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| President John Dramani Mahama |
My Brothers and Sisters;
This has indeed been an interesting and productive
interaction. Thank you for your candid questions.
I have answered them honestly, transparently and, most
important, with the hope that rather than my responses being an end-of-subject
full-stop, they will be part of an ongoing discussion between the good people
of Ghana, the media, members of my administration and me.
As with any conversation, in order to gain new and useful
insights, it is important that we listen to one another- truly listen. What I
have seen happening too often is people dismissing the viewpoints of others
without even listening to what it is they have to say.
If we continue on this path, we run the risk of creating
unnecessary divisions in our country—socially, ethnically, tribally, geographically,
politically and even in the arena of religion and faith. And what we sometimes
fail to hear is that we are all on the same side. We are all on the side of
Ghana.
We may have differing opinions on how to get Ghana to the
place where we want it to be, but the fact remains that we all do want to reach
the same destination: One in which Ghana is fully developed, with a thriving
economy, ample employment opportunities, a solid infrastructure, top-level
educational system that is accessible and free to all, a functional health
delivery system, an overall reduction in poverty, and so much more.
But that doesn’t happen overnight. Three years ago, when I
was sworn in for my first term as President, the problems that Ghana was
facing, while not insurmountable, were foundational.
The power crisis is a prime example. The process of load
shedding did not begin with my administration. The problems in our
infrastructure have been apparent for quite some time.
However, when confronted with the dilemma of how to resolve
the problem, I opted not to go the route of a quick-fix because we, as a
nation, cannot continue to make decisions for the short run.
True progress must be sustainable. What we needed was a
stable foundation, not a patch-up job. And that would take time.
The decision I took to fully expand our energy infrastructure
was not politically expedient or desirable. Indeed, the decision I took was
quite unpopular.
But leadership and popularity are not the same thing, and
every so often in the course of leadership, one has to make decisions that are
neither popular nor politically expedient.
Such was the case during the 2014 Ebola Outbreak in West
Africa. As President, I took the decision to allow Ghana, specifically, Accra,
to serve as the base of operations for the United Nations and other relief
organizations and efforts for the affected nations.
There was anger and outrage and accusations that I was
exposing our country to Ebola; that because of my decision the virus would
surely find its way across our borders and result in the loss of Ghanaian
lives.
But the alternative—to turn our back on our neighboring
nations in their time of need, especially as the world was taking its time to
respond, would have not only been insensitive; it would have been inhumane.
Having Accra be the command post for humanitarian help during
the Ebola crisis was not a popular decision, but I still maintain that it was
the right thing to do.
Much in the same vein, my administration’s decision to permit
entry to two former Guantanamo Bay detainees as well as refugees from Rwanda,
Syria and Yemen have been met with fierce resistance.
I realize that our world is going through uncertain times. I
realize, too, that no nation wants to open its doors to terrorists or to the
possibility of terrorism. Still we cannot let the fear of what might be cloud
our compassion or make us turn a blind eye to the very real need that does
exist.
There are people who no longer have a country to call home;
people who have been cleared of the charges of all alleged crimes; and people
whose only crime is being born in a country whose name is now automatically
associated with a group of insurgents terrorizing their fellow
countrymen-and-women.
Ghana has a long history of humanitarianism.
We have a long history of being counted as a leader, not only
on the African continent but also in the entire international community.
In 1960 Ghana became the first African nation to contribute
troops to the UN Peacekeeping Force.
In 1961 Ghana became the first nation ever to receive
volunteers from the newly established Peace Corps.
Throughout the years, Ghana has provided shelter for many
freedom fighters and exiles.
Long before the world’s nations collectively declared the
system of apartheid an abomination, Ghana was issuing passports, and a place to
call home, to those fleeing the racial injustice and persecution taking place
in South Africa; people such as Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masakela.
When Nigeria considered musician Fela Kuti a criminal and a
troublemaker of the highest order, Ghana offered him a home.
During the two decades that civil war engulfed our
sub-region, we accepted thousands of refugees and, at that time, for many
Ghanaians it was a point of contention. They believed it would make us too
vulnerable, that it might somehow move the war onto our soil.
Though it was not popular, the various administrations back
then made the decision to grant refuge to those individuals because it was the
right thing to do.
Ghana has even gone so far as to offer Africans in the
Diaspora as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade the ability to gain
citizenship and live permanently on our soil.
Fear is a powerful motivator. That’s the purpose of
terrorism. It tests your commitment to who you are, your very principles; it
tests your ability to stay true to your own history.
Ghana is our homeland, but we can never allow ourselves to
forget that we are also citizens of a larger world, one that depends on the
co-existence and the cooperation of all nations in order to achieve true peace
and stability.
Nelson Mandela once said, “Our human compassion binds us the
one to the other—not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have
learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.”
And there are many reasons for us here in Ghana to have hope
for the future.
I thank you for your support.
I thank you for your kind attention, and your willingness to
listen.
May God bless you, and may God continue to bless our beloved
homeland, Ghana.
Emmanuel Dzivenu
(Radio Univers)
