Appiah Kusi Adomako
13 March 2008
opinion
In 1963 a Nobel laureate in Physics at the Stanford University, William Shockley became interested in genetics and began to take positions on race, genetics and intelligence. He argued that the future of the American population was threatened because African-Americans had lower intelligence quotients (IQs) and were producing low-IQ children faster than Americans with higher IQs.
His work ideas were summarily dismissed by scientists. But his views were so racist and shocking that that they could not be ignored. Scientists have since concluded though that there is no link between race and intelligence.
Last week, Ghana celebrated its fifty one years of independence. 51 years in a history of a nation is a lot to make measurable achievements. Comparatively we have not done as badly as a nation by African standards.
However, if we compare to international standards, our performance is poor. At this rate, it will take us more than 500 years to become a developed nation - something that will not happen in our lifetime, not even in the time of grand children.
Nations in Asia and Eastern Europe are moving with jet-like speed in reaching economic freedom whilst we creep at tortoise-like pace.
Whilst some nations have conquered space and have been to the moon, sadly we find ourselves in Ghana engaging in trivial things like land and chieftaincy disputes and unhealthy political rivalry.
Almost everything that we do in this country would seem to be out of touch with international standards. Our railway system is still like the 18th century European system. Our government payroll system is bedeviled with problems.
Elsewhere, people have been able to create subways linking cities; some have been able to create super ways under the sea making transportation quite easier between islands and nations; others have been able to create airports on the sea yet we cannot even construct overhead footbridges in our cities to allow pedestrians to cross dual and single carriages.
People just like us are building skyscrapers which kiss the sky and have put in place proper housing schemes for their people, yet we can't get descent housing for our people.
Buildings under construction collapse day in and day out killing people. Building regulations do not appear to be properly enforced neither is there effective planning. We know too much but we do virtually nothing as a nation. I am very sure that in some hundred years to come, our great -great grand children would look into the telescope of history and would indict us for not planning ahead.
Others have been able to eradicate malaria and other preventable killer diseases. But here, malaria kills more people than the killer disease-HIV/AIDS. It is through commitment and fore sight that could eradicate such diseases. Some of us have the same training as they have, yet our performance as a nation lags behind. A British journalist visited Ghana in 1999. One of the remarks she passed was that: Ghanaians are very slow in everything that they do; the way they eat; walk, talk and work. The list is endless. Everything appears slow. When you go government ministries and departments, even when things that can be done instantly, one would be asked to go and come back the next time.
At the Controller and Accountant General's Department, it takes a minimum of four months before newly employed government workers are paid. This has been taken to be normal in an era of technological advancement.
People just like us are serious at the work place. I have had the rare opportunity to work in United Kingdom a few times. There when work is supposed to start 8 am, it does not mean that reporting time is 8am. At least one must report a minimum of 20 minutes before 8am. Here in Ghana and especially in the public sector, people do not report to work early.
Break time which is supposed to last for one hour sometimes lasts for hours. There is more idle time through reading of newspapers, telephone conversation, sleeping and so on. Yet some leave the workplace earlier than closing time. Our directors and managers do not set good examples rather they come to the office late and are always the first to leave.
No wonder our GDP is so small such that some companies in Europe or North America's annual turnover are greater than our GDP.
Some Ghanaians are lazy in our work places. There is no proper sense of time. We do not even use wrist watches or hang wall clocks in our homes and offices. We spend all our precious time and resources on the dead. Funerals have become a fashion in this country with the president, ministers of states, parliamentarians and politicians in full flight.
There are some who attend as many as seven funerals per week. Some things need to change in our society.
Our contemporaries such as India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Singapore have become technological giants.
Today every developed nation is looking to India to outsource labour and information technology and customer service. Ghana only comes to play when nations want raw materials like gold, timber or cocoa.
People and nations just like us did not develop their nations through the abundance of natural resources but through quality human resources development.
Their greatest assets lie in their human capital. We are only interested in primary products whose prices are even determined for us. We pretend that we are providing quality education to our people yet we fail to invest in them. People just like us elsewhere have made learning so practical.
In this country we adore and prefer rote learning. No wonder people complete their education and cannot do anything with regards to what they claim to have been taught. Our reading habits are so poor that even university students do not even read books outside their course work. How can we compete in this global world? Day by day we hear of workshops and seminars yet we do nothing when we come back. People just like us have solutions that solve; explanations that explain and answers that answer.
Is there anything wrong with us a nation? I do not want to share in William Shockley's assertion that there is a link between race and intelligence.
People just like us have gone to the moon. What is the difference between us and them? I do not pretend to have the answer.
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