Really?

As father and grandfather, I question what world we will leave behind — Akufo-Addo.

I did not really believe he had said those words, when they filtered into my ears while working.

Had he really said that? Was he oblivious to the devastation swallowing all of us up? Wow! I marvelled at him.

Is it that our political leaders are cocooned from our daily realities? Or as eternal idealists, they gloss over any ‘evil’ happenings around them and go on as usual?

I sampled some comments on his speech at the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which included that statement of wondering what kind of world we would be leaving behind, and most were unpalatable.

At the heart of it, for most people, was a leader who knew full well the waste land to be inherited, yet inactive in stopping it, or just turning a blind eye.

Wondered

I have often also wondered why such a powerful president cannot or is unwilling to stop illegal mining in the country.

As I muse over this my own wondering, which, unlike the president’s, isn’t rhetorical, I ask, can he even pretend ‘small’ that he is dealing with the matter decisively?

As it is, it seems under the covering of the law, and the bureaucracy of it all, those in the illegality not connected with the powers that be are the scapegoats arrested and prosecuted, for duty bearers to show they are working at it.

But can he not, as a way of appeasing Ghanaians, whom he championed to be citizens and not spectators, stop all the devastation right under noses at police stations and along highways and byways, the length and breadth of the country?

In Stilfontein, south-west of Johannesburg South Africa now, hundreds of miners, migrants and indigenes are trapped in a mine shaft and the police are bent on arresting them no matter what, blocking the passage of food and water to them. A court has recently ordered them to unblock the passage way.

However, South African police are showing how public institutions must work independently, not looking over their shoulders while they work for approval or condemnation from any government official.

No need to wonder

We really need not wonder about the future of the world with the acts of omission and collusion of our political leaders, for the signs are already evident.

What world would we leave behind? Well. It would be a degraded world. Perhaps Ghana might have to vie for quotas for some wealthy politicians who can afford to live on other planets!

What world are we leaving? A diseased world, where deformities are the norm, not the exception!

What world are we leaving? Ghana in conflict! For if they can with impunity molest journalists doing their job, then anyone is game and these thugs will terrorise all of us till we flee our homes.

Imagine them having licences from our failing institutions to mine underneath homes.

They would come with their guns and do as they like, regardless of the fact that the home owner has had the property for decades and has all the documentation.

That is the world of chaos we will be leaving behind.

Writer’s E-mail: caroline.boateng@graphic.com.gh