The 16th President of the United States of America (USA), Abraham Lincoln, once defined democracy as “Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.” If we are to situate this definition within the Ghanaian context, it means the President, his ministers and appointees are not the only people who form the government of the day, but every citizen.
Unfortunately, we often assume that because one does not belong to the political party is in power, he or she is not part of the government. As a result, we criticise the ruling administration for criticism sake without proffering any solutions to the very problems we are complaining about, because assume we are not part of the government.
In our view, the time has come for Ghanaians to move away from this posture and tell our leaders the solutions to the problems retarding the forward match of this great nation of ours, instead of sitting on the fence and resorting to criticisms only.
According to a story we have carried on our centre pages today, the new Kumasi Diocesan Bishop of the Methodist Church Ghana, Right Rev Stephen K. Owusu, is urging the government to address the youth unemployment problem, because it poses a serious security challenge to Ghana.
“There are some who left the university six years ago and are still unemployed,” he said, adding that crime-related matters among the youth are on the ascendency, a development he attributed to frustration. It is an undeniable fact that the rising youth unemployment rate is a serious security threat to the nation, as the Bishop pointed out. Those who believe in the Bible will attest to this popular quotation: ‘The Devil finds work for Idle Hands.’
Today, we are talking about terrorism, and one of the means sponsors of these terrorist groups use is to brainwash the unemployed youth, after giving them peanuts. It is based on this that the issue of unemployment must not be underrated in any developing country. Right Rev Stephen K. Owusu, therefore, hit the nail right on the head when he said youth unemployment poses a security threat to our dear nation.
But after pointing out the flaws, The Chronicle was expecting the Prelate to have come out or suggested solutions to the problem, but this was not done. Nevertheless, we are happy with his position that “the entire nation must come together to find a solution to this canker.” This feeds into the position that we should not be sitting on the fence thinking that this is not our government.
If the USA and the European countries had adopted this mentality, they would not have been where they are today. The time has come for us to put aside the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) politics and seriously think about how to develop this country. The NPP and NDC will come and leave the scene, but Ghana, our Motherland, will be there forever.
Ghanaians should, therefore, not wait for any of these parties of theirs to win power before suggesting or coming out with ideas on how to solve the numerous challenges confronting the country. May God perish our thought, but should there be any violence in this country because the youth have no work to do, everybody is going to suffer. This is the reason why we must come together as a nation and stop the NPP and NDC dirty politics.
