Young People In Ghana Must Approach The November Elections As Thinking Beings - Not Blinkered Zombie-Voters

Whiles alive, a dear childhood friend of mine - who passed away a few months ago - and I, shared an aversion for negative types, particularly those from Ghana's political world.

For a number of those of us, who have little or no formal education, and are largely self-taught,  a problem or disaster, is always a golden opportunity to find innovative solutions, for the common good.

That is why it never ceases to amaze me that so many Ghanaian politicians are unable to see the many positive attributes of our country and its long-suffering people.

Yes, there are many irritating and dispiriting things about our system - but that notwithstanding, manufacturing giants like Kasapreko, and world-class universities like Aseshi University, still evolved  in Ghana, did they not?

Their persevering founders did not allow the frustrations in our dysfunctional system to stop them from going ahead to execute their ideas.

And, despite the ongoing attempts at sabotaging the nation-building effort (which started as far back as January 2009, incidentally), by the block-headed self-seekers, who have succeeded in infiltrating some of Ghana's largest political parties, the economy has expanded by leaps and bounds - compared to what it was in 2008.

And that expansion of our national economy has occurred despite the  difficulties the world experienced in the wake of the global financial crisis  between 2007 and 2008,  and the drop in commodity prices resulting from the slowing down of the global economy in the recent past.

The fact of the matter, is that  what deprivation there still is in rural Ghana, and the poorer parts of urban Ghana,  exist mostly because when it comes to the crunch, our system more or less forces District Chief Executives (DCE) to toady to the Presidents who appoint them - instead of responding to the needs of local people when it matters most.

To end that pure nonsense on bamboo stilts. in our nation's politics, young people must demand that Ghanaian politicians and political parties should find a less cumbersome way to enable local people to elect DCEs, from candidates presented to them by political parties, as soon as practicable - instead of having to wait for God knows when our sly vampire-elites will condescend to allow a referendum, to secure a constitutional amendment, which will bring that desperately-needed positive change, about.

Will it not deepen the roots of Ghanaian democracy, yet further, if local people elect their own DCEs, I ask?

If political parties and politicians claim that the "Battle is the Lord's," then discerning young Ghanaians ought to remind such politicians that they must never forget that tolerance, fairness,  principle and ethical behaviour - in private and in public -  are on top of the list of the Lord's approved weapons of choice in all such battles.

Patriotic young people who love Mother Ghana, ought to point it out to Ghanaian politicians that  in all such "battles," victory will always elude those armies whose rules of engagement, are not consistent with the spiritual equivalent, of the Geneva Conventions regulating the conduct of soldiers during wars.

So such God-fearing politicians must not be surprised, when they lose elections that the rest of the world assumes they will win hands down. God's name must never be taken in vain. It always has serious consequences - surprising though that might be to some of them. Hmm, Ghana - eyeasem o. Asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.

Young Ghanaians must demand that the sabotaging of the nation-building effort ceases henceforth - for it is ordinary people in the bottom strata of Ghanaian society, not our well-heeled educated urban-elites, who bear the brunt of its terrible consequences. Enough is enough. Haaba.

The brightest and best amongst Ghana's younger generation who are prospering from the new opportunities created by the economic expansion that has taken place,  are so inspiring. They are our nation's future. Definitely.

They are not sitting down moping about the lack of jobs in our national economy. They are crowdfunding their projects online at websites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter. And those with the requisite skills are earning money doing digital work online: and earning a decent living from that.

Young Ghanaians must not allow negative politicians and doomsayers in Ghana to discourage them from dreaming.

They must use lateral thinking to actualise their dreams. The world literally is their oyster.

For the honest, principled and hardworking ones amongst them, the internet has many possibilities for networking and open-source collaboration to implement their projects.

Above all, they must take their destinies into their own hands, by approaching the November elections as thinking beings who are independent-minded.

The bottom line in every calculation they ought to make about Ghana's future, is that apparently this is a nation that has a combined external and domestic public debt of over U.S.$30 billion (if we are to believe those opposition politicians who say so, that is).

It is also a nation which spends the bulk of its tax revenues paying nearly 600,000 mostly-unproductive public-sector employees - many of whom incidentally wouldn't last five minutes in the private sector because of their low levels of productivity and their egregious negativity.

If the plain truth, is that between debt-servicing, and the payments of salaries to public-sector employees, there is very little left over to fund the development of our country with, then young generation Ghanaians would be wise to demand that all those who seek their votes, and make endless promises to Ghanaians for that reason, should tell them precisely where they will find the money to pay for their promises - without piling on yet more debt and imposing yet more taxes on an already overburdened people: many of whom struggle daily to survive.

Any political party or politician unable to outline clearly a workable plan to reduce our nation's large public debt, whiles inducing GDP growth at the same time,  is simply not worth voting for. Period. Such politicians and political parties should never be taken seriously by any discerning and independent-minded Ghanaian citizen.

Neither are politicians who refuse to voluntarily publish their assets, and those of their spouses, worth bothering about too - especially if they talk endlessly about halting high-level corruption in Ghana: yet refuse to publicly publish such assets.

Ditto political parties that refuse to publicly publish all their sources of funding. What exactly have they got to hide from Ghanaians, which makes them so reluctant to publicly publish their sources of funding, I ask?

And since the preservation of what is left of our natural heritage, is a prerequisite for ensuring a reasonably good quality of life for all Ghanaians, young Ghanaians must ask politicians to outline their policies for preserving the remainder of our forests and protecting our soils, rivers and other water bodies from being poisoned by the chemicals and heavy metals, used so indiscriminately by illegal gold miners, across the nation.

Ditto ask politicians to outline their policies to ensure food security for our people and to protect Ghana's food sovereignty. They must favour politicians who reject GMOs in Ghana. And, at a time of global climate change, the future of Ghanaian agriculture will be secured by empowering smallholder farmers to farm organically.

Large-scale commercial farming utilising tonnes of poisonous chemicals to produce food is a dead-end solution - and a fool's-gold-pipe-dream that will only end up throwing billions of cedis into the financial equivalent of a massive sinkhole that will leave us dependent on food imports for decades to come.

Only intellectually-lazy politicians and political parties in hock to the vested interests selling poisonous agricultural inputs banned elsewhere, here, and importers and
dealers who sell tractors and other mechanised agricultural machinery, and sundry equipment, will benefit from this massive mistake of a so-called  agricultural policy.

Young people in Ghana who are concerned about their future, ought to see themselves as indepedent-minded voters, who seek honest and patriotic leaders, who can create the necessary conditions that will make them prosper individually.

Such prosperity in Ghana will result  from the impact on the real economy, of  governments of the day, implementing creative and business-friendly policies - whiles at the same time creating a fairer society in Ghana  with robust social safety-nets for the vulnerable, to prevent future social explosions like the Arab Spring, from occuring in Ghana.

What all independent-minded and patriotic Ghanaians who love Mother Ghana, ought to aim for, is to contribute to the transformation of our homeland Ghana into an African equivalent, of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia - not the reimposition of the precolonial feudal system on Ghanaians by stealth, for the personal aggrandisement of the favourites of politicians, amongst traditional rulers in Ghana.

What Ghana actually needs is meritocracy - the greatest enemy of inherited privelage. We do not need a revival of the past glories of the pre-colonial feudal entities, just so a few traditional rulers with overblown ideas about themselves, can fantasise that they are the absolute rulers of soveriegn states, within the unitary Republic of Ghana - a nation of diverse-ethnicity in which no tribe is inferior or superior to another. It is all so tiresome - that antediluvian pure nonsense on bamboo stilts.

That is why younger generation Ghanaians should not allow themselves to be tricked by sly and super-ruthless politicians into becoming blinkered zombie-voters whose motto is: My party, my tribe, right or wrong!" They must never forget that they are thinking beings who will help secure Ghana's future by voting wisely with their heads, not their hearts. They must never become zombie-voters. Ever.