weak, you don’t leave it to latch the backdoor to secure your house. It’ll be worse exposure.

Everything said, pressure to fix big things will be less if MMDCEs will fix the little things. Church and drinking spot noise and blocking every little public space by selfish hawkers are constant irritants. They need to be duty conscious grassroots law enforcers by aggressively stopping and preventing the irritants from growing into the demonstration triggering big things.

In covid times, we should endeavour to make demands by using non-demonstration tactics such as writing mass petitions, gathering signatures, and sending text messages. Let’s nudge CHRAJ and NCCE to wake up from their slumber to be proactive and more aggressive.

I don’t know the truth in a nominated Special Prosecutor having benefitted from an Agyapa client he may have to investigate. But we should not repeat an unreal expectation that an attorney-general would retrieve money paid to client Woyome, part of which she had collected as attorney fees.

Truly, what will serve the motherland and her children compatriots is an inclusive campaign ‘Let’sFixOurCountry.’ That calls for a collective action. In February 2015, at age 68, I walked from Legon to Tetteh Quarshie Interchange as part of dumsɔ demo. I will repeat that if the dumsɔ conditions then, were to reappear today. However, if you choose chaos other than what you could achieve in orderliness, you can only blame yourself for your misery and lack of progress.