To be the leader of a country is no joke. You have all kinds of issues coming at you all day. As a professor of mine always used to say, it\u2019s like sipping water from a fire hose. But every now and then something should come across your desk that makes you go \u201cWhaaaat?\u201d<\/p>\n
Something so shocking to your system that you will hop off the presidential treadmill of things to do and bulldoze your way through the system to right the wrong.<\/p>\n
Say, \u201cWhaaaat? You mean the people of Nsawam are drinking brown water?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhaaaat? You mean our main state hospital, one that a minister a minister of state calls the best in Africa, has run out of gauze?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhaaaaaaaat? You mean more than 150 Ghanaians have been killed in a fire at a gas station?\u201d<\/p>\n
At which point you\u2019ll summon the ministers responsible, roll a few heads and knock the rest together to rectify the matter within X number of days.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that novel, you know.<\/p>\n
Days after he was inaugurated, Tanzanian President Magafuli is reported to have paid a surprise visit to the main state hospital (their Korle-Bu), found patients lying of the floor and said, \u201cWhaaaat?\u201d And so he fired the head, canceled some state parties, and found money to buy beds. Truth of hype, it\u2019s set a tone for his leadership.<\/p>\n
When 20 elementary school children were killed by a gunman, Obama said \u201cWhaaaaat?\u201d He even wept about it. And he bulldozed his way past a hostile Congress to use whatever legal means were open to him to control guns, at least move the needle a little.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not micromanagement; it\u2019s outrage. Very human.<\/p>\n
So the real test of a leader\u2019s heart, and therefore the soul of the country under his or her watch, is what his or her Whaaaat is.<\/p>\n
Another year, 10 more Ghanaians have lost their lives needlessly and the lives of their loved ones are shattered, partly, I would argue, because a leader didn\u2019t say \u201cWhaaaat?\u201d the last time around. If he did say it, he didn\u2019t feel it. At least not enough to roll heads, knock heads together, fine some, jail some, put the full final report before the people of Ghana and use that tender moment wisely for all of us to debate and support his plan to implement the report\u2019s recommendations so families wouldn\u2019t be mourning these 10 souls at Christmas.<\/p>\n
To be fair, every leader has a Whaaat moment. Like, \u201cWhaaat? You mean people have to bid competitively for this contract?\u201d And then proceed to knock heads together to find a reason to sole source.<\/p>\n
So what is your Whaaaat?<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
By:\u00a0Kobina Aidoo<\/p>\n
PS: It\u2019s been brought to my attention that most Ghanaians can\u2019t relate to the imagery of water coming out of a fire hose because the Fire Service never has water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To be the leader of a country is no joke. You have all kinds of issues coming at you all day. As a professor of mine always used to say, it\u2019s like sipping water from a fire hose. But every now and then something should come across your desk that makes you go \u201cWhaaaat?\u201d Something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":207154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[374],"tags":[2423,42,3,1736],"yoast_head":"\n