Kwame Gyan Writes: My Musings As My Ghana Turns 61 Though She Looks Like She's 6!!!

Today is 6th of March. Growing up it meant 'remembering the struggles our forefathers went through to free us from the British' who apparently were masters over us.

But 61 years on, I daresay the only thing we can beat our chests over is the same thing we beat our chests over at the Polo Grounds in 1957 - we are free!

We have been unable to use this freedom but yet we take delight in commemorating that freedom without fail every year. We will choose some beautiful sounding theme, have our military forces starch and iron their fatigues, shine their weapons and match past a President on a daiz and throw salute.

Whatever it is you see within that 61 years which you think we should be proud of, is only a small percentage of what we can be, we can do, where we can go and who we can truly be. We are like that overaged boy in the same class class with people years younger than him but who feels superior and better despite the fact that his seniors (who are his agemates and should be his mates) are streaks ahead.

Within that 61 years:

1. We have failed to build proper road infrastructure in our nation. It's a battle between which pothole to fall in and which spare parts you want to replace every day.

2. We have a security and emergency policy beautifully crafted in people's minds but virtually non-existent on the ground.

3. We still build narrow and opened drains despite the lessons that we are supposed to learn each day from the floods, etc

4. Our cities, including the iconic Accra, has rubbish trailers with refuse spilling into the streets and livestock roaming our towns as though Accra was a countryside

5. Open defecation is as open as ever and we have used our mouths to eradicate it every year by pushing the end date backwards without fail

6. We have failed to retrieve a fraction of the money our politicians and technocrats steal from us because we live by the adage "fama nyamɛ" - give it to God.

7. The most effective health and security policy we have had which has kept us alive till date is the "By the Grace of God Policy". Simply because if our nation was to experience just a fraction of what other states go through we probably would have been wiped off the earth by now.

8. We have sold raw cocoa to the world for next to nothing and the world has put millions of dollars in value to same while our farmers are paid pittance to which we expect them to roll on the floor in appreciation of.

The list is endless.

Some will say we should be happy to have a safe country unlike some around us. True. Bit I daresay that's where mediocrity and contentment over the crumbs we get served comes in. We are entitled to the sort of buffets that kings served their guests with in the days of yore and not the crumbs that beggars get excited over.

As we turn the embarrassing age of 61 with the growth of a 6 year old, it's my prayer that our people place the love of Ghana above the love of party. If we cared as a people a tad more for our country more than we did for our political parties, we will learn to be angry and demand more when the nation is raped and battered.

We are 61, great.
But do you feel we are 61?
I don't. 
Sadly I love this nation too much that this saddens me.
It should sadden you too.
And every TRUE son and daughter of the land.

Let's grow Ghana! Together.