President Mahama said on BBC today that if you are the captain of the ship, you can see further and you can see that you are on course. Unfortunately those who died on the Italian ship Costa Concordia believed that the captain knew that they were on course until they died. Like those who died on the Costa Concordia, many Ghanaians died for many reasons including poor health services and lack of food believing that we are on course. We who are left behind will be foolish to believe that the captain can actually see that we are on course.

We have been on course for far too many years. When Acheampong had his “operation feed yourself”, I am sure he believed that we were on course. Leader after leader has told us that he has the panacea for our ailment. No panacea has ailed us so far. How many years of this should we endure?

The fact is that Ghana has been import dependent since independence. Kwame Nkrumah knew that. Every President or Prime Minister since Kwame Nkrumah should know or should have known it. You don’t come in the job earnest to solve the country’s problems without a plan to solve this problem. Why should we, at this time, listen to them complain that we are import dependent when we have known that? What we want is someone who will come with answers. So far no one has.

If we are suffering today because we are import dependent, so must we. We spend more time insulting NPP if we are NDC or insulting NDC if we are NPP. If we are NDC, we don’t spend the time asking those running for NDC nomination how they will solve our import dependency problem; and if we are NPP, we don’t spend the time asking those running for the NPP nomination how they will solve our import dependency problem.

Our politicians have gotten by, by just telling us, “We must do this; we must do that” without telling us how we will do it. I can hear it now, “We must reduce our dependency on imported goods”; “We must create jobs”; “We build schools”. It is so easy to tell people what they know. Why can’t we demand of them to tell us how? They are at it again. 2016 is around the corner. We must; we must. We will buy it and vote for them, and then they will try to tell us again what we must do rather than doing something because they got by the first time with the same old line, why not this time. If they are not telling us what we must do, they are telling us that they can see prosperity ahead. Acheampong saw it; Busia saw it; Rawlings went even further patting himself on the back saying he has delivered us. Yet today Mahama sees the way ahead: We are on course. Thank you Captain. If you are riding in Costa Concordia, your ride can’t be but smooth. Good night.

Tony Pobee-Mensah

tpmensahr@yahoo.com