… We always ought to remember that on all the several ‘roads of life’, where we meet the people who help us reach our various ‘destinations in life’ how we turn up finally are not determined by the beauty of location or how we are dressed or who our parents are or where we come from, especially as times and opportunities are available to us all…what makes the difference has everything to do with our attitudes and sense of humility…
… You know, Elisha had no inkling that the happenstance was part of his anointing process as another prophet to succeed Elijah….he just followed him as his SERVANT….noting that it did not matter all his degrees of modern education if he was living in modern settings…than to become a ‘servant’ to the prophet…to follow wherever he went and to ‘serve’ him as in ‘attend to the needs of another’ or ‘be a servant to’ or ‘serve under the instructions of another’…
… You know, Elisha was not selected by a political party or society or club or elected in all of Israel to become a ‘servant of Elijah’…except that he was ‘predestined for greatness’ before the foundations of the earth were laid and for as long as he served under the tutelage of another, Elijah….
… You know, most of us have missed the ‘roads’ to our greatness in life because when the opportunity presented itself, we thought we were more intelligent than our perceived ‘master’; how can we serve such a person considering his or her tribe, parents, standard of education or outright illiterate or not a-been-to…
… The ‘Elisha Spirit’ is available for us all to do exploits far greater than ‘Elijahs’ of this world….only if we accept to serve and do menial work that sometimes people of the world would consider or think it unbecoming of who we are and our education and family background and schools we attended and how rich our parents are…but for his HUMILITY, a weapon which we should all learn how to apply same in our walk here on this earth… we should imbibe this spirit of ‘humility’ in all senses of the word…as well as become it so that we can rule this world …
… This humility is akin to ‘meekness’, a humble, submissive spirit; suffering injury tamely on behalf of the general good; piously gentle in nature…such spirited people go far in any field of endeavour you place them or they find themselves as a matter of course or by mistake…
… We need to appreciate and understand that the greatest amongst us will always be the ‘servant’ amongst many, who is ready to put his life down so that the rest of us would prosper and survive… this is the type of person, an ‘Elisha’ is what we need as the ‘New Ghanaian’,…he or she should be ready to serve and learn from the forebears, the ‘EDIKANFO’ and not for a moment harbour the thought that because of his or her education laurels, he or she should be carried in a palanquin…
… We need to teach our children not to boost on the laurels of our fathers or mothers or uncles or forebears, thinking the rest of us owe them for who their parents or relatives or college-mates or classmates are or were, and especially where if you strip them of these relationships, they are nothing than deadwoods or nonentities… by themselves, they cannot boast of anything else than their abject, miserable, wretched, self-abasing, despicable failures…and worse, demanding of us to carry them on our backs…
… We ought to be mindful of the fact, what faces us as a nation and a people is tantamount to a ‘CROSSROADS’, requiring a new kind of selfless leadership, ready to place the interest of the nation and her people first than family and friends… we need a new kind of leadership who has served as an ‘ELISHA’ to understand and appreciate the needs, hurts, anxieties, or wants in all aspects of national discourses… definitely, not the type whose primary concern is how to benefit or profit from the woes and needs of the people… refusing to understand what ‘CONFLICT OF INTEREST’ means in the ordinary understanding of the word and yet appear as pious, sanctimonious, hypocritically virtuous or deception with the intention to benefit those being deceived as in pious fraud…
… We definitely have a ‘New Ghana’ to build going forward, a ‘new’ nation of equal opportunities for all irrespective of who our descendants or parents are…knowing that it doesn’t matter where you are born and which village you come from, you are equally predestined as another ‘Elisha’…serving as an apprentice, a servant or an attendant…
… Years back, we all thought the political landscape was the best place for a ‘School of Elisha’, where young students could learn the art and science of ‘APPRENTICESHIP’ not only towards a service for the nation but from the community, village, town, or city or political party; and that for as long as one stays the course, equal opportunities will open for us all or to each, irrespective of parentage…and yet over sixty years since Ghana’s Independence, we are still grappling with basic definition or tenets of nationhood….’DID WE GO, OR DID WE COME?’…
… Truth be told, our political leadership has failed us and why we need a new ‘Ghanaian’, a new ‘Ghana’ and a new mentality or mindset…to rebuild this nation and change the way we all see national politics…
… We cannot fail ourselves or much more those who have gone ahead of us, but surely not the supposed ‘FOUNDERS’, especially when their bankroller had been relegated to the ‘dustbins of history’…we need a ‘NEW’ Ghana, a ‘NEW’ Ghanaian and a ‘NEW type or style of leadership’ who will understand, appreciate and live by the life of ‘ELISHA’ and where all those who have gone before us as ‘true martyrs’ will all be celebrated equally and not the ‘divide-and-rule’ style…
… When the rain falls or the sun shines, they do not fall or shine on only the supporters and or sympathisers of the New Patriotic Party because they are in power in now (2017 – 2024) to the disadvantage of the supporters of all the other parties or bystanders, but we all benefit or suffer by their performances – this is a real lesson for us all.
BY Magnus Naabe Rex Danquah, the ‘Ghanaian’