{"id":357025,"date":"2017-09-27T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T06:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=357025"},"modified":"2017-11-10T11:03:32","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T11:03:32","slug":"everything-in-ghana-is-going-to-kill-you-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/09\/everything-in-ghana-is-going-to-kill-you-article\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything in Ghana is going to kill you [Article]"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sometime in 2015, I banned my mother from talking to me about Ghana. Since I work as a journalist, I\u2019m the go-to news source for my family and friends. Every day, I\u2019m called upon to do three things; to affirm or deny something they heard on the news, provide more details of a particular story and generally chat about running issues. In the beginning, it didn\u2019t seem like a chore, but after years of talking about scandals, Ghana\u2019s failings, the\u00a0mismanagement\u00a0and corruption of successive governments, I got tired.<\/p>\n
I work on one of the most listened to breakfast show in Ghana, the\u00a0Citi Breakfast Show<\/strong>. By the nature of the Show, I\u2019m required to know more about everything we discuss,\u00a0which means\u00a0I know that only 2 out of 10 pupils in Primary 2 can read and write. I know that 36 percent of Ghanaians with salvageable injuries die because of the lack of emergency care services. I know the doctor-patient ratio stands at one doctor to 10,450 patients. I also hear shenanigans of the powerful. For instance, I know which elected official is using his family and friends to hide money in Dubai.<\/p>\n Knowing the things I know about the powerful, rich and connected makes me very angry about the\u00a0ways\u00a0we live, work and play in Ghana. \u00a0I get angry that some live fabulously on taxpayers\u2019 money while babies die in hospitals because of the lack of incubators. It terrifies me that able-bodied young men are spending the best years of their lives, wiping windscreens for lunch while politicians spend millions on needless things like embossing John Mahama\u2019s face on a bus. I fear what will happen to all these young men and women hawking China in traffic in their old\u00a0age\u00a0of no-pension-no-health-insurance. Overall the state of the nation infuriates me – the filth, the lawlessness, the public and private corruption, and the broken systems.<\/p>\n Sometimes my rage about the systemic corruption and incompetence that pervades every aspect of our lives shows in the articles I write and the things I say on the radio. When this happens my family and friends tell me to mind my blood pressure, safety and ignore the establishment. \u201cThey\u2019re going to steal and chop anyway,\u201d I\u2019m often told. I know they mean well, they don\u2019t want the people writing long emails and text messages to my bosses about my views to harm me as some of their supporters have suggested on Facebook.<\/p>\n I\u2019m one of those naive, idealistic people who came to journalism believing Ghana could pull a Singapore without the tyranny. This wasn’t the job my father wanted for me, he didn’t want me to spend my days chasing\u00a0soli. Still, I fought him because I had heard Matilda Asante grill powerful men on radio and rendered them incoherent and figured keeping the powerful accountable was a worthy job. I truly, sincerely believed that speaking truth to power and keeping citizens informed would help. And our small victories show it does in some cases.<\/p>\n But I have been thinking, writing and talking about Ghana since 2007, the year I started working as a journalist. My friend\u00a0Tee,\u00a0and I used to spend our evenings when we lived together talking about Ghana.\u00a0We worried about the ineffectiveness of the National Identification Authority. We imagined the ways the government could, if it really, really wanted to, provide comprehensive\u00a0health care. We thought of ways education could be improved and made accessible to all. We were also hopeful too.<\/p>\n