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Opinions of Sunday, 13 September 2020

Columnist: Abdul Salam Mohammed

The African problem is attitudinal

Abdul Salam Mohammed Abdul Salam Mohammed

This “hope” we have in the new generation is something I’m beginning to doubt. The whole charade of greed, and political decay scourging our continent and motherland is cyclical.

There’s this research I chanced on, it talks about the Ghanaian youth and corruption. The alarming finding is that, the average Ghanaian youth has a tendency to cheat, steal and bend the rules if power is given to him or her.

The reason is that, they are nurtured in an environment where ethnicity, tribalism and political fraternity overrides all sense of life; competence, experience, intelligence and skills.

In advanced democracies like The United Kingdom, USA, Germany and Switzerland they demand competitive advantage from potential employees in terms of experience, unique skills, intelligence and integrity, but we on the other side of this world demand a rather seemingly idiotic and foolish things like “who sent you?”, “do you have protocol?”, where are you from?

These questions have absolutely nothing to do with the person’s ability to do what’s right or the job. It’s a cancer shredding the hearts of men who have sold their conscience for only God knows what.

We are shaped by our society, the average Ghanaian or African growing up here sees and hears everything, it takes a sharp turn of anger and frustration into revolutionary thinking to be able to escape the nemesis of corruption and political decay plagued this continent.

Unless we change our attitudes, nothing will change. We can rid off the old folks in all of Africa, their political sons and godsons will rule us in ways more catastrophic than before.

This fight is beyond me or you or them, or a section of self acclaimed “woke” individuals. It’s all binding on everyone with a conscience. You can’t infiltrate a lions den, they’ll smoke you out, we can only hope to become lions, so lets all become lions.