Right Rev. Prof. Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante
Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Right Rev. Prof. Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante has waded into the #FixTheCountry trend on social media, telling campaigners who take delight to unwarrantedly attack government to fix their attitude.
According to him, Ghanaians should learn to desist from engaging in unnecessary lamentation and learn to change their attitudes to make the environment they find themselves better since government cannot do it alone.
Some Ghanaians have expressed their disappointment in the government and have channeled their anger and frustrations on their social media handles.
While some are demanding better Ghana and developmental projects, others have been making unachievable requests from government, with some subtly calling for change of government.
However, Rt. Rev. Mante who appears to have observed the trend is advising the social media commentators to learn to fix their mouth and get job doing to change Ghana.
According to him, it is easy for people to sit on social media and make unnecessary lamentation when they have no idea how things work.
“Martin Luther King Junior once said anyone who is not committed to something is not fit to live. It is always easier to sit on the fence and talk and criticise. These days there is social media and people will just turn to social media. They are just sitting there, they won’t work saying fix the country, fix the church, fix the family but the only thing they will not fix is their mouth,” Rt. Rev. Mante said when speaking at the 38th Annual Delegates Conference of the Presbyterian Church.
The Presbyterian Moderator called for what he term as ‘hybrid system’ of governance which is fusing both capitalism and socialism in order to bring the citizens onboard in governing the country.
“I will tell you something. Seriously I will tell you this. There are different ways of organsing a country. One is the socialist system and the other is the capitalist system. In the socialist system, they give all the authority to government and government alone must fix it. In the capitalist system, every individual have their own authority to do their thing. In a third world like Africa, the best system for us is to have the hybrid, a bit of this and a bit of that. So no government can fix the country alone, it will not happen, people must get up and work and stop being lazy and work.”
Whilst taking on the youth on their attitude, Rev. Mante did not mince words in telling government to invest the taxes of citizens in developing the nation.
He advised Ghanaians to take their destiny into their hands and desist from thinking that there is a political party which can help make the country better.
“On the other hand, government cannot sit there and take our taxes and chop the money, they must use the money to fix the country better. We need the hybrid, we need both but one thing I don’t want it to happen is for young men and women in this country to sit and think that there is a government somewhere, there is a party somewhere they can come and fix everything, it is not true. It is a lie.
“We must fix wherever we are, we must fix our environment and get job doing and yet having said that in the other hand, if you are taking purse of the whole country like you are taking our income tax. Use it to make the country better. We need both.
We need people who will fix their mind and the heart, people who will fix their attitude, we need government too that will help fix the country and when the two come together Ghana will become a better place and I pray that it shall be so,” he explained.
He was of the view that Ghanaians will continue to suffer when all they do is to sit on social media and lament over everything without getting involve in the development of the country, saying “And somebody must blow the whistle that we need to change stop lamenting. We will continue to suffer if we don’t stop unnecessary lamentation. Too many complain will make you sick.”
By Vincent Kubi