Let’s build nation on optimism
Ghanaians were downhearted when the national team, the Black Stars, were kicked out of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Anyone who spent time in the country saw a nation whose spirit had sunk.
The current economic challenges are also making Ghanaians gradually pessimistic.
Such an attitude, no doubt, creates a national psyche of hopelessness which does not bode well for national good, reconstruction and development.
Speaking at this year’s National Prayer and Thanksgiving Service held at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Accra yesterday, President John Dramani Mahama encouraged Ghanaians to trust that they could recover if they worked together and believed in the nation.
He said with unity and a positive frame of mind, irrespective of our differences, the country could surmount the current difficulties, just as other nations had done.
First and foremost, the Daily Graphic would like to associates itself with the national thanksgiving programme, which was held on the theme, “Bind us together, oh Lord”, and support the President’s call on Ghanaians to use the period as a turning point “in our relationship with one another. . . and make things work for us”.
The National Prayer and Thanksgiving Service, an annual event held to give thanks to God for how far He has brought the country, is also to inculcate in Ghanaians the need to appreciate the modest gains chalked up by the nation.
One thing the Daily Graphic would like to stress is that Ghanaians must avoid making the nation one full of pessimists who are discouraged in times of challenges. Rather, we must endeavour to build our nation on the foundation of optimism.
It is equally our conviction, as others have also expressed, that it is time Ghanaians celebrated our successes and trusted that a prosperous Ghana is achievable.
This is attainable during our lifetime and so we must change our way of life and do things in the supreme interest of Ghana. This change must start from all facets of society, including the political class, the Judiciary, the security services, civil society, the media and governance institutions.
The Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, the Most Rev Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle, preaching at the thanksgiving service, bemoaned the level to which immorality, partisan division and political thievery had brought the nation.
He said Ghana was full of religious leaders, shrines and soothsayers and yet Ghanaians were bent on tearing the country apart through sin and insatiable demands.
Admittedly, God has endowed Ghana with human and natural resources and we have no reason to fail as a country.
As a hopeful nation, it is the view of the Daily Graphic that we all denounce negative acts, desist from the practice of sitting on the fence and contribute our quota to the development of the nation. As a country, we must also shy away from the politics of exclusion and bring everybody on board in governance and nation-building processes.
May we never forget that it is God who has put us together in this beautiful country called Ghana and we must do all in our might to let things work for the better.
Ghana has a good social balance and if we all pledge ourselves to high productivity, attaining development heights beyond the sky will be our portion.
