Welcome to Ghana, President Obama

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

July 10, 2009

Mr. President, I don’t know if a whistle stop visit would be enough for change in Ghana, but if what I heard you say, comparing Kenya and South Korea, is right, then I know we in Ghana have real problems.

This revelation, coming after 50 years of independence, puts us in a quandary.

Ghana was the first to be free in sub-Saharan Africa, thanks to efforts by Nkrumah and others of his generation.

The recent decade of Kufuor, after Rawlings, has brought the most gains in the human rights area.

No one died by public execution under Kufuor.

The socio-political and the economic scenes changed, became more vibrant and we in turn got transformed into more politically matured and ready for good governance in Ghana.

Then the transition happened.  A new administration was put in place in accordance to the result of 2008 election.  And you, Mr President, visited during the maiden year of the new administration.

On a visit to Ghana during yours was the host of VOA’s “Straight Talk Africa,” Sshaka Sallie.  He was interviewed on a Radio Universe’s (Legon University) program on Thursday, July 9, 2009.

“Why all this fuss about Ghana," the interviewer asked.

“Name me one country on the whole continent now that is more advanced than Ghana in democratic dispensation and good governance?” Sallie responded.

The answer must have come as shock to many listeners and probably the interviewer too. 

But Sallie was right. "Not even giants like South Africa and Nigeria are where Ghana is at this moment, politically," he said

And I, a Ghanaian listener, was elated by Sallie's response.

Sallie is from Uganda originally, and I have read “Sowing the Mustard Seed” by President Yowerii Kaguta Museveni, about the struggle for freedom and democracy in Uganda.  Or whatever is left of it since Museveni rule began January 29, 1986, a hefty 23 years ago.

But Mr. President, whatever might have been the case in Uganda or Kenya, Ghana still has many problems left; just as reflected in other nations on the continent. 

The difference, though a matter of degrees, needs to be highlighted.  Painful as it might be, you as the foremost son of Africa this time must do so. 

Now, Mr. President, you arrived in the rainy season in Ghana.

This season is one of water abundance and a noted blessing for Ghana, as good as any that nature gives to any part of the world.  And a fraction of which, when received in a state like California for just one week, would have met an entire year of the state's water needs.

But this water gift in Ghana has become a burden.  It leaves behind disasters when it rains and a lot of water goes to augment the waste of natural resources we register every year.

Then, we are left with the luxury of watching the deluge fall every season and watch it again swept away in floods; delivering death and destructions to many assets on the way - homes, roads, bridges, and the like.

These are the tragic consequences of our rainy seasons, but nobody here seems to care much.

Not our politicians.  For these, the floods provide opportunities to visit disaster-stricken areas for photo-ops, like politicians do on "baby-kissing" campaign trails in America.

Our politicians travel through the same tragedy-filled scenes, following mud-filled roads to carry out their missions of expressive signaling of compassion.

And they ride back on the same mud-filled roads to their homes, filling contented.  A political requirement is accomplished but in reality, nothing is achieved.  The same old road would be there the following year.

As if in anticipation for your visit, President Obama, one road in my area at East Legon, Accra was hurriedly stripped of its patches of bitumen and quickly replaced with a laterite surface, packed tight by a heavy steam roller.

The red laterite compacted clay road turned into a stretch of mud roadway after another rain a few days later after you were gone.

However, before your arrival and the mud episode, we had to suffer from the surface dust raised from the new road. 

Raised dust in the air attacked the environment and lungs with equal viciousness, soon as vehicles on it rolled by.

Outside walls of houses became awash in dirty colors of the laterite roadway.  Delicate machines like computers were not spared the bite of the excessive dust.

Again, Honorable Obama, you may not know it, but everybody here is named honorable; the only expression for respect craved by our not so honorable class of politicians.

But for the disasters and the incompetence of our political class, I would have loved the honorific title for you too.  However, your presence here made me feel at once the difference and emptiness of the sobriquet as is used here.

I have yearned for your visit, like the cathartic feel I had for the rains each after the excessive dust, when things become clean.  Vegetation gets washed and freed of the dust that could have forced every plant to die soon enough. 

I would hope a similar cleansing effect from the rains would happen to our national affairs here.

Before coming here, Mr. President, (I couldn't use the honorable sobriquet) you had a conference with your G8 partners on how to lower global warming a notch or two. 

For us, just the elimination of dust raised on our bad roads and making better use of the abundant rains we receive could make better sense out of the global warmth taming effort.

Given that many autos on our roads ride on used tires, with hardly a tread left on them, you can understand how easily lives can be saved on the rain-engineered mud-slides on our roads.

Thankfully, there was no significant rain during your entire visit.  But our petrol stations ran out of gas even before your arrival. 

The reason for the gas shortage was because TOR, our national processor of petroleum products, decided to shut down for heavy maintenance,

At the very time you were airborne in your presidential plane, a plane that consumed 6000 gallons of gas an hour, our entire nation was out of gas.

The heavy repairs at TOR were an excuse raised by our authorities and the media.  It just didn't happen that some machines asked to be obeyed.  The real reasons could be something else – neglect or incompetence.

The idea of having enough petroleum for the year in our strategic reserve had never occurred to the administration nor questioned by the media. For them, it was enough to keep the news from you.  But I guessed you knew.  Your CIA would not be that idle.

What the CIA would have missed was a particular line formed at one of the many pumps rationing gas in the city of Accra.

I was in one such line for about an hour waiting for fuel, when a policeman with an AK47 drove up, with three taxi cabs in tow.

At the order of the policeman, one of the taxis jumped the queue. I went to investigate only to learn from the policeman, with a gun and no name patch on his chest, that the three cars belonged to him.  How this justified the jump he did not say. 

But I got the message.  His sense of power as a police officer said it all.

In a sense, Mr. President, these are some of the mirror images of the problems of our society and in our democracy; the abuse and irrational consumption of power and privilege.

I think Mr. President, the best gift you could leave us will be to ask our “honorables” to tone down the abuses of power and privilege.  It would be a quick route to grow our democracy.

Just a tad push from you, as a true son of Africa, Mr. President, and our democracy will be alright.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, July 10, 2009

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