The ‘ordinary Ghanaian’
In Ghanaian political discourse, this phrase stings ‒ “the ordinary Ghanaian.”
It is used casually in speeches, budget readings and interviews, yet hidden beneath is a loaded term embodying pain, insult and abuse.
Politicians often use the phrase as though it signifies solidarity.
“We are working in the interest of the ordinary Ghanaian.”
But what does ordinary Ghanaian really mean?
The market woman enduring high taxes, the graduate walking dusty streets with a file in search of non-existent jobs, the father choosing between affordable rent and feeding his children.
To be an “ordinary Ghanaian” is to live on the brink, while watching your leaders dine in luxury.
Excruciatingly painful
It is painful, excruciatingly painful, that those in power would call us “ordinary” only to make a statement as if they mean well.
These are the same politicians who, by the stroke of a pen or the vote of a committee, secure lifelong ex gratia, outrageous allowances, duty-free imports, and foreign medical care- all funded by the taxes of the so-called “ordinary” people.
In what world does someone elected to serve the people become wealthier after four years in office, while the people they serve are generationally poor?
We live in a country where politics has become the most lucrative. Public service, which should be the highest form of selfless contribution to society, has turned into a ladder for personal enrichment.
Contracts are inflated, state properties are sold off quietly, and youth employment schemes become political campaign tools rather than sustainable interventions.
Meanwhile, the ordinary Ghanaian watches from the sidelines, often hungry, unemployed and undereducated.
It is unbearable to suffer because a few people in leadership have made it their business to mismanage, loot and live lavishly, while others scratch the earth for survival.
Probe
Let us probe the conscience of those who wield power.
You were elected or appointed to serve.
Not to enrich yourselves and your generations, plus selected few.
Not to build empires for your children while your constituents cannot even afford decent clothes and potable water.
Not to drive V8s while the people drink dirty water.
To call someone “ordinary” while contributing to their economic suppression is not only hypocritical but it is demonic.
When you sit in air-conditioned offices debating how much more you can take from the people, remember this: your luxury is built on their pain.
Every inflated contract is a hospital left unbuilt.
Every ghost salary is a classroom without desks.
Every misused fund is a youth denied the dignity of work.
It is time for a new kind of patriotism ‒ one that sees leadership not as a chance to escape the struggles of the “ordinary” but as a sacred duty to erase those struggles.
A Ghana where no one is “ordinary” because everyone has access to decent education, health care, jobs and clean water.
That should be our goal.
To the politician reading this: would you be proud if your own child grew up and became just “an ordinary Ghanaian”?
Would you be content if your children attended the public schools you have neglected, or were treated in the same public hospitals you underfund?
Would you accept that future?
If the answer is no, then you know the work you have left undone.
And you know the urgency with which you must change course.
Label
And to the citizens, the “ordinary Ghanaians,”‒ let us stop accepting this label as our destiny.
Let us raise our voices, vote wisely when we have the power to, demand accountability, and refuse to be pawns in a game we never benefit from.
We are not ordinary. We are hardworking, intelligent, capable, and deserving of a country that works for all.
The term “ordinary Ghanaian” should not be a euphemism for “exploited Ghanaian.”
It must instead be a rallying cry to end the system that keeps the many at the bottom while the few feast at the top.
Let us build a nation where no citizen is treated as second-class.
Let that be our mission, and may those who hold the power either rise to the task or be removed by the power of the people who finally say, “enough is enough.”
The writer is a tutor.
E-mail: wisek41@gmail.com
