By Eric Bawah

The Akans say if you continue to cover your sore, no matter how hard you try, you cannot heal it. So you have to uncover the sore once in a while and apply harsh remedies.

When I was growing up in my holy village, the commonest disease was Malaria Fever. In those days we had no any other remedy to cure the disease but liquid quinine. This medicine was so bitter that if you gave it to a child and tried giving him another dose the following day, the whole neighbors will hear his cry. As I was growing up, I realized that curative medicines are often bitter.

I must admit that I do not envy the President and his Veep at all because they carry a very heavy load on their shoulders. In fact, they knew from day one that the load they were going to carry would be very heavy but for service to God and mankind they chose to carry the load. Today, the world seems to be on the shoulders of the two gentlemen. I am an optimist and I pin my hopes on their experiences.

Mr. John Mahama and his NDC nation wreckers and looters took eight years to spoil everything and President Nana Akufo Addo and Dr. Bawumia will have to take barely four years to fix it. And they will fix it, Insha Allah!

The road to fixing the shattered economy is laden with thorns and as such the duo will have to tread cautiously as they hasten slowly. Undoubtedly, it is easy to destroy than to build. I am very optimistic that the job can be done because while President Nana Akufo Addo understands the mechanism of decision making, both hidden and overt, Vice President Dr. Bawumia understands the nitty-gritty of economics and financial matters. With their able and tested cabinet ministers, no one can convince me that they will fail.

Anyway, failure is not an option because all what Ghanaians are looking for is nothing but success. You see, determination combined with opportunity and intelligence can make things happen. Now that the president has surrounded himself with such a competent team, it is the mark of a strong leader. As for criticism, the NDC apparatchiks will go all out to criticize anything the president will do but the president should choose to ignore them because he will do better if he chooses to ignore them.

There is always a bright magic at work when a leader picks the baton and finds another great leader waiting to guide him. President Akufo Addo is a lucky man because Kufour is alive and kicking and he will surely guide his footsteps. And come to think of this: Mr. Rawlings too is alive and kicking and at good terms with President Akufo Addo.

I know Nana Addo will never hesitate to run to the two distinguished statesmen for pieces of advice when the going becomes tough for him. Former President John Mahama did not get that chance because he surrounded himself with bootlickers and people whose main interest was to loot the state coffers.

Thankfully, both President Akufo Addo and Vice President Bawumia believe people are a mass to be shaped and formed for their own good and best interest. All these qualities manifested themselves during the electioneering campaign. Look at the way Vice President Bawumia. started his job. The man will pay unannounced visits to departments and interact with the heads there and leave quietly. No bullying, no threat.

What these gentlemen need most is courage. President Akufo Addo told the nation immediately he was sworn into power that the state of the economy as he saw now is worse than what he envisaged in the run-up to the 2016 electioneering campaign.

It was this iconic World War II military officer called General George Patton who once said: “courage is fear holding on a minute longer.” If your father dies and leaves behind huge debt and you are the one who inherited him, you will, by all means, fear because you will begin to wonder how you are going to pay the debt.

But if you hold on a minute longer you will realise that there is nothing you can do but to put your shoulders to the wheels and move the waggon forward.

Today, Ghana is a country awakened to danger. If you should ask where danger means what, you may as well ask what is the state of the economy? We all seem to agree that the economy is in shambles. The Cedi cannot withstand international shock. Corruption has been institutionalised by the previous regime and investors have lost hope because of high utility tariffs.

Unemployment has hit the rooftop. Ghanaians have seen difficult times before like the 1983 famine which nearly brought the country to her knees but what happened to Ghanaians during the eight-year rule of the NDC is unsurpassed and unimaginable.

Wherever you go, Ghanaians are asking: How is President Nana Addo going to solve all these myriad of problems that he inherited from the disgraced Mahama regime? The answers are very simple. President Akufo Addo and his able team should direct at their command every means of diplomacy, harness the vast manpower of this country of twenty-five million, woo investors both at home and abroad to come on board to help.

The Vice President, Dr. Bawumia should lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard the national coffers so that no Jupiter will dare dip his or her hands into the coffers like what happened during the eight years of the John Mahama corrupt regime.

As for Ghanaians, what they can do to help President Nana Akufo Addo to get the country out of the wood is to be patient and prepare for any inconveniences that may accompany any harsh remedies that would be applied to bring the economy out of the wood. This is the time for hard work, creativity and enterprise.

The promise of one district, one factory which is dear to our hearts and which was a major campaign promise of the NPP can be realistic if chiefs get prepared to offer land and the youth too must get out of the cities and go back home to get involved. I am happy the Minister of Agriculture-Designate is contemplating re-introducing General Acheampong’s Operation Feed Yourself Programme.

The programme was very successful to the extent that Ghana exported cereals to neighbouring countries. Graduates who majored in Agriculture Sciences should put off their coats and go back to the land.

The government too must as a matter of urgency import farm inputs like tractors, combine harvesters, fertilisers etc to make agriculture attractive for the youth to get involved in agriculture. You don’t expect the youth of today to farm with cutlasses and hoes like the way our grandfathers used to do.

It is not acceptable for a country like Ghana to import tomatoes, cocoyam leaves, onions etc from landlocked countries like Burkina Faso and Niger. If the Agriculture Minister-Designate gets the nod, he should as a matter of urgency work to revamp the Nasia Rice field in the Northern Region and the Aveyime one in the Volta Region.

THE DREAM FREE SHS

There is one thing stronger than all the armies of the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. If President Nana Akufo Addo is able to implement his Free SHS concept, I can bet with my last Kufuor Cedi that even the dye in the wool supporter of the NDC will vote for the NPP in 2020.

If countries like Uganda and Kenya have been able to introduce Free SHS, I don’t see the reason why Ghana cannot do same. They say the beginning of every government starts with the education of our youth. People often say they would ‘hit the street running’, which is another way of saying they did their preparation work and were ready.

The idea of a Free SHS was mooted during the 2012 electioneering campaign and so I believe by now a feasibility study has taken place for the programme to start running by the beginning of the next academic year.

It was not for nothing that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah introduced free education in the northern regions. The Osagyefo knew there was abstract poverty in the northern regions and a greater number of the populace were illiterates.

In fact, the Osagyefo knew he could not rule a country effectively with such high level of uneducated people. Many years down the line, a northerner like Dr. Hilla Limann who gained from the free education concept in the Northern Region became the president of Ghana.

The late Alhaji Aliu Mahama, another beneficiary of free education also became the Vice president of Ghana and the immediate past president of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, another beneficiary and many of his former ministers from the north also benefited from free education. Good Lord, my fountain pen cannot write again!!!