IS GHANA EXPERIENCING A MIDLIFE CRISIS AT 56?

If Ghana were a man or a woman who has only 70 years to live as is ordained by God, I believe she would be experiencing a midlife crisis by now since at 56, she is still striving to gain grounds as an independent nation.

A midlife crisis is experienced between the ages 40 and 60, a time during which humans go through a midlife transition and realise that their lives may be more than halfway over. This transition might cause them to take stock in where they are in life and make some needed adjustments to the way they live their life and most seem to come through the process smoothly without making major life changes.

For those who have gone through this transitional stage, they might experience a range of feelings such as unhappiness with life, feeling a need for adventure and change, questioning the choices they have made in life and the validity of decisions they made years before, confusion about who they are and where they are going, and inability to make decisions about where they want to go with their life.

Likewise, Ghana which gained independence from her colonial rulers on March 6, 1957 , I believe, is definitely asking herself questions such as:
“Have the choices I have made in life been the right ones?”
“Who am I and where am I heading with just 16 years for my creator to call me?”
“What do I actually want in this life?”

I believe these are among the many questions that Ghanaians ask on behalf of our beloved nation Ghana.
By the time of independence, Ghana had in its coffers 250 million Pounds and  it is a fact that during the reign  of President Nkrumah, he used this money to embark on a lot of major development projects in Ghana even to the extent that Ghana was able to give loans to neighbouring countries. As a new nation, it did possess abundant material and human resources for a better and hopeful future. In the 1950’s Ghana was the world’s leading exporter of cocoa which accounted for 50% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and provided much of the national wealth.

The economic legacies of President Nkrumah include the building of Tema township, the Accra-Tema Motorway, Komfo Anokye Hospital in Kumasi, University of Science and Technology, University of Cape Coast, polytechnics and secondary schools around the country, Akosombo Dam, Adome bridge, among others in the spate of nine years.

However, since the overthrow of President Nkrumah, no other government in Ghana has been able to embarked on such massive infrastructural developments. Rather, these structures are being left to rot for lack of maintenance while others have been sold by preceding governments to individuals.

President Nkrumah's intention was to make Ghana an industrialised nation in order to break away from relying too much on imports. Although Ghana is indeed blessed with lots of natural resources such as gold, diamond, silver, bauxite, and cocoa, timber, huge water bodies and the recent discovery of oil, which are raking in millions of Ghana cedis, she is still struggling to be on her feet.

I believe that with all these resources, a country such as Ghana should not turn to China and the like which are less endowed with natural resources for loans, grants, donations among others. However, despite the huge revenue from these resources, we are yet to see any major developments in the towns where these natural resources come from.

A look at mining towns such as Tarkwa, Obuasi, Prestea/Bogosso, Bibiani and the like are nothing to write home about compared to mining communities like Johannesburg in South Africa, Perth in Australia, Reno in the US among others where you can actually see the riches and benefits of mining activities. So the question is; “Where are the revenues being raked from these resources being channeled to?”

Unfortunately, these revenues have been squandered by our selfish and greedy politicians who think of only making their bellies full and riding in huge cars whose make or specifications are inappropriate for our roads.

Today, what can we boast of our educational system; with about 400,000 students getting ready to sit for the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination due to so differences in political ideologies which is likely to cause the fate of these students.

As for the distribution of amenities and facilities, the least said about it the better; with water and electricity being rationed between a population of over 24 million.

Even now that Ghana is an oil producing counrty, we still experience shortages in fuel production. So what happened to the Tema Oil Refiney which was built by Dr Nkrumah even when we had not yet discovered oil.
Even when we had not discovered oil, we were import and refine crude oil at TOR thereby making fuel available all the time. But what do we see now? We buy already refined oil. I understand talks are in place to hand it over to foreigners since our own black man cannot manage his own affairs. I believe Dr Nkrumah would be turning in his grave by now.

These are just but a few of the problems being faced by Ghana and like I stated in my introduction, Ghana would be experiencing a midlife crisis if she were human. I believe our problems as of today is as a result of a lack of vision due to the absence of a national development plan and a misplaced priority on the part of our leaders who are taking decisions on behalf of all Ghanaians.

Once again, if Ghana had only 70 years on this planet earth, she would be retrospecting as she is getting older by the day. She would be asking herself, “Have I achieved or met the expectations that I set for myself at the time of independence?”

Probably, this is the reason why a whooping $600000 is being made available by a "philanthropist" who thinks Ghana's problems can be resolved by sending some pastors on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to seek God's face on this country.