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Opinions of Saturday, 18 February 2012

Columnist: Owusu-Gyamfi, Clifford

Thinking differently, Ghana's future Hope!

National development is what we care when talking about politics. It isn't mere heritage of ideas but ideas in action.

It is a fact that Ghana politics as it stands today is a hunch of problem. Insults, greed, corruption, misplaced priorities, neglect of citizens' right, abuse of power, survival of the fittest, neglect of duty, etc. are dunked up in the system. The result is collapse of socio-economic structures and vicious indebtedness.

In such a horrific crisis like this, it calls for courageous and visionary youths to gird their talents up to take quick measures to fix the problem before it takes root as a citizenry tag. One pragmatic measure to save the situation is giving the right educate the populace.

Education here is not that which makes one a professional carrier of some kind of lucrative enterprise. But an eye opener form of education that makes one think otherwise. Education that frees the conscience from the old order to what is considered right order. Education that which makes a person thinks different even though he might be wrong. Education that makes a person hold on to what is right without selling his or her conscience for GHC or USD. That which makes an individual vulnerable to his or her own weakness other than being vulnerable to other man's greed.

When I sat down to reflect on this, the inspiring words of Ellen G. White in 1915 came to my mind, ?The greatest want of the world is the want of men ? men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.?

These words encapsulate in a single idea, ?The want of sincere men and women.? We may want to build strong institutions, it calls for sincere men and women. We may want to stop corruption, it calls for sincere men and women. We may want a better education for our children, it calls for sincere men and women. We may want to build our own technologies, it calls for sincere men and women. We may want to manage our own resources, it calls for sincere men and women.

If peradventure in the educational life of a person he fails to gain this holistic tactical education, then he has failed a hundred times already. It might be to him like a knife in his intestines.

If we all really care for our country, then we must be the kind of man. It may be easy to identify a problem and how easy to forget about the same problem when the power falls into our court. And this when the sincere man and woman come in. The sincere man and woman whose objective in life is not financial security, though important, but first and foremost, the welfare of his or her fellows, which is important as in the lunette of ?Love your neighbor as yourself.?

We need sincere men and women in politics now. I have always wondered why some politicians spend time in give and take whiles neglecting immediate duty? This is not the time to hit back to punches. It is time to turn the other cheek and walk away to a new direction. A direction towards future hope; dreaming right things and doing the right things to attain a utilitarian good. Aren't you ashamed being branded as a bad guy?