GHANA: A Desperate Struggling Country Attempting to Steal the Success of Two Musical Hustlers-Reggie and Bollie

The hustling and self-belief of Reggie n Bollie, the two X-Factor contestants who have excitedly made it to the finals have paid off—it takes a lot of guts and confidence to jump from ‘British Got Talent’ to the finals of ‘X-Factor’, especially when you failed to make it past the audition stage at the former.

Reggie n Bollie’s success story is grounded in perseverance and the ability to hold onto your dreams when everyone has forgotten about you—that’s what real hustlers do.

It’s great and somewhat inspiring to see these ambitious young men from Ghana having excelled this much at a global stage but we should not in anyway substitute their individual struggles for a national victory.

Soon, a political party would add Reggie n Bollie’s success story to their 2016 campaign, saying, it was under their leadership that two Ghanaians made it to UK’s X-factor’s finals. This is not beyond the confines of the ‘deranged’ political landscape in Ghana—we all know what our people are capable of doing.

Reggie Zippy and Bollie have struggled as solo artistes in Ghana—the nation could not cushion their talents or dreams in any substantive way so they were ‘forced’ to relocate to the UK in search of a better life for themselves and their families.

Now, it seems the better life has finally shown it face—and shocking, the same country that failed them on many levels, that could not support their individual musical careers as much as they needed has jumped to their neck, attempting to claim the little shine and glory coming their way.

Of course several Ghanaians around the world have supported Reggie n Bollie through their X-Factor journey, but those who have made them who they are today are the Brits, not the Ghanaians—or Ghana.

Yet, a portion of the social media space is making a fraudulent claim; sort of desperately trying to attribute the individual hard work ‘Reggie n Bollie’ have done to Ghana—saying, ‘Ghana is flying high’ and ‘Ghana is gloriously achieving’ among others. They are the not the Black stars; sponsored and hugely paid any appearance fees for their efforts.

Undeniably, the success of Reggie n Bollie is stimulating and every person around the world can learn a thing or two from it—including Ghanaians. But that’s where it ends, Ghana did nothing to make this happen and Ghana cannot in anyway be part of the story, except to say they are Ghanaians.

And on being Ghanaians, I am confident with time they will become British citizens, if they are not already one—because, it’s Britain that offered them a challenging opportunity to become what we see today.

There are several talents, much better ones still in Ghana and therefore if Ghana honestly wants to make an impact and take a deserving glory for it—it should invest in the creative arts sector, take it serious and provide numerous opportunities for these young men and women to make something for themselves.

That way, we can attribute the success to Ghana as the country that made it happen—for now, it’s not the business of Ghana, but Reggie n Bollie’s success story, made possible by the UK.

Let me add that, per X-Factor’s rules, only UK viewers are allowed to vote despite a loophole having been earlier found in the X-factor app voting system which could be manipulated by people abroad to vote. Even that, these votes are easily weeded out.

Therefore, where did the real Ghana support come in—considering the fact that the voters who sent these two men through are UK based, majorly non-Ghanaians?