The hypocrisy of the citizen

A taxi driver (in the shot) rolled down his glass and indiscriminately disposed rubbish into the drainage system constructed for domestic, rainstorm and probably mini-industrial liquid waste along the Sakora to Adenta main road.

When questioned, he responded with impunity that he pays tax.

We are a country made up of good people as well as a bunch of hypocrites. The latter are so quick to chastise governments and level all blames on leaders without appreciating the role the citizenry have also played over the years to cause our relatively slower development as compared to the likes of Rwanda, Malaysia and Singapore. I am tempted to believe we are as worse as our leaders and the earlier we accept that and change too, the better. We tend to be oblivious of the fact that our leaders are a reflection of ourselves. Our attitudes in general as a country, is nothing to write home about, yet we fictitiously act like we are better than our leaders, and given the onus would do better. Whenever I hear people say "our leaders have failed us", I ask myself, if the citizens have been any better in our own corner?

Citizens drop plastic waste in drainages till they are choked and when it rains, and the whole place gets flooded, the citizen then comes to shift the blame on leaders. Plastic bins were placed at strategic places in a suburb of Accra and the next day, citizens had stolen all the bins and were using them to store water in their homes. We are equally as irresponsible as the leaders we point fingers at.

We have spoilt public and civil servants with bribes in the name of tips and yet, we come out to say they are corrupt forgetting that the “taker” exists because there is a “giver”. A private car won't stop for a trotro to enter, a trotro won't be disciplined on the road, the pedestrian will ignore the footbridge and cross from anywhere and to add insult to injury, they will cross while on phone. Drivers over speed and make unnecessary over-takings on our roads and when lives are lost, blames will be levelled at leaders.

What is the way forward? Let's renew our minds and accept responsibility too. Let's see development as a multi-stakeholder effort. Let's join forces together with governments and leaders and move our country forward. Development in democracy doesn't come easy and swiftly. It's the price we pay for choosing peace and democracy. Rwanda is developing at a faster rate not because they have a magician as leader. It is the dynamics of their politics and the citizenry collaboration. Even that, go into their records and see what happened to press freedom and the alleged disappearance of journalists and the imprisonment of officials of the opposition and critics of government.

In Ghana, if you attempt to relocate a group of market women selling at unauthorized settings, the opposition party will assure them of restoration when voted into power.

Our politics doesn't even allow governments to work dispassionately for fear of losing elections. Successive Governments have struggled in the fight against “galamsey” because opposition parties have promised a more flexible approach when voted for. The moment a political opponent tries to capitalise on a policy, its implementation becomes problematic. A chief example is the banking sector clean-up.

All these dynamics make development very slow because if you try to strictly enforce the law, you will be voted out of power by these same citizens, who will still come out to accuse leaders for being the cause of our problems, when technically it is citizens that have made our leaders ineffective. It is you and I that have made our leaders irresponsible. So, the next time you point figures at leaders to create the impression that they are the only culprits for our predicament, subject yourself to an attitudinal check.