Don’t celebrate Independence, clean Ghana – Ghana’s first female MP

Source: myjoyonline.com  -  Ghana’s first female parliamentarian Lucy Annin wants the 58th Independence anniversary be dedicated to cleaning the environment. According to her, today’s parade and associated funfair is needless.
Madam Annin also suggested in an interview with Joy News that rather than commemorating the event, it must be used to reflect on the current difficulties confronting the country.

She called on Ghanaians to pray for God’s intervention at a time when many Ghanaians she said are hungry, with the streets covered by mentally challenged persons and street children.

“Maybe we have to clean our environment…gutters are still choked. We don’t need to celebrate and have this fanfare, it is not necessary. We are sick as a nation we need to sit down and think about it,” she asserted.

But Dr. Yao Graham of the Third World Network thinks the day is worth celebrating due to its historical significance.

He said a nation’s life, like human's, is up and down and that people will not be appreciative when things are down. He stressed that Ghanaians should not lose track of how far the nation has come and not judge the need to mark the day on the present problems the nation is facing.

“I think we have achieved a lot as a people, we have also made many mistakes and we are also learning many lessons,” he said, recalling that before Ghana gained independence, there were more prisoners than people being trained to become teachers.

“[Our independence] gave inspiration to people all over the world, so we must not because of our immediate problems forget the world-historical significance of independence and take it as an inspiration for how we deal with the now, and evaluate the vision and the dreams that drove independence as a basis for asking questions of the leaders that we have today.”

He said the nation has to move from being an exporter of raw materials to add values to our natural resources if we want to develop as an independent country.

“Without industrialization this country is not going to transform,” irrespective of the International Monetary Fund’s bailout, he stated.

“I agree we should be optimistic but also look at the policies that any government or agency is putting forward, and ask, are they going to take us forward?... This economy is not creating opportunities for those who want to work hard, we should admit that also. Inequalities are growing in this country, that is a fact,” he analyzed.