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Discuss,
and Learn About the World
Discuss,
and Learn About the World
A day in May 2009, the US president and his vice president make a burger run to the delight of the American public who obviously
Nigeria’s economy soon went on the decline and casualties included immigrants including Ghanaians. Today, fortunes are reversed and Nigerians are leaving their homeland for anywhere, including Ghana.
It was bad before it started to get better for Ghana. There was a “house cleaning” in 1979 led by a young military officer, Jerry Rawlings.
West African Nation Wins FIFA Under 20 Championship for the First Time
Ghana’s story is actually a positive illustration of the chickens coming home to roost - the exact same way that the chickens eventually come home to roost in a bad way for countries with successively bad governments.
Ghana’s young lads had gotten more and more confident as the tournament in Egypt progressed. They eventually qualified to play in the championship game against soccer world super-power, Brazil. Things looked bad when Ghana went down a man but the coach Sellas Tetteh and his crew made the necessary adjustment to contain Brazil and keep the game scoreless.
The game went to penalty shootout and in a sequence that one might say reflected divine favor since Brazil had the chance to take the game on their last kick, Ghana took the game on their last kick!
The bigger perspective, folks, is how we got here.
In the late 70s to early 80s, impoverished well-educated Ghanaians were streaming to foreign countries. A lot of them came to Nigeria for all sorts of jobs including teaching and even street hawking. This should be no big deal in light of the fact that Nigeria truly had the resources to be to all black people what the USA is to the whites (quoting Nigeria’s late Obafemi Awolowo). But that is only if the government were administered by non-rascals.
However, that’s hardly ever been the case in the history of Nigeria. The intellectual dregs of the society have been entrenched in government.
The inherent corruption in government was stemmed. A lot of money was recouped from government officials. Many were killed and Ghana eventually put in place a structure of government that could sanely be built
Good fortunes seem to be coming Ghana’s way these days! So might say those who haven’t been particularly observant.
President Obama opted to visit Ghana in acknowledgement of the country’s genuine efforts to entrench democracy and uproot corruption.
upon.
While Ghana a few years ago celebrated ten years of no power outage, Nigerians continue to see electricity as a scarce commodity.
The longer Nigeria’s “house cleaning” waits, the messier it is wont to be.
Bolaji - Oct. 17, 2009
Jerry Rawlings
