Frederick
Kwesi Great Agboletey
-A collective forum for the intellectual African community divided on
regional blocks for effective implementation.
-Publications
-Periodic conferences
The study of human behaviour forms a qualified basis of academic
research pursuit at the highest level possible....
-There is the need for infrastructural development to enable a befitting
department where researchers and research work interact meaningful and where
finished work is stored in accessible format.
-The behavioural research institute should have a West African regional
representativeness enabling researchers from both the French and English
speaking countries can and should congregate to compare notes on research in
all aspects of behavioural research.
-In the interest of environmental protection all pipes and pumps should
be fitted with spring stops that shut off upon letting off hand pressure. This
will ensure that water is running only when in operative use.
-The literary Society- A free ranging meeting house where academics from
diversified fields can ease themselves over coffee and discuss issues in a
relaxed friendly environs.
-Likely projects to boost the nation.-Poetry recitals.-Paper
presentations.-Organisation to support and ease new members into employment
through informal contacts,.-Provide housing and transport support loans for
members.-Provide contact point with other academics in and outside
institutions, workplaces and the universities, within and outside Africa.
Informal "landing zone" for intellectuals in transit in Ghana to meet
there local and international colleagues in Town.
SELECTED ZONAL IMPROVEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT SCHEMES
To speed up the modernisation and upgrading of life in the slums where
the majority of the people dwell in the cities, there is the need to opt for
zone specified developments occasioned by total infrastructural transformational
projects, I envisage for areas like Korle Gonno, Nsawam, Nima, Chorkor and the
coastal zone lying south of Mamprobi and Dansoman a massive redevelopment and
structural upgrading scheme, the development of residential and social and
economic infrastructures financed by national level. There is expected that
persons staying in these areas are the underprivileged with insignificant or no
employment, they are to be considered for employment and social welfare support
schemes with the medium term aim of uplifting there employment potentials and
improving there financial securities through sustainable employment and ongoing
training schemes. They must be empowered through self governing schemes where
the basic fundamentals of organised modernisation will be dynamically
structured to be improved by additions and improvements introduced by
inhabitants of these areas. The environment must be enriched and educational
facilities must be of the highest calibre. The architecture must bring a joy to
the heart by its elegance and blending of nature and solid infrastructure, a
total and unimaginable departure from the slum conditions. Identity cards,
credit schemes for social and primary needs financing should enable the
provision of the basic essentials of comfortable and meaningful domestic
convenience-
- As a people and a race set apart from all others. Africans will define
the course of improving the life and settings of its people only within the
unique configurations of the continents social dynamism. The nature and
particularities will benefit by comparison and adaptation from other
civilisations but in its intricate details and sophisticated operation will not
be the same as that of other groupings since the basis and focus of these
groupings are at variance with the primary human values of Africans as a group.
-Government's role in national development is to be configured as an
enabling role not as a definer of outcomes. The role of government as the
manager of the common resource implies the need to operate at a highly noble
and particularly highly paced role, providing to improve in significant ways
the uplifting of the people from the restrictions of want and poverty. Enabling
the liberation of the potential talents locked and waiting to be freed for
creativity in a diversified environ. The role of individuals as harbingers of
cultural imports should be eased and raised to an art form not restricted by
regulations and punitive taxes that hinder the fast forwarding of national
development.
-National borders are a figment of collective imagination, these
barriers within the African context must be considered boundaries that
facilitate development. The individuals geographical demarcations of nations
state must pursue integration at various levels to enable taking advantage of
each other for the well being of the whole. The individual person, the lowest
and most vulnerable person in each society should be the mark of comparison.
When it is well with this person, then it is well with society. The potentials
that governments open up to be explored will invariably project the most
determined, the luckiest, the sharp investor to the fore. But of utmost
significance is that the most vulnerable and weakest individual should be our
mark whereupon the well being of each society is defined and evaluated in terms
of having achieved its social improvement goals.
-The resilience of African talent that has contributed to the rapid
civilisation of the world should be energised and multiplied in the crucible of
the suffering humanity. Africans have learnt from the table of stinted accreditation
and must bring to blossom on the collective holistic level the lesson nurtured
at the knees of sorrow. It is a sorrow of humanity as a whole. The continent
must be the welcoming home place where the people are at peace with themselves
and their environment. Breathing the purified air of freedom in a God given
plave that they can best exploit their awesome potentials as God's foremost
creation. When Africans awaken from the futility of striving without meaning in
an unfair race to edify themselves at the court of unappreciative humanity,
itself seeking to discover meaningfulness in the maelstrom of misplaced
priorities. Then they as a whole will relax enough to be refocused on the
primary task of evolving within their uniqueness to uplift each and everyone
for the collective wellbeing. At that point of self realisation they will begin
to emerge like butterflies from the deceptive self wrought restrictions of
cocoon stage.
-Once the large mass of the continents human resources and organised
institutions are able to evolve an alter continental economy, freeing the
continent from the debacle of the foreign exchange restraint which so far
leaves the continent at the mercy of manipulating forces that retard
continental growth, therein emerges the beginnings of the critical continental
determined trade and resources exchange economic development that will parallel
and co-exist with the international exchange process with one not relevant to
determining the outcome of the other. The truth of the matter is that Europe
and its allies of the developed world economies are practically miles ahead of
African economies and it will be untenable in the medium term to continue being
stringed along at their pace and by their unfair standards, in monetary,
economic and trade policies. While there must be energised speeding to catch up
with them in basic infrastructure, with more complex infrastructure, time plays
to Africa's advantage invariably. The very emergent of which is a watermark in
the continents maturing process. The process of continental rationalisation of
priorities that places the community over and above individual interest, while
at the same time ensuring the well being of the most incapacitated in whatever
ability, is invariably an evolutionary process that cannot be forced but
nurtured into realisation. The idea must be projected into the collective mentality
like a seed sown and watered to speed up the nurturing process, it must be fertilised
by letting it gain ground and conceptual realisation among the intellectuals
and community leaders.
-We must demystify large scale engineering projects and with assistance embark
on massive but meaningful and applicatory engineering projects to manage our
environments to the improvement of traditional society. Africa cannot afford to
engage in piecemeal and slow growth. A radical socio-economic shift rather than
lineal growth is in order. Society must be moved into a higher plane wholesale,
a need for looking at things on a grand scale, to bring to all their basic
infrastructural upgrading in a generation, in the process providing meaningful
goal oriented employment on a sustainable level. It is not the impossibility of
it rather than the mind barrier that limits the growth that privately and
individually is seeking to be let free for the common good.
-Maximisation of continental resources and the breaking down of externally
instigated limitations and restrictions is a sine qua non as the continental
socio-economic shift is engaged and activated into realisation.
The continent by dint of human progression stands at a better location
in time to engage in the type of massive shift and socio-economic projection
into better societies than any previous civilisation. The toils of past
generations in every aspect of human civilisation is available to us by means
of the tools of the information. Its resources must be commandeered to yield
optimum benefit as Africa makes the jump shift into a new era. The drive for
change will have continental ramifications and yield change at the most profound
level of individual psyche. But the emergent seeds and the dream is a solitary
endeavour of a few gifted individuals out of synch with the masses.
-The continent must borrow knowledge with the aim of adding value to its
existing reality. There must not be any self imposed hindering of copious
borrowing from everywhere knowledge is available by what means so-ever. They
are entitled to it, because it is the common heritage of all that is capable of
utilising it for their well being and
not the property of short sighted and limited civilisation. The
continent and its people are limited only by their self imposed restrictions;
the African must not continue to act like the chief who died of thirst by the
riverside because there was no slave available to fetch him water. The people
must apply themselves without aforethought to the utilisation of all available
knowledge from any culture and any part of the world and apply themselves
vigorously to all such knowledge with vigour expanding within the unique
environs of the culture and the setting the boundaries of knowledge in
directions hitherto in- conceived. Africa is where it all begun, where
knowledge shall return and take a drink, a refreshing at the fountains of the
ancients, the cauldrons brimming over with enhancing spices that give depth and
variety to blandness.
-Pride must give way to end goal orientation mentality. It is what is
gained eventually, the means is more a moral consideration. However all human
emotions that retard the projective goal must be subsumed by inner strength to
focus with a determined end goal achieving mentality before which any and every
other thing is secondary.
-There are certain misplaced beliefs that Africa will reap of the
benefits of the hand me downs of western development, if it does happen it will
certainly be an afterthought, if prior history is anything to go by. Whatever
will be achieved in terms of development will be the result of sustained effort
building upon the derivatives from the aberrant thoughts of visionaries.
-There is the need to attract the continents mental resources
underemployed by a systematic strangulating effort employing sophisticated and
manipulating mechanisms to hold by fiduciary control the continents best mental
resources and most determined souls. These are the talents that have had the
foresight and blessing to fight to pursue the intellectual disciplinary effort
obtain what they perceive as key to success, they also have the mind set to
respond to practical calls from their motherland to apply the wisdom of age and
experience in conducive settings. There is an enormous reserve of waiting minds
begging to be uncovered by educators enabled by appropriate educational
programmes that do not conceive higher education as the sole preserve of a
selected few, whatever the medium of selection, rather education at all levels
is conceived as an enabling process of encouraging the discovery of human
abilities in perfect synchrony with individual capabilities.
-Continental development in a picturesque presentation could be imagined
as taking the rough abrasive edge of traditional percussion and modifying and
blending with smoother and refined mellowness of classical composition filtered
through the wide and widening range of modern music in all its diversity.
However much change it undergoes in this transformation process there remains a
detectable element of something traditionally unique in origin and strongly
definitive.
- If is of course without doubt that whatever level of social upgrading
that will in effect uplift the African image must emerge from the minds of the
people dwelling therein, there is little point in stressing that Africa and its
talented humanity must wage a frontal war not against each other over personal
aggrandisement of any individual, the true war are the battles that must be
fought in the mind and in planning centres to bring development in its highest
possible level to each and everyone, the continent must depart from second
class and subsidiary social philosophy of third world-ism and awaken to the
realism of concerted social up grading second to non. The only difference
realistically in bare bone terms between
the haves and the have nots is one that is defined in the mind set to
change stones and pieces of papers to valued exchange commodities and craft a
civilisation from that. In the process Africa has found itself as being over
these few hundred years a raw material that is an input resource with no
aforethought consumptive consequence of others machinations. The awareness is a
step in the process to craft a self sustaining system outside and beneficial to
the continents and its humanity.
-Each stage of the current drama of continental developmental drama,
replete with failures and horrifying blunders and at times retrogressions into
the abyss of intellectual and social darkness, in retrospect must be seen as
part of a difficult learning process, where hopeful the past provides road
marks of forms of realisation not to be evoked since their outcome are nothing
short of disaster. Likewise it is the case that their time when certain well
intended plans, implemented may yield positive outcomes while in other times
and settings they result in adding to the miserable state of the vulnerable.
The developmental process is per necessity fraught, like any endeavour with
peaks and depths of success and failure respectively like any human endeavour.
So long as the course pursued, is genuinely based on concern for the least of
humanity in an effort to uplift all, there is ample room to adjust for errors
and re-position course for the sought after goal.
-There is no basis for pursuing a programme of approximation to existing
systems and patterns. the whole process of upward growth and civilisation over
time has indicated a pattern of copious borrowing and a hack and patch
adaptation process where freewill and strong willed leadership has exerted a
creative spirit elevating the individual mind in concordance with the massed
desire of humanity working in concordance with God's purpose to elevate
humanity one notch up. The African must make use of what is natural available
to him/her in complementing it with what can be borrowed from others and begin
to forge an accelerated social upheaval that is not necessarily an imitation of
others, so long as it in response to the basic need of improving upon existing
circumstances, to add as it were value to primary existence.
-To those upon whom the mantle of leadership has fallen on the
continent, whether they assume wrongly that it was in a large part due to their
personal exertions, they, the every first moment they assume power have an
obligation to the masses within whom their power base finds definition, to
become channels or conduits for channelling the dreams and expectations of
their governance with a single determined purpose to bring to fruition as much
as possible at the most advanced level an improvement on the well being of
their people and their circumstances. The continent must be envisaged as one
complementary segmented whole. Where the dispersed resources must bring relief
to all its colourful diversity. Diversity need be emphasised for bridging the monotonies
of attempted evenness, it is contrary to the very dictates of nature, but it
should not be exploited for destructive ends. If there is one commonality that
binds all, it is the poverty of short sightedness and incredible stupidity in
the presence of unlimited possibilities. To be bold and open minded to
acknowledge the limitations of the mind set that perpetuate unnecessary
suffering is a necessary first step toward working out viable and sustainable
long term solutions. The primary long term goal is to underemphasise selfish
exploitation and cultivate traditional communal values in the aid of the
highest and most refined socio-cultural-economic development. Beyond physical
infrastructural development is the cultivation of the finer mind set on
societal basis. It is only within this mind set, that individuals and
communities begin to breach the negative tendencies of introverted selfishly
destructive imploding focus on the self, the small grouping and the tribe, to
begin to enlarge their focus and begin into view the continental possibilities
that are unlimited in their potentialities. This mind set will enable
sustainable development that is closer to the development of the self, over and
above a faceless, meaningless government. It is the mind set and its
philosophical underpinnings which when transfused down the generations will
keep ablaze the flickering torch that is hopefully being lit. The idea ought be
given life and palpably wholesomeness that must find continental expression not
as figment on the peripheries of the imaginations of a hopelessly embattled
fragmented mass seeking for solace in the wrong places and putting individual
satisfaction in total disregard of the economically disenfranchised. Instead it
must find voice, be articulated and permeate the thinking and daily expression
of the least informed individual. It is the beginning of the effective
articulation of a continental desired destiny that transcends the rarefied
halls of officialdom into the local parlance that will instigate the mind
search that occasions the awakening of the slumbering power of the common will
working to bring to realisation the idealistic musings of the populace desiring
a better state of affairs. It is this desire that accords humanity the pitiful,
but nevertheless essential appreciation to applaud mere approximations of
desired states by leaders who impose their solitary madness on the collective
mentality. In the land of the blind the one eye man is king, so in a situation
where the expected best of the most elevated only yield barbaric expression of
brutish, carnivorous feast like despoliations of the nobility of human
gentleness in misdirected acts of cowardly and visionless despoliations of the
weaklings, even the slightest spot of brightness in the wary dimness is worthy
of commendation. How much more when the full light of liberated minds lift the
cloak of visionless rutted leadership for the liberating uplifting of the true
touch bearers of the freedom that liberates the mental bondage of made believe
poverty in the bountifulness of God's treasure house of creation and
creativity, the land, in which we live. The position of leadership in a
surrealistic sense is akin to the highest realisation of philosophical vacuity
of bringing into being at the highest level humanly possible at a societal
level, enabling the possibility of the hopeless to perceive hope, empowering
the powerless to become instruments of communal contributory effort. The
government machinery in that case becomes a humane instrument striving to
create meaning for those languishing for want of direction in the throes of indecisiveness.
It is not in this case a murderous instrument of chaotic dismemberments of
fragile social strand, there is no life in death, there is no truth of
sacrificing one life to realise meaning for another, all life weighs equal, the
gift of God, not to be abused for any flimsy excuse of any individual
aggrandisement. The realm of avaricious self centred acts of individual greed
is best realised in the realm of private business. The transformation of
governance into a falsified staged theatre of individual greediness and con
-Africa is cornered by desperate poverty and underdevelopment of an
excruciatingly painful kind, more so because the land and its resources have
been largely unemployed to resolve the most basic of the needs of the people on
a large and transformative manner. The African seems to be enshrouded in
multilayered silk cocoon. What is rather disturbing is that they seem to be
making no effort to break the mould of restraint. They have not tested their
strength and thus are incapable of knowing their limitations. The amorphous
government machinery made up of individuals who are sensitive to the needs of
their communities and brimming full of ideas in informal settings, must begin
to unadorn itself of the garment of solitary and vacuous policy implementation.
It must be more people oriented in its policy implementation, not achieving
results in half hearted, half-way, developing context, but within its
limitations delivering the best perfomance each time in its implementation. The
African scenario is clearly one where there seems to be an accepted policy of
later redressing of fragility. This must give way to the delivering of the
highest quality implementation process, no matter how little at each instalment.
It is without doubt more acceptable to give the very best at each serving,
rather than reserve for another time what is conceived as developed world
quality. There is no need to perpetuate on the self debasement emanating from
fictional sources. Our first performance must be the best performance, that way
we stand to rise above ourselves the next time around.
-The fragmentation process set in motion on the continent due to inept
past governments is creating a schism that is spreading the social margins ever
widely. In the one instance are a few who through advantages that are of
irrelevance to the argument but that nevertheless have established solid self
contained units of up to date material wealth enabling them to approximate
lifestyles that are askew with the deprivation that torment the majority
underprivileged. While legislation is made from the viewpoint of favouring
these lucky wealthy and the significant influences on policy making to a
significant extent derive from this captive estranged class who are out of tune
with the harsh realities of the extremity of deprivations that make beggars of
honest people. The government by ascending to pass social and economic policies
that make no serious attempt to break the vicious grips of poverty and
depravity, while at the same time perpetuating a form of local government that
does not ensure marked economic improvement but focuses on petty toll
collection economics; tasking the poor to spite them that is irksome.
Refocusing on basic issues it becomes clear that through time the human mind
has been pushed by extreme circumstances to yield to higher states, but in the
case of Africa's deprived masses the problems and the solutions therein
engendered tend to centre on basic live requirement of decent environment to
live, adequate housing provisions, the basic furnishing and rudimentary
domestic entertainment devices and a steady employment. Many are left wondering
why the gap between the governing process and the most vulnerable persons who
are in majority, needing all the assistance that organised exploitation and
export of the continents resource are supposed to support most. By ignoring to
set into motion activities that are practical in meeting the basic expectations
of the masses, the governmental apparatus has become an isolated significant
determinant of the quality of life outcome of the people. Governments are made
up of people, they are supposed to represent the interest of the citizens, by
dint of that, a government for the most part is not represented by physical
structures and clearly defined non relatedness in interest and activities from
those it is supposed to represent and act on behalf of. The structures that government
habits are properties that belong to everyone, in a sense everyone is entitled
to such premises, it is for the public. The government that begins to act on
its own is in effect not a government but could be classified as inappropriate
appropriation of the common good for selfish purposes. Reactions to restore to
the rightful owners can only be achieved in terms of recourse against the
individuals who have betrayed the common thrust, but not against the institutions
and the structures that harbour these institutions. Individuals by common
consent and social responsibility have been granted a piece of the land that
belongs to society as a whole. Beyond that is the reality supreme that everyone
finds acceptance and definition by dint of allowances made by others in any of
a varied of ways to yield them social acceptance and tolerance, and in some
cases respect. In the same way that it is given it can be withheld by society
at large. A leader that is denied ruler ship by his subjects is no longer a
leader, simply because leadership finds power within the ranks and file of the
commonality. It is at its highest and most refined level not a unilateral
imposition by any one person on all others, but an acceptance of one person and
a small group to align the expectations of everyone in a rationalistic and
creative manner to yield fallbacks that profit the society as a whole and
enable the individual aspirations in all its diversity to be realisable in a
socially acceptable manner. When this realisation filters into society, the
power base is transferred into the hands of the least of humanity who acting in
conjunction with all others can with hold the killing hands of tyranny and
refuse to spread the mould of corruption that taints by misrule. Awareness that
power resides with those upon whom power is exercised acting in unison is to
bring constructive awareness that, much as individuals strive to be what they
wish to be, striving against impossibilities and nay sayers, some and a lot
achieve success beyond their wildest dreams. For a society comprised with such
talent and potential, it only requires the appropriate directive influence to
convert improbabilities into possibilities and uplift the vibrancy of being
several notches. The effort towards positive and realistic social change must
derive from within the very continent. The outside world realistically, taken, as
from the perspective of the individual can be assumed as a helpful, tolerant
and supportive society. However the primary driving force is what comes from
within desiring the change and willing to make the commitment and sacrifices to
enable attainment of these noble goals of projecting oneself to the stars
against the force of gravity.
-Within the philosophic assertion of circumscribed determinism, there is
implied an assumption of maximisation of the lee way of deterministic potential
available to justify accomplishment. For lack of vision the masses perish, it
need not be a vision born of critical conditions that demand outrageous
policies. It is incumbent on real leadership to harness the potentials of its
citizenship and bring to realisation projects and efforts that find realisation
meaningfully only within massed effort in socially responsible settings. There
in indicative a leadership vacuum when the sole effort of governance projects
the promotion of individual initiative without igniting the communal spirit of
large scale state sponsored projects aimed at uplifting the dismal state of the
weakest of society's composition. These poor and inappropriately denied have
been relegated to beggarly status not for want of resources but merely by a
denial process consequent of closed minded leadership. Leadership lacks
capability to organise its human resources to be fully employed in productively
profitable ventures. Profitability has been constricted by non expansive
thinking processes into monetary and stunted profit-loss economies. There is
the profitable employment of labour that is directed by society to improve upon
its own environs. Thus it is the case that while everyone demands a clean
society, it is an aspect of normality to maintain a semblance of personal
beauty at some level, yet it still requires the deft management of adroit authority
to employ the energy resources of its willing but pliant human resources to
apply this God given energy, employing simple tools to heighten the droll(the
ones who due to bad luck become the objects of laughter for the ones who by
dint of luck can afford to laugh at others less fortunate) and dross(the
seemingly worthless and non-productive humanity) into productive mechanisms
that convert the raw into art forms of aesthetic exuberance. The truest
definitive attribute of leadership is not based on depriving the majority to
provide for the unappreciative few, neither is it based on ignoring the plights
of those to whom the greatest assistance is due. It is not so much a n issue of
closing the gaps between those who have and those who lack. It is enabling those
who need support and adding value to their existence, while at the same time
providing ample opportunity for those who have to increase their wealth and
share with those who lack. There is a preoccupation with complex systems when
the simple suffices more than enough, to advance is not necessarily to become
more confabulated, rather in advancement the seemingly intricate is unstranded
into its barest minimum, to facilitate understanding. There is no substitute
for fundamentals, the builders’ foundation on which are placed the
complexities. There is likewise no alternative to beginnings. Construction
begins with an idea, that is converted into primary sketches, these then become
an architect’s blueprint, that guides a construction crews realisation of the
idea in concrete terms. The actual construction process is a gradual,
systematic process, with clear cut beginnings; anyhow there is always a form of
systematic projection. Long term projection is a bedrock of sustainable,
sustained development on the continent. Continental development is a hands on
project, not set against other prior or ongoing developments, the
marginalisation of the continent, whether seen as a consequence of other
civilisations or a carefully orchestrated attempt with darker motives
notwithstanding, is only of secondary importance. It is merely of historical
consequence, all that the continent needs to upgrade itself is within its
capabilities and boundaries. Of immediate importance is how apt are the
governments to gear themselves to take advantage of the times to shape a new
and materially improved future for their people. Applied to languishing masses,
there is no relieve in sight if there is no attempt, no matter how miniscule,
at initiating physically prescient upgrading projects within the poorest of the
land.
Government is not the sole
reserve of "qualified politicians", it is a domain by which society
enables those most capable to wield the directive power rod for traversing a
set course with a starting point and a defined objective, it is in its
implementation, a process that transcends the time and times and parochial
interests. It is a vibrant dynamic entity that is
-The national economies are stunted because majority of the people who
by their earnings are supposed to grease the monetary economy are virtually
moneyless, there can be no significant money games enabling cyclic expansive
spending to boost economic activities on a local scale if economic policies are
not structured to make monetary resources available. The retail aspect of local
economies remain in a primitive state and tax collection resembles market
tolling because obtuse monetary policies that lack imagination determine the
never ending poverty enhancing inflationary driven torment of archaic and
strangulating "big brother" economics. Conceivably it is expected
that new and far reaching strategies will enable a well knit spending process
that enables acquisition and cultivated spending, while keeping control over
excess liquidity. To allow such a process to evolve naturally is ideal, but can
never be realised in the presently foreign exchange determined monetary value
structures that hold the poor in perpetual bonds of economic deprivation and
social denial. An alternate parallel process must be evolved where government
in the processing of alleviating poverty by highly intelligent and imaginative
mechanisms enables the growth of diversified and sophisticated trade and retail
activities.
-There is no reason to emulate other civilisations or developments that
have occurred elsewhere. To attempt to do so is an exercise in futility. For
one there is so much that is imperfect in those developments, secondly the
course traversed to attain these hyped states of imperfection is far too long
and the cost of which the continent has contributed without much in return is
far too costly. The continent must take advantage of the experiences of others,
picking wittingly their strong points and discarding the negations therein
inherent and blend these with the natural provision in crafting an improved
society in terms of life enhancing actions for its people. It is not per se
that by remaining in existing primary agro-based systems, there is any
likelihood that there is certain to be a complete annihilation of the populace.
There is however a certainty that defining strength and development in military
strength and advanced mass destruction technology will annihilate the entire
populace. There is a middle ground that entails selective choice and adaptation
that bodes well for sorely desired easing of the burden of deprivations on the
majority for whom existence is an unneeded suffering. All the organisation and
planning needed to facilitate a much more wholesome society is to a large
extent outside the economic dictatorship of external power bases. The wisdom
that abounds on the continent should awaken from its dormancy and give forth
selfless leaders who are bigger than the limitations of personal greed. Until
the millions of minds brimming with ideas that are not regulated by world banks
and yielding ideas implementable, no matter how grandiose, government will
remain a preserve of dehumanised entities, who capitalise on ballot box
mentality and sweet talk the people to an early and hungry grave. To share and
participate for the common good does not begin at the ballot box and four year
terms, this naivety is an imported imperfection of systems that are seeking for
balance in the midst of uncertainties. It has its noble aspirations, but there
is something that is higher than a wasteful diversion on. . .There must be an
inner desire on the part of society to realise in its leaders their most
grandiose aspirations in concrete achievements, be they the idealisations of
individuals or society as a whole. Society must hold its appointees responsible
to their tasks, just as leaders hold their subjects responsible for task
executions.
-When one lives life looking at things through the lens of other peoples
eye, it is not totally out of place to assume than soon they lose sight of
their perceptive abilities. The thus become inactive participants in defining
their own viewpoints and courses of actions. They have lost focus because of
lack of exercising their own viewpoints and takes on issues relating to the
self, those same issues that they have seen through others eye lenses,
distorted not only because it is distortion of faulty viewing, but also because
the borrowed eyes just cannot see what they are made are not made to see. The
take is peculiar and only those with the designated equipage can effectively
discern the terrain and its obstacles. They should benefit by heeding advise
and learning from others who have traversed similar terrain. By acquiescing to
others viewpoint of what best classifies the self, unconsciously there is a
bounding slippage of that others assumptions of how to realise the self with
all its excess baggage of negations therein accruing. Worse is configuring to
fit the assumptions of those classifications-which in truth do not reflect the
desires and expectations of those so classified-. Until there is a marked
improvement of the conditions of the masses of the people dwelling in filth and
desperate poverty. Whatever is achieved will be defined from the scope of those
who leaders see as inconsequential. The state of the continent will never be
defined from the viewpoint of how many have broken through the poverty barrier
to become middlemen rather it will always be defined by how many continue, even
in the remotest settlements to be denied improved life conditions.
-Limited resources must be justifiably applied not on redundant discards
that have outlived their usefulness elsewhere, by the assumptions of social
jump theorising do who begin late do not have to recourse to retracing the
steps of others, they must begin where others have reached. That is not an
achievement that will be handed down with gratuitous smile from those who paid
the of price seemingly vain idealism to push the barriers of realism, for the
Africa lacking in truly bold leadership, it is an effort to realise an idealism
in constraining circumstances. It is a constraint that is particularly vicious
in its unyielding grip in a world system that relishes in the inadequacy and
deprivations of the masses. The world is unwilling to share the fruits of its
gain, delighting instead in self glorification, designing economic systems that
perpetuate suffering and qualifying its justification on superficialities of
realistic inconsequence. The time of laying blames need to give way to
optimising the forced ejective energy latent in deprivation in the midst of
much. There are sublime advantages inherent in being followers rather than trailblazers.
At least one is saved the cost of unforeseen mistakes in plodding well trodden
paths. To be a follower does not imply to be an imitator. The past is for
guidance, not a retrogressive zone to revert to as a means of retracing lost
time processes. The reality is a catapulting effort in trajectory with the here
and now, where possible and as much as possible. Nature’s unprocessed resources
have a nurturing limitation; it seems as if following the nurturing period, the
maturing process requires the application of the collective mind power to yield
sustenance from nature. Even humanity seems dissatisfied with remaining in situ,
there seems a hunger that must be satisfied, by tinkering with nature's
resources.
-It will be naive to think that all the lessons of other world
civilisations have no relevancy for Africa's growth, there are inherent lessons
that should be applied to evolving processes on the continent. The most
significant lessons are that tyranny and wars do not aid development in any
sense. War mongers retract social growth and increase society's burden, there
is no destructive effort that in total effect acts as an element of growth. Turbulences
can forcefully wrought a change in some instances, but the obvious indication
is that incapable leaders create the social dissension that push normally
peaceful and a docile public to acts of wanton destruction. The grip of incompetent
tyranny that has overwhelmed and touched of decay in the vibrancy of
potentialities and possibilities will certainly not let go willingly. For as
long as those who should are not participating, projecting ideas and how to
realise them in their communities and society at large. For so long as leaders
and governments see their role from the limited viewpoint as ends in individual
ambition rather than as responsibilities requiring sacrifices for the well
being of the majority, the kind of growth nurtured in every heart for their
communities will not find expression in projects of social grandeur. Until
there is an unlocking of the hold of manipulatory authority which allocates
positions of governance as favours and rewards for affiliation rather than
based on capacity to effectively execute the demands of office and qualified
background knowledge... The worthy truth is that office of leadership is a
sacrificial engagement that requires a mind power that transcends monetary and
selfish material desires. Those to whom office is offered as a reward for
personal favour are better off with cash donations. The inefficient office
holder is not only a liability to the growth of society, he is a danger to
himself in all the entrapments of his incapacitation. Until the allure of
greedy acquisition is stripped off the lacklustre realism of public office,
until adequate provisions are made by society for its leaders to enable them
focus on the major task of reengineering society, underdevelopment is a self
sponsored reflection of people who are still wandering in the mist of
uncertainties. Africa needs insightful leaders who must enable the emergence of
all that the continent is capable of. There is little doubt to be expressed
over the viewpoint that, while it is worthwhile to appreciate and attempt to
find some form of temporary orientation within the existing monetary order,
unless fervent efforts are made to develop a parallel continental fiduciary
instrument that is robust and capacious enough
-While it does makes sense to have a measuring rod of what state of
development has been achieved it makes for good comparison to realise that
emulating others achievement to petty details does not seem realistic nor
feasible. Against their imagination and with nothing to compare to, others have
risen to great heights of societal growth hitherto unattained in some of its
realisations. The continent must take a cue and adopt a tangential
developmental comparison strategy, with the factual dictum that the basic
measuring rod is that development has made available to the least of its
habitats the highest possible level of human material and potential enhancement
capability possible. Using what can be obtained locally and what can be
accessed from outside domains. There is no need to approximate to exact details
comparative achievements, inasmuch as these can be guideposts and indications
of what is possible. By focusing on the foremost activity of change not from a
definitional perspective of being in the process of striving to approximate
other civilisations the task of continental development can be better realised
with a more confident attitude of reconstructing nature to add value to habitat
and tame the latent energy and resources of nature for yielding added value
through human ingenuity. There is a path that is common to all humanity, a
desired and commonly accepted and when realised a welcome respite to all
people. Beyond the essential physical upgrading of mud and swish tenements, the
provision of continuously updated and innovated technological facilities to
enable the desired life improvements that have been achieved in other places,
envied and desired elsewhere and generally appreciated as definite improvements
and facilitating provisions. The difficulty is defining the underlying
philosophical grounding of natural development and induced accelerated
development. It is a grounding of the projected development in a spirituality
of existence that finds meaning within the unique contextual evolvement that
sustains the course of that development, rather than the construed replications
of monumental structures imported as face lifting projects in the opaqueness of
an ungrounded face lifting. Any and every sustainable development must seek for
and find definitional grounding within the spiritual energy of the intended
source of the end project, to enable sustenance, for the inner core of the
ideas, that no matter how idealistic in conception, in realisation are in tune
with the aspirations and desires of the people, presently and in the future. It
is this sync between the leaders and the led in engaging common grounds of
pursuit that enable the philosophy of grounded development. It is an emergent
phenomenon that evolves within the specificities of particularities. It must be
sought for, identified, cultivated, fed to the people, be in concordance with
their ideals, Development is not encapsulated in concrete edifices, it is the
massed mentality finding realisation in concrete form that is the true
indicative nature of development, spanning time and place. The central
significant role of a well planed infrastructure is a desire that reflects the
massed mentality and one that in its actualisation will reflect ...
-The best and most ingenious trading policies and the ancient but time-tested
financial skills honed by the centuries and in interaction with the emerging
financial savvy of developed economies is with the Mossi. To these ancient
talent go back and learn the true lesson of economic finesse. The purported
best minds of the world, have proven best at what is most easy to pursue, live
the weak to perish and impoverish the borderline cases, of the strong enslave
to a an international financial system that will never set them free from the
bondage of debts. The greatest bondage is the willing succumbing of one's
mothers wit to the non discerned knowledge of another. In the process one has
lost the foundation of wisdom and sacrificed into a permanent oblivion of hazy
confounding. What passes for stupendous and overwhelming groundbreaking
discovery, the sort of discoveries that uplifts the weighed massed soul and
keeps it buoyant for generations yet unborn is the lightning strike of
simplicity. The simple is confounded by the excessiveness of the complexity of
ignorance seeking to obfuscate the clarity of simple and bury it under cover.
So that when the simple underlying truth is discerned it is applauded as
remarkable. Yet we are no further from the possibility of a commonwealth of joy
than our selfishness and greed restrains us. At a point, light must begin to
filter into the darkness of carefully wrought deceptiveness that delays the
growth of the continent. The ongoing pervasive questioning by all on
fundamental issues, is the mumblings of an awakening sleep walker, the fogs of sleep
are certainly wearing off. Now is not the time to retrieve meaningfulness from
the nightmare, perhaps, indulgence in the unpredictable art of dream
interpretations, may help discern some elemental value of the long nightmare.
The sleeper must wash his face, tidy up, and pick up his work tools, while he
slumbered, grinning with stupidity in the dream state, others have been at
work. He must with earnest attempt to do his share of work before time runs
out, yet time runs out at the beginning of the night, only to begin with the
crack of dawn. Time is what favours the late riser, giving the chance of making
up for indulgency and catching up with the early risers in the long-time, but
there can be no catching up if the basics of a waking day are postponed, waking
up.
-The collective expectation of the individuals of a community for
progress in society are expected to find massed realisation in those upon whom
the responsibility evolves to collectively manage the common good. To deny
these realisations by acts of commission or omission is criminal neglect. It is
the sort of social irresponsibility that needs no qualification in its
positioning among the generally acceptable acts of unacceptable. Those take
opportunities of positions or responsibility to augment on their individual
greed are glorified social pariahs, their wealth need not incite admiration,
but made to exude the stink of corruptible undesired. The insignificants of
society are the mediums within which the undesired seek to find acceptance to
exhibit their grandeur, that acknowledgement must be withdrawn by society.
Mediocrity has been elevated into an art form and placed on a pedestal,
whereupon society delights in vileness that has been layered by layers of
deceptive malevolence to become acceptable against the urgings of individual
conscience. The collective sensibility is no longer reflective of the inner
purity of individual honesty and goodwill. By the non-committal acts of
individual silence, evil which has found
acceptance as normality thrives and has defined a reality in a surrealistic
settings. There are no kindly over achieved societies ready to pass on their
excess to assist those in need. Many more shall be the unrelenting woes of
Africa if they believe at an individual level to be a part of a larger whole.
The individual's striving in dismal and seemingly impossible situations to add
value to live will more likely yield even greater results when pursued at a
communal, continental level. While on a continental level it is unlikely that
the fierce independency of the African personality will inveigle itself into
total state controlled manipulation. It is also unavoidable that at some point
of complementarities the individual drive must be supported by a well planned
higher level governmental policy and implementation process geared in its
totality at providing a base for poverty alleviation. While there exist
rudimentary forms of this and other feebly functioning mechanisms of governmental
implementation in one form or another. There is room for a reconsideration and
an adoption of goal oriented decisive developmental projects that bring
adequate housing and generate sustainable employment for those who cannot
afford to build standard homes as well as obtain the capital to be
self-employed. Improving such basic public responsibilities as keeping clean
streets warrants the call to resort to basics, instead of bandying words of
despise like "the poor, the disadvantaged", as inevitable unresolved
consequences of a free market economy. Africa does lack in many ways, but it
does not lack wisdom at the individual level, the few educated and capable must
begin to shape realistic far reaching policies that should intend to put
limited and outdated technology in solving basic issues while the search continues
for more sophisticated approaches to solve primary problems. After all, while
the last 50 years have resulted in an incredible leap in science and
technology, the definitional infrastructural layout and economic establishment
of other civilisations were attained in conditions far more primitive than the
existing isolated patches of advanced social and technological knowledge base
and capacities that dot the sorry picture of a seemingly visionless disaster
zone that the continent has become. It takes one bold visionary to bring the
light of knowledge and awareness to dawn on the multitudes. The "poverty
and disadvantaged" classification is a reflection of inadequacy at the
societal level, rather than individual inadequacy. If only the people could
express their heartfelt belief that their leaders have their best interest at
heart, poverty and the pain of developing will no doubt be easier borne.
-The development of a continental fiduciary instrument to facilitate a
continental trade and exchange activities is inevitable. The earlier effort is
put into the expected slow nurturing of such an instrument the better suited it
will be as a stable and sustainable instrument of continental growth. It is
inconceivable that given the long term developments, based on present day
experience, continental business interactions will be based on an external
medium to facilitate harmonious exchange activity. The fractious dispersal of
resources and core centres, likely to become emerge as focal zones of growth
make it imperative that individualistic, nation centred economic development is
not likely to lead to the emergence of a strong fast developing overall
Sub-Saharan Africa. Co-ordination of activities and agendas with an ambitious
realistic continental based bulwarked support system is a more advantageous possibility.
The idea of what passes for and is accepted as hard currency must begin to
evolve from within-without. The fundamental idea for the development of a
continental fiduciary instrument is not to be based in terms of a competitive
instrument against highly developed external sources, rather it is to enable
meaningful development in primary exchange of goods and resources on a
continental basis without the hindrances and constraints of externally powered
monetary resources. In a way of speaking, it must be assumed that it is because
of the unsophisticated and uncomplicated nature of the evolving system that
enables the development of a replacement-parallel continentally focused
instruments, against a background of marginalisation by the developed economies
with all their shortcomings. The capital market likely to arise therein will
initially be comparatively moderate, but in addition to ensuring ease of
continental exchange relationships, it will in time become the medium of exchange
for all dealings with the continent. Enabling greater stability than the
existing fragmented national currencies that are virtually weightless
individually against the rest of the developed united world economy. While
certain concessions could be made to ease the economic burdens of small and
weak economies, the reality is that the rest of the universe is not going to
take a pause for weaker siblings to catch up, you either grow up or wither
away. Continental growth is best conceived from the position of a unity of
weaklings and their resources. There is no better opportunity or condition
under which to combine resources than when unity forges hitherto unattainable
strength. The direction for the way forward will not come from outside, for the
outside has never proven hopeful. The power is within and with the people and
their true leaders. They are the true visionaries who let loose the chains of
mental incapacitation, empowering the least of humanity to reach to the inner
core and leap higher than the imagination. Not the fake usurpers who denigrate
the collective conscience of the expectant expectations of generations by acts
of mindless despoliations. The coming together of previously powerful economies
provided an alter ego to a powerful controlling economy, the gradual nurturing
of a third or fourth will keep a centre of balance between previously existing,
and of more importance yield immense benefits to the continent. Africa's above
all differences are united by a cultivated culture of poverty and inferiority
that it can more effectively reverse by uniting than wasting time and scarce
resources attempting to engage in a
competition of who tops the base list of inadequacy. Much more will relevant
and useful is combining the latent strength into explosive growth, albeit
realised slowly.
-There is no call to begin a short sprint to approximate other world achievements;
the benefits of these are available to those who can afford it. All
achievements are driven by two basic incentives; it would seem on the whole.
The first is an envious drive to be one up on someone or everyone else, the
second is the profit motive, in which case, over and above the wider cycles,
people who can will have what they want, the underlying principle of the
so-called global economy. The call is for doing what is right by the masses of
the people and in that process adopting far reaching policies that ensure that,
as a race each and every African has a future and a life worth living. The task
is only as undaunting as our minds limit us into believing it is, the true
realisation will still call on the simple task of organising the community to
realise its collective aspirations.
-Public works are an essential aspect of government implementation and
has been recognised as such. In most African countries though public works were
later to earn a disreputable image of waste and inefficiency. There is little
doubt however that these state sponsored nation building activities elevated
and improved the underdeveloped status of these countries. The problems that
accrued with state sponsored job creation activities and nation building
activities were lapses of admininistration and greed on the part of leadership.
The bulk of activities required to improve upon the miserly and extremely
unhygienic conditions of the bulk of people residing in the urban slums will
never emerge from the private sector. The private sector will never build
roads, central sewerage systems, cemeteries and funeral houses, modern and well
equipped schools, as well as provide the housing needs of the people who dwell
in the slums, for the simple reason that the private sector is a profit
oriented setup. By the neglect or delaying of these projects, the cities and
towns on the continent will never attain the scenic beauty of layout and
cleanliness that all the people so desire. There has been an excessive tendency
to heed ill conceived advise from external sources who are inadequately placed
to slate unconditional requirements of how development should proceed. The lack
of insightful leaders (an insightful leader is one who has the foresight to
advance policies that not only are in tune with the desires of the electorate
but one that is one step ahead of the times to keep society's growth tangent
sustainable in the medium term) (such a leader by no means is not one who is
pursuing outdated policies that are hardly reviewed regularly and improved
upon) has not helped the situation either, but worst than this, are those
citizens who refuse to participate by forwarding opinions; and complacently
refuse to participate in nation building. The nation, the continent is not the
sole preserve of any one person and his or her gang of usurpers who stunt the
aspirations of generations yet unborn by refusing to prepare the grounds for a
future worth looking forward to. It must be reiterated that leadership can only
be realised within a domain of willing subjects, that means of facilitating leadership
can be withdrawn by the suffering masses from usurpers of the commonwealth for
personal ends. Worse still are those who for selfish ends assume positions of
leading to bring to realisation the aspirations of the masses and don't know
what to do. A leader is not expected to be the sole preserve of knowledge on
anything, he is supposed to be the level headed individual who seeks for
guidance from his or her subjects and facilitate for the common benefit what
cannot be easily realised at the individual level. A real leader is a servant
of the people and not a cane wagging bully, the people in recognition of the
immense duty they require of their leader in turn threat the leadership role
with respect and dignity. In effect the leader cannot be afraid of his or her
subjects, since he is in a role of administering to the interest of the people
and not fomenting enmity and creating blocks of supporters and opponents. The
agreeable and disagreeable segmentation of society, is based on idealistic
opposition and convergence on issues and does not assume a personal nature. The
true great leader is the one who by action and deeds, instigates reactions of
single minded disclaimers against unpopular policy decisions or implementation,
while garnering praise and adoration for the appropriate measures. He is
focused on issues without neglecting individuals, their peculiar needs and
emotions and is prepared to acknowledge that leadership is not a pursuit in
perfection but an endeavour to touch the least and most neglected of society,
without polarising society on the basis of haves and have-nots. To those who
have acquired by honest means, a good government will increase their wealth, to
those who have not it will provide for and for those who have acquired by
illegal means it will return the loot to their rightful owners. The role of
leadership in Africa with all its endowments and diversity is principally an
effort at harnessing the abundant human resources presently excessively
underutilised and project all that energy into productive and growth related
activities. The ease and efficiency with which warmongering madmen have taken
advantage of the frustrations of of the youth, at their impotent governments.
Mobilising and fine-tuning them into highly efficient phenomenal instruments of
death and destruction. These local wars have defied all reasonable expectations
in their sustainability, employing the most basic but incredibly efficient
primary war tools, they leave one wondering how much more could be achieved if
all that ability were directed into social upgrading projects that satisfy the
nobler instincts of human nature. This is enough evidence that it is not for
want of ability to achieve that the youth are wasting away without benefit
generating, socially organised employment activities. Rather it is the acquiescing
neglect of the people to participate and require from their governments the
best that could possibly be given. An individual no matter how determined can
never sustain an act of aggressiveness and hostility and plunge a whole
generation into a state of chaos. But when he does persuade and deceive people
in search of direction in the wrong places and in the wrong actions, he
suddenly finds a power base of deference and acknowledgement where criminal
behaviour is appraised by ignobility into the role of leadership. The poor and
depressed by withdrawing their acknowledgement and support of participation in
wasteful ventures, gain by creating an opportunity for change and redirection
for hope.
-The excessive emphasis on the operative inefficiency of the public
sector to engage in anything that the private sector could make profit out of,
has resulted in a linear pattern thinking where even what the public sector
needs by requirement to undertake to alleviate public discomfiture is not being
pursued with the urgency needed.
-There is a need for a balancing of a drive for open market oriented
policies - which at its most efficient and idealistic level will ease faster
and stable trans-continental integration at various levels by removing the
turf-invasion mentality in practical and easily acknowledged form - and the
overemphasis of privatising government. For their are realistic advantages in
maintaining an efficient state initiated projects in construction, education,
commerce, etc. Without necessarily compromising private sector investment. For
instance the investments of the private sector in housing and education is not
likely to be jeopardised by the governments efforts to provide high quality and
modernised housing and other infrastructural development projects in areas and
sectors of the society that are so deprived that not in this lifetime are they
ever likely to accumulate enough financial resources in the hand-to mouth
barely sustainable personal economy of borderline starvation in which they are
forced into. These projects, will, on a scale large enough, provide employment
in the construction industry and other economic activities that will emerge.
Thus putting to use the immense resources of humanity, that by lack of
appropriate initiatives, on the part of those upon whom the duty falls, are
presently being wasted. The biggest problem that Africa has to deal with is how
to find a way out of the rut of linear reasoning. By diversifying idea
resourcing and widening resourcefulness, at a level, that by enabling the
people entrapped, by the narrow minded and oft times confused non directive administrative
mechanisms at country level, to be freed and consequently engaged for
productive and life satisfying activities society on a continental level is
likely to be all the better for it.
-If there is a belief that social welfare oriented policies are a threat
to capitalism, it is a misplaced belief. If there is a belief that by focusing
on primitive low tech educational policies there will evolve a modern, well
educated and technologically advanced population of youth capable of projecting
continental development, that is not likely to be realisable. A school is more
than an aluminium sheet draped over four pools in a dingy environment. Much as
a market place is more than a collection of dirty sheds on a rubbish dump.
While all desire improvements, it is only at the governmental level that the
required change will be manifested. Capitalism thrives on populace with money
to spend, if government is not focused on job creation as an end policy,
whatever market economy is supposed to do will be a dream unrealised. Nothing
will change unless the mind set is drastically re-oriented towards more progressively
idealistic but nevertheless realisable policy making and implementation. The
multiplier effect likely to result from the initial government expenditure to
improve infrastructure and in the process providing jobs in the slums and the
rural areas will more than compensate for initial investment in humanity as a
socio-economic policy to engender development.
-The land issue requires forward thinking policy making strategies and
direct involvement of the local populace in decision making discussions. By
adopting policies that will increase agricultural yield per unit land area,
adopting modern cultivation practices and advancing communal land working
practices without withdrawing private land ownership, there will be the desired
emphasise on productive land yield and employment of agricultural worker force
while deemphasising the landownership strife and its concurrent unproductive
activities.
-Society owes critical responsibility to provide for the creature
comforts of its governing force while in office and after completion of their
office term to ensure that those in leadership are not distracted by the
important personal desire to secure a comfortable safety net after serving a
term of rendering public service. The provision of what is considered at the
time as standard requirements of decent livelihood in property and financial
needs must be a condition of reward to give valuable cognisance of the task of
administering, while on the offset setting a conditional requirement that to
whom much is given much is required. The hard driving individual aspiration for
material success in African society, where individual acts of ambitious
achievement are applauded and become the materials of folklore, cannot be
easily waived aside for a form of outlandish socialistic system of common
ownership. It is in view of this that sight must not be lost of the fact that
aside of the latent desire to do good, people in office of responsibility also
have a personal need of material success. This need will not be set aside in
the absence of conditions to guarantee it for office holders. For the public
office is a highly demanding and requires great sacrifice to ensure social goal
attainment. The worker must be paid his due.
-The time of high vaunted non realistic rhetoric coupled with
inconclusive policy implementation has yielded a prolonged period of despair
among the peoples. Their hopes and aspirations had been hijacked and trounced
by leaders who represented themselves and their shortcomings. These troubled
souls have not in the process found any redolent joy but have been and will
forever remain the pariahs in the opening pages of the continents post literate
history. Now there is a need for a hands-on approach that seeks to brighten the
increasingly depressing political and economical landscape with activities that
are in tune with the upward progression of all humanity and not burden the
people by perpetuating mediocrity in any guise. While the governments must not
be isolated from the people they represent they must also be harbingers of far
reaching and innovative projects that bring succour and hope rather than policies
that destroy the worthiness of life of the least of humanity. Ladling them with
increasing unrelieved suffering.
-Ideally it is preferable to have dynamic institutions that are updating
and reviewing policies and implementation processes. Instead, were have governmental
instituitional activities that are for all intents and purposes collectives
ponds of fetid inactivity, pursuing outdated and irrelevant policies. More
worrisome however is not the lack of activities within these institutions that
would have rendered them inoperable, rather there seems to be a fixation to
instruments of establishment, with simple and progressive retooling activities
that would have ensured incremental improvement of services to the public these
institutions are set up to serve. Continental institutions are contrary to all
expectations and desires not maturing progressively, but crumble into decline
from their set ups. While examples abound, it is arresting that Housing and
Development Banks have all but depleted their resources and in evolving have
assumed commercial activities, while the construction of residences and private
and public sector construction have not progressed, by benefiting from their
activities in any remarkable manner.
In the educational institutions there seems to be an awkward touting to
heights of seemingly absurdity theoretical espousals that have been discounted
and taken a back seat to developments in current researches elsewhere, while
little effort is made to encourage the development of situational
representative theorising. The continental educational effort rather than
taking a cue and evolving parallelly has been frozen into a state retrogression
into meaninglessness. The advantages of the quickly developing computer and
internet technology that will have brought the advantages of the positive
aspects of vibrant and abundant educational context therein available have so
far been a quiet by-passing phenomenon to a student population that stand to
benefit most from it. The worrisome question is, while all acknowledgement
that, by another continental lack of initiative, of excessive reliance on an
international financial system that is light years ahead of weakened
continental monetary instruments, the continent is cash strapped. That is foreign
exchange strapped; when will there ever be a correlation of the needs of the
populace with the actions of their elected leaders or otherwise. While research
and development are expanding in other Universities elsewhere, graduate
education and research funding are inactively discouraged. While the general
populace have little ambiguity about what the direction of developmental policy
and implementation should take, the governments are still undecided whether to
give way to others or continue to reign over mediocrity. The desired change in
the state affairs will only emerge from an actual tackling effort of the
problems instead of piecemeal scattering of misplaced trivialities that pass
for government action. The continent does not need foreign assistance to keep
clean streets, it is absurd, that even the simple task of keeping clean markets
have assumed the formidability of irresolvable.
-While scarcity of resources call for a careful dispensation of limited
resources. The adaptation of reform policies from borrowers, there need be a
reminder that all countries no matte their current state of development have
relied on massive state intervention to keep their economies running, as well
as achieve their current state of development. By turning away attention from
the core issues as relates to state sponsored activities, which is project
monitoring and managerial responsibility and accountability. Not only is
continental development delayed, and further deprivation ensured. But the
burden of activities that should have been started, but have been sidetracked
by these half-baked, incompletely considered policies, (whether imported or
locally cultivated) increase tremendously. The long term effect is that in the
face of overwhelming and daunting obstacles due to delay and the pile up
effect. There is an onslaught implementation strategy with its expected jerky
and halting progress. What should have begun as batches of small, and easily
tackled government projects, executed and maintained over time, being revised as
time and extenuating circumstances evolve is attempted at a go, and without
much surprise, but disappointment nevertheless, often half completed failures.
- Double Involved Engagement
This is a policy that will aim at using the intellectual capacity that
is employed outside the nation and the continent, while facilitation inter-country
intellectual exchange property. Building on the assumption that some free time
can be obtained outside the foreign intellects the nations must then attempt to
engage that free time for tutoring in their home countries, either by advanced
communication tools or short visits with structured academic schedules for
implementation in their absence. This calls for creative thinking; it is an all
inclusive program whether on or without government scholarship while studying
and working abroad. Transfer of development ideas must not be restricted to
formal channels only but inter disciplinary; inter occupation and venture
capitalisation must become an integrated aspect of banking management
principles subsidised by government support. It should be decentralised and
rural development oriented. More and easier resources for small and compact
projects the further away they are from the large cities.
- There is over emphasise on Accra as the focus of national activity to
compensate certain key national activities must be centred in the other
regions. The national parliament should sit in Kumasi. And the national
cultural and theatre development should be located there as well.
- The development of inland ports and railways should be extended to
Tamale in the north. Bolgatanga or Navrongo must be considered for massive
transformation as centres of development, in terms of infrastructure, education
and employment provision facilities.-
The Ministry of Agriculture should be located in the 'breadbasket of
Ghana' The Northern Region. The other regional cultural ministries should be
developed into major research and socio-cultural development centres producing
dynamic proactive research to enhance their localities.
There should be a massive upgrading of housing and infrastructure at
Aflao, Denu and surrounding areas to complement the Togolese capital Lome and
to open cross border commerce and education. There is a need to expand St
Paul's into a major French - English Institute offering courses a up to the
university level for all West Africans. The Ghana-Togo Institute will be a
combined adult education and all through educational centres catering for a
student population of a maximum of 35,000 offering applied, technical and
academic science, social science and art studies in French, English and local
languages. A significant part of the programmes will be a through education to
employment schedule, that will eliminate the dumping of unemployed educated
into a low industrial zone. The immediate implication is a dual development of
funded self initiatives and job generation schemes with high state support and
low state involvement. The projects should be designed to be self paying, and
eventually passing into ownership of operators after debts incurred in their
establishment have been paid off against inflationary debt costs. The government
is limited in its direct monitoring capacities, and should remain a regulator
to avoid previous failures of incompetence due to severe shortcomings in capabilities
along several fronts. The full involvement of owner investors imply a more committed
approach in taking advantage of facilitated meas to improve managerial and
expertise base, which is where the state will remain strong, while allowing
unhindered private sector participation, so long as the regulations guarding
quality are met.
The development of infrastructure
in these areas is to make it an attractive domicile for West Africans from Togo,
Benin and Nigeria, with high class facilities that make its proximity to these
three countries a favoured place and help improve the local economy.
- The state sponsorship of students to study outside must be re-modified
to focus on inviting lecturers to give core intense courses that will benefit
whole institutions rather than one individual, who situations my circumscribe
from full benefits. The communication possibilities of the times must bring the
knowledge of the universe through state facilitation to the masses. Adult
education and inter-occupational pause education and skill enhancement must be
at the focus of literacy and skill improvement activities of the governments
educational drive. That means the government should copy and integrate Open
University initiatives to expand the knowledge and training capacities of
courses and individuals entering tertiary institutions.
-"Oxford University had been around for hundred years but in the 12
th century when Henry II banned students in England from attending the
Univeristy of Paris, it experienced its first period of rapid growth. (Today in
2000 bound a millennium of tradition and lacking sufficient financial help from
the national government, Oxford cannot easily respond to the quickened global
pace of educational change. Harvard offers a radically different educational
experience, stressing breadth of study and real world applications of
knowledge. Education is expensive business, but the consequences of failure to
educate -especially in an increasingly global world - are even more expensive.
" Newsweek June 19, 2000. Restoration Centres: African Americans in
prison, could be willingly relocated to re-built towns like Cape Coast, where
they will be re-settled for their terms, made to undergo skilled equipage
training programmes and employed in industries run by the USA government, as
part of the continental reinstitutionalisation programme for the 'lost diasporas'
as well as providing a means for worthy existence for the many who Africans
thrown into jail and wasted by the American Penal system. In Africa they will
have to be resettled in special self-sustaining towns developed by American
resources and likely to have positive spill-over effects for the rest of the
community.''.
- Every one born within a well managed geographical territory has a
right to sustenance and full development of their incipient talents. The
society should be structured to realise this fully.
- Governments must be agile and fast responding, as well as highly
innovative. In the developed economies, there is no pause for full
understanding of emergent technologies or inventions, there is instead rapid
copying and adaptation that makes meaningless ownership. Opportunities are
created to be exploited, in infrastructure and human development activities, employment
creation and engineering. Innovative leadership requires 'outward bound'
thinking; a need to establish relevance rather than to copy it. There are
indeed many areas that African governments can by innovative leadership create
solid economic and environmental upgrading that will make the continent a
society worthy of emulation. While developed societies are worthy of copying,
they are also lacking in many areas and can become replicators of situationally
realised innovativeness in Africa. The issue of development is a social welfare
consideration for the millions that cannot and may not build adequate housing
requirements, but developed systems for the most part make a mockery of social
welfare systems. There is little to be gained by rigid adoption of western
values or seeking to emulate them. Conscious consideration of humane policies
is what Africa needs to take advantage of its unique endowments and create a
continental society that is aesthetically appreciable.
- The Development of Micro-Economies within existing 'lame evolved
economies'
1. The governments of West Africa
must negotiate a common monetary zone with a potential market of 350 million
consumers. To attract the needed investment the governments must accede the
monetary policy and product to the USA government. Thus America dollars and
monetary policies are established to attract American companies to establish
palpably profitable ventures in the sub-region. To back their investments, the
economic and legal policies in place in their home market are infused into
local company laws and regulations to enable smooth and compatible economic
milieu.- THE
WEST AFRICAN REGULATED DENOMINATION 1WARD = 100 ReDoCs
2. Existing local currencies must remain legal tender and can be
utilised side by side with WARDS to prevent erosion of savings and mistrust in monetary
policies. Government must become a manager of national resources and its
workers in the new currency that will open up easy access to common markets and
foreign investment if this area is to make a meaningful and all affecting
transition to a developed economy. The 'greed' factor rather than the
compassionate factor may interest International financial backing from major
banks and investors who will now have an added million fold to their existing
consumer base. Its just a lousy game.
3. Inner city and rural development schemes must enable improved and
high quality housing provision, networked into digital communication protocols,
markets for net based activities automatically transit and extend to a common
monetary region with high consumer potential, the 'greed' factor assumes
increased business and expanded and increasing cash flow for companies. THIS IS
THE FUNDAMENTAL ECONOMIC REMEDIAL-
4. West African governments have to encourage local production as an
element of products distributed locally to increase employment provisions.
- www.GlobalLibrary.org
Dedicated internet service providers to facilitate library materials to
developing world students, scholars and academicians. How about a continental contribution to global literacy?
