Out of Hatred for the Cockroach

It’s 10:51pm on Thursday, 5th March 2026. I have had the most intense (not in a bad way) 4 weeks and there’s nothing more I want to do now than sleep into this 6th March Holiday. But I have been meaning to write this for a while now so that’s exactly what I am going to do. I’m writing this tired and half asleep so maybe cut me some slack. Or maybe not.

By the time you are done reading this, my objective is to have made you angry. Extremely angry. If that doesn’t happen, then I have failed, and nobody likes to fail, so guess who isn’t about to let that happen? Me. You must get angry.

Sixty-nine years. What would you want to be doing at age 69? Well for one you would pray that whoever finds their destiny connected to yours over the course of their/your life is grateful for you in the best way. Not in a generic “I appreciate you way” but in a “If I hadn’t met you, what would i have done?” kind of way. At 69, you would pray your children speak of you with the utmost pride, and your grand children still feel giddy when they interact with you. At 69 you would pray your future is even brighter than any year prior to that, no matter how successful your past may have been.

I don’t know if I can say same about Ghana at 69. Can you? If you can then please tell me why, on Monday mornings and every working day of the week, it feels as though people leave their homes only to stand by the roadside to watch cars drive by, instead of actually trying to get transport to work. Ghana, at the ripe old age of sixty-nine, has absolutely no functional transportation system. Both old and young men and women stand for well over 2 hours every single day in queues, fighting to enter dilapidated commercial vehicles, trotros, where the driver and his mate will over-charge them for the horrendous service they are about to offer just because demand outweighs supply. And this does not just happen at one or two sections of Accra. The entire region tells of the same story at every bus stop. The same thing happens at the end of the day when these commuters are trying to get home. And no, the solution is not for all of these people to buy cars. Most of them cannot afford to, and even if they could, that would still not be the solution. The already chaotic traffic in this city, which can drive any sane person insane, only exists because everyone strives to buy a car, no matter how bad the car is, just to escape the jungle of transportation in Accra, Ghana. In a functioning economy, driving should not even be attractive because transportation systems should work. At sixty-nine, Ghana has still not been able to sort out its transportation system. Do you see the issue? One old man’s lifespan is literally being shortened everyday somewhere because he has to struggle each morning to enter a commercial car just to get to his shop in the main city. Same goes for the market woman who wakes up at dawn and has to go through the same ordeal. If you can, please tell me why doctors and serious talent cannot live very comfortably here. Why they must slave away their lives on a dangerous job in the medical field on manageable income, and then sometimes use that same income to buy accoutrements needed for their work or contribute to pay the hospital bills of a poor patient. Then tell me why government teachers are woefully underpaid, teach for years only to gather the money that they have saved up for retirement and realize that they’ve been cheated over and over again in a country where they should’ve been celebrated. Drives me crazy. In my opinion, teachers and doctors and by extension all healthcare workers should be some of the highest paid in any country. Let’s go back to the 69 year old grandmother/father scenario. Is the kind of inheritance that Ghana has left for its children worthy of celebration? Why should a young man who studied computer engineering find himself in a government institution wasting away on a GHS 2,500 salary?

Do you think it’s normal that first responders to an accident scene are always the by-standers? This country you are partying for, is it the same one that would drive an unconscious accident victim away from all of its major hospitals and leave them to succumb to injuries, even if bystanders were kind enough to get them to the hospital by some means? You are still turning injured people away from hospitals at SIXTY-NINE? Nine years after retirement? What was this country doing the whole of its ‘working life’? For context, our senior citizens who will be turning 80 this year were only 11 years old when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah delivered that independence speech. Dreams of a better life ‘when they grow up’ were ignited in their spirits. They waited their entire lives.

In spite of all this, do you know what enrages me the MOST about this country? Ok, I will show you. Because if I tell you, I might talk too much.

Please someone tell me, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?

I took this photo myself. But you recognized it immediately because there are THOUSANDS of the SAME incident scattered across MAJOR roads in the ENTIRE country. In fact, I parked my car right in the middle of the road just to take this picture, and I have plenty more like it. Can someone tell me what DVLA and Ghana Police Service are doing? How does a death trap of a vehicle get issued a roadworthy certificate to ply our roads? With no warning triangle? You mean to tell me a vehicle can be certified roadworthy without something as basic as a warning triangle for when it breaks down? (Notice I said ‘when’ and not ‘if,’ because these jokes of vehicles ALWAYS break down.) And instead of the police MTTD force actively ensuring that broken-down vehicles are quickly towed by their owners and properly signaled, some of them would rather hide and wait for ‘gotcha’ moments, accusing private drivers of trying to jump a red light the second they approach a yellow (please slow down at yellows).

We have misplaced priorities in this country, all of us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be so eager to buy deluxe cars just to drive them on pothole‑infested roads that eventually destroy the high-ticket vehicles. Instead, we would be putting pressure on those charged with governance, from MCEs to MPs, to ensure that no road in Ghana is left without streetlights and that none are rendered impassable because of potholes that can cause ghastly accidents.

What we have learnt to do best as a people is major in the minors, and minor in the majors. Case in point: I hear there’s a shortage of Ghana jerseys out there because of the independence celebrations. How patriotic. VeRy PaTrIoTiC. “The flag, the face” trend, positioning a camera to bust dance moves to old Ghanaian classics is all well and cute, but it will come and go without changing the quality of the average Ghanaian’s life. We despise Ghana, and Ghana despises us. I say this because both sides (Ghana on one hand and its people on the other) are unwilling to do what it takes to make the other better. But Ghana is its people, and the people make Ghana. So when I say Ghana hates its people, what I’m really saying is that we have a man‑in‑the‑mirror situation. Ghanaian citizens are unwilling to do what it takes to make the country better. You thought I was going to say politicians? Ha. We are all involved. If we weren’t, we would have demanded better for ourselves and from ourselves long ago as a people.

Let’s go back to the jerseys. Patriotism you say? Or sheer nonsense? Why are people hoarding jerseys in a bid to create shortage and shoot up prices so they can make unnecessary profits? That is, if they are lucky enough to get away with the silly game plan (inserts a picture of a face shield). So ironic, that the independence celebration we claim to be sharing with our fellow citizens, is the same one we want to cheat them out of. Ok ok, this is too basic an example and frankly not worth it. So let’s move on. That enervated, lethargic work ethic that a cross section of Ghanaians have, what does it sum up to? Everything is mediocre, everyone wants to be passable, to do the bare minimum but reap excellent benefits. Why is the average mason or carpenter or mechanic doing a gimcrack job but exploding when the client refuses to conform to that mediocrity? Why is the receptionist at his or her government job walking in at 10 am, ignoring client calls to watch YouTube videos and packing up at 2pm? Why is a contractor inflating an invoice for personal gain at the expense of the country and trying to justify it? Don’t you see that a large section of Ghanaians mirror a large section of its politicians? Sigh.

Now let’s talk of the middle class. We are the funniest group in the country because while we are seemingly insulated from the struggles of the average Ghanaian, we must not forget that personal comfort cannot erase systemic, deeply ingrained problems. Also, we need to stop encouraging so much nonsense simply because we can afford it, like in all the subtle ways we practice classism in a third world country. Is the irony really lost on us?

And then there’s the wealthy. There are some ‘rich’ people that I’m afraid don’t know how to rich right. They are the ones I am addressing. Because if they did, their lifestyles wouldn’t be the same as that of an average person in a functional country. If wealth cannot directly translate to the betterment of the environment you find yourself in, then your mindset about your wealth may be warped, I fear.

I don’t dislike Ghana. In fact, while I may not show up online posting the Ghana flag or joining any trend, I want this country to do well. Simply because I live here. I was born here. I am from here. A functioning Ghana would mean a better quality of life for my family. A functioning Ghana would mean that the dreams of a random 12‑year‑old girl in Assin Fosu government school would not be reduced to the mediocrity she sees around her everyday. A functioning Ghana would mean that the son of a mechanic in the Ahafo Region would not believe his life is destined to mirror his father’s simply because he has never seen better around him. A functioning Ghana would mean our roads would be safe, because untrained trotro and truck drivers and indiscriminate placement of broken‑down vehicles would be a thing of the past, directly reducing road accidents. A functioning Ghana would mean everyone puts their best foot forward at their jobs. Do you realize the insane level of growth that would immediately translate into for the country? A functioning Ghana would mean people would be afraid to dump refuse anywhere, because law enforcement officers would actually hold them accountable. A functioning Ghana would mean people would not have to queue for hours just to find a vehicle to take them to a job where most of their earnings are spent on transport.

Ghana has seemingly taken a positive economic turn especially over the last six months. And honestly, good for us because we HAVE suffered before O. HMMMM. But all of this is set against the backdrop of how bad things have been before, so it is not enough to celebrate just yet. We need to reach the point where this translates into practical change, where the life of the average Ghanaian is truly decent, especially in critical areas like transportation and healthcare and food, for the sake of quality of life.

Sometimes I wonder what Kwame Nkrumah was really like. Not what the books tell us. He is loved by many and hated by others, and if you’re not careful, the true substance and legacy of his work can be lost on you. I don’t hold any particular like or dislike for him, nor am I a political person. But one thing is undeniably clear: he was a visionary. We see it today in the infrastructure he built, which a country of over thirty million people is still relying on more than sixty years later. Ghana needs present‑day visionaries; people who will tangibly and visibly improve the nation and alleviate the standard of living so that posterity can inherit and enjoy it. May God raise such people. May we become such people in our own individual ways, no matter how small. May we know such people. May we raise such people.

Everything shouldn’t be about ‘me, myself, and I.’ Yet, this is very characteristic of many Ghanaians. Too many people want wealth only so that they and their families alone can be insulated from suffering; they don’t really care about the next person. I recently came across a post online that struck me deeply. It read: ‘Out of the hatred of the cockroach, the ants voted for the insecticide. They all died, including the housefly that didn’t even vote. — African Proverb’. Dear Ghanaian, stop chasing individualistic wealth; it cannot save you when the chips are down. We are far better off as a functioning nation than as a poor country with a handful of wealthy people scattered around. Eventually, no matter how rich you think you are, you will be reduced to the level of the country you find yourself in. Eventually. Ask the billionaires who got stuck at the Dubai Airport and would’ve paid an arm and a leg to catch a flight out when the geopolitical tensions grounded all travel. But also, look at the UAE’s response to that crisis for everyone involved, whether rich or not. Watch how each individual was cared for by the state, accommodated, and properly protected. UAE even went as far as immediately issuing emergency visas to resolve legalities for stranded tourists, when that could have been the least of their worries given the magnitude of the emergency. If your wealth cannot take you out of a crisis, can your country rise to the occasion on your behalf? Can it care for you and all its citizens even a fraction as well as the UAE did in that dire moment? Let’s kindly sit with our answers.

On 6th March, we will relish in our Waakye, Tuo Zaafi, Fufu and Goat Light Soup (as we should), enjoy Ghanaian classic tunes, and wear our beautiful and grandeur Ghanaian outfits (I’ve absolutely loved wearing mine to work this past week.) But even as we celebrate, let’s keep at the front of our minds (not the back) that there is so much more we have yet to achieve because of the choices we’ve made as a people. We have quietly settled for mediocrity as a standard of living, and it should break our hearts. But hope is not lost and it’s never too late! We were created to have dominion and to subdue this earth, and that’s exactly what we should do. It should show in our big actions and in our little actions. So please, as a people, as a collective, let us fight to rise above the average we have plunged ourselves into for far too long. We are far, far, better than this.

Happy Independence Day, Ghana. 🇬🇭

I pray that in my lifetime, I will see you operate excellently. I really do.

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