CHRIS-VINCENT Writes: GHANA | We Are A Nation of ‘IDIOTS’ Who Spend Time & Money to Celebrate Power Barges

Ghana has had too many embarrassing periods that counting them would be both metaphorically and literally impossible—but this particular one does not only ridicule the nation but it makes a statement about the intellect and integrity of every Ghanaian out there.

We behave as if out of a cosmic mistake, we time traveled from the Palaeolithic era, escaping the era of enlightenment into a century of abundance knowledge which we cannot contend with.

For God knows how long, Ghana has been facing an unbearable power crisis and each time a government has to deal with this: it does it the same—provide a temporal solution to score electoral points and in so doing, make the long term projection of the problem worse by over-working the power infrastructure.

Ironically, this seems to work because the politicians are able to get the votes they want from the citizens by just doing this—and as such, the real problem is never tackled.

It would be unfair, somewhat hypocritical of me to indict President Mahama’s led NDC government alone for employing a temporal solution to such a serious problem—because, the Kufuor administration did the same and based on our conception of politics, whatever government we put in power would do exactly this.

However, President Mahama’s led NDC government has added a different layer to the consistently served hogwash when it comes to Ghana’s power crisis.

He has decided to unequivocally tell the whole world that; We Are A Nation of IDIOTS—by throwing a media covered birthday party for a huge generator his administration obtained from Turkey, for his version of the temporal fix to Ghana’s electricity problem, locally and ‘affectionately’ called-Dumsor.

It wouldn’t perhaps be that much of a ridicule if it was only the President and his stooges who are in agreement of this—because we could have argued that, that’s them and not us.

However, since politics in Ghana takes the shape of religion—a large percentage of Ghanaians, supporters of Mahama’s NDC government seem to be in support of the christening of Ghana’s Power Barges which took place at Tema. A quick run-through of the various social media comments confirms this.

The Inaugural ceremony was given a nationwide TV coverage, at the expense of the ordinary citizen—and we are told, when it finally starts working, the President will commission it; another ceremony.

On a smaller scale, this is like throwing a party which starts with prayers when you borrowed a phone from a friend to use temporally—the last known idiot who died hanging himself to see if people actually died through hanging would not even do this. But here we are, doing it or allowing it to happen.

Ghana has become a dry joke and we create the humour ourselves—mostly, with our voted and appointed leaders being the architects of the shame.

It’s not that we have a lot of time on our hands or we have so much money to waste, the truth is; we just don’t know our left from our right—and because we continue to vote into power those who take interest in scoring political points instead of living behind reputable legacies, such puerile conducts will always stay with us.