The real culture of Ghana
In the late 80s, I was driving on one of the major streets of Accra late at night when my car just ‘died.’ The engine went dead and all my attempts to restart it were futile. The time was about 10pm.
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I saw a filling station on the other side of the road and so I crossed the road and went to see the attendant in charge, a young man probably in his late 30s. I told him of my problem and said, “I want a place to park my car overnight. I will come with my mechanic to take a look at it or to tow it away first thing tomorrow morning.”
The attendant was very reluctant to help but I had no other choice, so I pressed my plea. Finally he said, “You can bring your car and park it there.” And he pointed to a spot far away from the pumps.
I thanked him and went back to the car to push it to the station. Then he said, “I will close tomorrow morning at 6am. So, you should make sure that you are here before I close. If you know you cannot be here before my shift closes at 6 then take your car away.”
I assured him that I would come for my car before 6am. Then I took out some money from my pocket and said, “My brother, thanks for your help. It is a cold night and so take this and get yourself some hot tea”.
As soon as he saw the money, the young man brightened up. He said, “Wait! Where you have parked your car is not safe. Let me help you push it right in front of the office.”
And the same person who had watched me push the car across the street this time helped me to push it to the space between the pumps and the office. Then he said, “When did you say you can come for the car?”
I said, “You said you close at 6 and so I will be here before your shift ends.”
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He said, “No, don’t worry about when I close. You take your time and come whenever you can. I will wait for you to come before I leave so don’t be in a hurry to leave.”
I thanked him and left. The next day, I was there at 8 and he was waiting and still cheerful all because of the money I had given him the night before.
Alfred who works with me tells of a big project he got involved in a few years ago. It was a project to generate electricity using solar energy in one of the districts in Ghana. The project was to be funded by one of our EU partners.
Alfred and his team made a trip to that country to inspect some of the solar energy projects and some of the companies that had expertise in solar energy also sent high-powered delegations to Ghana to meet Alfred and his team and also to check out the proposed sight of the project.
Alfred and his team met the chiefs in the selected district and they were more than happy to help them acquire land for the project.
The chiefs were happy with the project for three reasons. One, it was going to provide employment for the young men in the community. Two, part of the agreement for the purchase of the land was that the community in which the project was based would enjoy free electricity for as long as the project operated. And three the project was going to give their communities a lot of importance and exposure.
With the land secured and with funding assured and with the foreign company’s readiness to bring the technology to Ghana, Alfred and his team went to meet with the District Chief Executive (DCE) to brief him of the project. This was necessary because they needed his support to get the government’s green light for the project.
The DCE listened carefully to the brief and he knew it was a big project that would alleviate poverty in the district, but to the surprise and disappointment of the team, the DCE demanded that he be made a part of the project in his personal capacity or they could forget any governmental support.
The long and short of it is that the project never took off because the relevant public officials insisted on gaining personally from the project as a condition for doing what they were paid to do to make the project take off.
Culture is defined as the ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular people or society. The anthropologist, Hoebel, describes culture as an integrated system of learned behaviour patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not a result of biological inheritance.
I’ll like to ask, what is the Ghanaian culture? If culture is the social behaviour of a particular people then what is the Ghanaian culture?
From my own experiences and the experiences of others, I have to say that it has become our culture now that a Ghanaian will not help a fellow Ghanaian unless he can profit from it.
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If he cannot see how he can benefit directly and personally from the help he is in a position to give, the Ghanaian is not interested in helping. As a people, we are no longer interested in receiving a thank you for a good deed or for providing a service for which we are paid.
We want a thank you that is said with money or with gifts or in the case of a woman with her body.
One manifestation of this culture is a phenomenon that is becoming very common in Accra. On every street where there are potholes, you will find a young man with a shovel and a bucket of sand pretending to be filling the potholes but he is really not filling them. He is using the pretence of filling them to ask for money from drivers.
That is at the individual level but the culture works at the public or official level as well. I have discovered that in Ghana most public officers will not do what they have to do to serve their communities if they will not gain personally or privately from the service or the project the community needs.
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A bridge in Ghana would become a death trap but there is a public officer whose duty is to ensure that the bridge is in good repair. But if he cannot see how he will make money from keeping the bridge in good repair then he does not care how dangerous and unsafe the bridge becomes; he will simply not do anything about it. But let him see how he can profit personally and directly from carrying out the repairs and it will be done.
There is a solution to any problem you see in Ghana, and there are public officers tasked to ensure that it is done. But if those officers cannot see any way of lining their pockets by discharging their duty and providing the solutions to the problems then the problems will not be addressed.
This tendency is so widespread that I am afraid we will have to see it now as part of our culture. And the culture states that the Ghanaian will not carry out his duty to the larger community if he cannot see any way of enriching himself from discharging that duty.
And because of this culture, the lives of Ghanaians are becoming more difficult and stressful and unfulfilling every day. Because of this culture, Ghana loses projects every day.
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Because of this culture, some roads will never be repaired or even constructed. Because of this culture, the average Ghanaian will be deprived of basic services other people take for granted.
It is sad but in Ghana money talks. In Ghana, money is the real mover and shaker. And this is not a recent phenomenon.
If you read Lee Kuan Yew’s book, ‘From Third World to First World,’ you will see why he got disgusted with Ghana (the only time he visited Ghana).
He was so disappointed with this culture of ours that he swore never to visit Ghana again and he said to his aides, “With this kind of attitude and culture, a nation is finished.”
The good thing about any culture is that it can be changed. As Hoebel said: Culture is an integrated system of learned behaviour patterns. If it is learned, we can unlearn it and relearn something better.
We need to realise that this culture will not take us anywhere and we need (as people) to decide that we can do better and that our fellow Ghanaians deserve better and Ghana definitely deserves better.