MP in First Republic bemoans dwindling interest in national affairs

A Member of Parliament (MP) in the First Republic, Madam Lucy Anin, has observed that a general wane in the love of Ghanaians for country is responsible for the mess the country currently finds itself in.

According to her, the state of the nation’s economy, as well as the environment, has been made worse by the activities of Ghanaians.

The way out, she said, was a conscious re-institution of the ideals of Nkrumaism and their inculcation into the curricula of schools for succeeding generations to understand the building blocks of national development and true emancipation as envisaged by Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

Ms Anin made these disclosures when the Daily Graphic caught up with her to share her views on the current state of patriotism in Ghana as part of the celebration of the Republic Day.

Emergence of neo-colonialism

Ms Anin expressed worry at the rate at which neo-colonialism had reared its ugly head in the country, saying foreigners have taken over the country and Ghanaians are not fully in charge of the national economy.

That, she observed, had reduced the country to a “buy and sell country” and a dumping ground for mostly inferior products from advanced countries.

She also noted that the high-rise buildings that had become a dominant feature of the national capital and other urban areas were not constructed for use by Ghanaians but foreigners, since by the very nature of the design and architecture, they were ostensibly constructed to promote a kind of lifestyle that was not indigenous to Ghana.

“Do you think you can be on that high-rise building and carry your mortar and pestle with you to pound fufu?” she asked.

Ms Anin expressed regret that a number of state enterprises that were put up by Ghana’s first President had either been sold or left to rot, adding that with the Nsawam Cannery, for instance, the country was canning everything possible while providing employment for the people of the area, but that also had become history.

“We don’t love this country and that is why it is in a mess,” she re-echoed.

Ghanaians culpable

Touching on the ‘galamsey’ menace to buttress her point, Ms Anin sought to interrogate how foreign illegal miners had access to the forests and the water bodies to undertake their illegal activities.

“Who took them there? Is it not Ghanaians? We have lost our values as a people,” she stressed.

Going forward, Ms Anin said there was the need for Ghanaians to change the colonial mentality and also talk about African unity and not the Commonwealth.

She added that there was the need for all Africans to work extra hard towards the unification of the African continent.

“We were colonised by the British for over a century and what did we get from them? We do not need to go back to our colonial masters. We have all the required resources,” she maintained.

On the issue of elections and campaigns, it was her considered view that posters, billboards and other souvenirs used by politicians during campaign were needless and only served ultimately to worsen the sorry state of sanitation in the country.

Rather than resorting to paper publications when modern practice was geared towards a paperless society, she called for politicians to engage the services of young persons, put the money they would have used in printing campaign materials in their pocket and deploy them on a house-to-house and one-on-one campaign.

That, she observed, would make the youth active during vacation and also imprint the quality of patriotism in them.

Bring back Nkrumaism

More importantly, Ms Anin stressed the need for the entirety of the country to study Nkrumaism and have love for one’s county, describing the crux of Dr Nkrumah’s ideology as “one for one’s country”.

“We need to teach our children about Pan Africanism and the need to be proud as Africans,” she submitted and added that Dr Nkrumah wanted Ghanaians to buy and sell everything made in Ghana but it was regrettable that all the state enterprises that he built to achieve that vision had collapsed.

“If we were proud of ourselves, we would not have allowed Ghana Airways to be sold and now we have no national carrier,” she posited.

Her message on the occasion of the Republic Day celebration was for Ghanaians not to allow anyone to look down on them.

“We must believe in God and country and also believe that we can do it. As a nation, we have become copycats. It’s about time we stopped copying and asserted ourselves since we are capable of managing our own affairs,” she urged.