The Welcome Party

By Kofi Akordor
As we continue to celebrate the successful visit of President Barack Obama to our country, we need to reflect and take stock of our performance during the visit, so that where possible, we make amends and do better in future. Strangely, the rains which were cited as reason for preventing most Ghanaians from seeing their idol in person at the Independence Square on Saturday, July 11, 2009, have suddenly vanished since Obama’s visit. Indeed Accra experienced one of the brightest days on that day when the fear of the rain forced organisers to send Obama’s intended public appearance indoors. Accra has remained relatively dry since then.
Generally, we can applaud ourselves for being the wonderful hosts that we have always been. President Obama’s visit brought some excitement and high expectations; even though a lot of Accra residents had to suffer in silence for the long traffic they had to endure because of the closure of certain important roads. Upon reflection, one could realise that some of the roadblocks were not necessary, since they never had any connection to Obama’s movement. Maybe we were just over-enthusiastic about the visit of the world’s most powerful and popular politician and drove ourselves near saturation point to impress our guests and the rest of the world.
The near chaotic situation on the tarmac of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on that Friday night, brings to question whether we need to bring the whole government to welcome such important visitors to our country? Do we have to bring almost all our ministers of state, members of the Council of State, members of the National House of Chiefs to be running into each other just to shake hands with President Obama?
Members of the diplomatic corps, according to diplomatic norm, we are told, cannot afford to miss such an event for obvious reasons. But in our case, do we have to bring virtually the whole Executive, the Judiciary, the Legislature and traditional rulers to perform that function? In the stampede which was expected, many who had genuine business doing there were hampered and virtually cut off in the process. That also added to the burden of both the local and foreign security operatives tasked with the responsibility of protecting our Very Very Important Personalities.
President Obama’s visit was a very important and significant event which needed to be accorded its full value. That was the more reason why the welcome party should have been, as much as possible, lean enough and well co-ordinated to provide room for full public consumption of the ceremony. It is not for nothing that sometimes, it is said that small can be beautiful.
There are many Ghanaians who will tell you that they never saw President Obama in the crowd at the airport, but rather saw in the main, the faces they are used to on daily basis.
By the way, since when did our ministers and other dignitaries become such expert photojournalists? Here were these Very Important Personalities lined up to welcome President Obama, and from nowhere cameras and mobile phones of all descriptions surfaced and our big men and women were profusely filming the event.
Apart from that being demeaning to their status, those actions posed security risk and could have attracted an embarrassing response from the Secret Service Agents protecting the President of America.
Whichever media organisations contracted our ministers for that assignment did not do justice to our national pride and image. Similar incidents were observed at the International Conference Centre where President Obama delivered his speech on Africa.
Why the local television stations including GTV, the Station of the Nation, could not capture the events for their local audience is still a puzzle. On that Friday night at the KIA, all we were seeing were movements without sounds. We were, therefore, left at the mercy of commentators who were also watching from screens in the studios.
The morning after, and during the Breakfast Meeting at the Castle, we did not hear the national anthems of Ghana and the US that were being played. Good old Edward Faakye, who was running commentary in the studios of Metro TV, demonstrated that he had passed his prime, at least as far as international events such as the visit of the American President are concerned. He kept on repeating that Obama was the first Black US President to visit Ghana, when there had never been any Black US President apart from Obama. He also failed to do a thorough research work on the man Barack Obama and Ghana/US relations, which information he could have fed viewers and listeners.
Things are changing fast and information is freely available to those who are interested. That was why an important event such as President Obama’s visit, with its international dimensions, should have been handled more professionally and differently from the way commentaries on local football matches are run.
Residents of Cape Coast, who were expected to celebrate the Obama visit almost lost out when protocol and detail security denied them their pleasure. President Obama spent a few minutes at the Oguaamanhen’s Palace and spent a longer time in the Cape Coast Castle, after which he waved to those who could position themselves strategically at the castle precincts and away, he flew.
After the euphoria of the visit had gone down, we need to think seriously about the advice Obama left with us. That we cannot make it by relying on others and we need visionary leaders who will harness our abundant human and material resources towards national development.
During the Cold War era, the US, like the Soviet Union, its superpower rival, benefited from corrupt dictators who paraded as political leaders on this continent. We are happy the world does not need such leaders in the new scheme of things. We can, therefore, just hope that President Obama will display his faith in democracy and governance, by shunning African leaders of the old order still in political control in their countries.
We in Ghana, have won the hearts of the international community for our efforts at democratic governance, even though we ourselves will admit that we are still far from our target. It is like we are in the land of the blind, where the one-eyed person is king. We are surrounded by countries whose progress in democratic governance is very slow, or even backward, so we can be regarded as champions. However, we shall be making a big mistake if we become complacent and do not straighten and strengthen those institutions that would encourage democracy and respect for human rights.
When it comes to corruption, the difference is not too clear. This is one canker which has sabotaged our national growth. The roads that have become impassable in Accra and other parts of the country after the recent rains were all awarded and paid for from our shallow coffers. A good number of the jobs were not well executed because corrupt politicians colluded with the contractors to share our money and give us shoddy jobs.
The signs of corruption are all over the place — uncompleted projects, poorly executed jobs, flagrant disregard for the building code, putting square pegs in round holes and many more.
We are where we are today, because, as President Obama observed, Ghana, and for that matter most parts of Africa, have not had good, visionary and inspirational leadership over the years. Our salvation, he told us, lies in our own hands and he promised that the developed world, including the US, can only lend helping hands to our own efforts.
That is an advice we must take seriously and stop the begging at the least opportunity. Ghana should not be importing rice from Vietnam and Thailand when the waters of River Volta which should have irrigated the Accra and Afram plains flow wastefully into the sea. There is no justification for Ghana to import tilapia from China. There is no excuse to overflow the shelves of our supermarkets with fruit juices from South Africa and other places when our land is abundant with natural fruits.
We need men and women who can think, who do not look for excuses at the least opportunity and who will be honest with our resources entrusted in their care. We need people imbibed with the CAN DO SPIRIT to take control of affairs and we shall be where we want to be.

fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com