My Dearest Osagyefo Prophet Kwame Nkrumah,
I write as a grandson
of your country Ghana to inform you of the mess all those mindless guys who
followed you have created. To the best of my knowledge, Osagyefo, your Ghana
has been taken more than a century backwards. Nothing practically seems to be
working! Safe litanies of mouth -watering promises!
My grandfather, you remember in 1961 alone your administration established 60 factories and “... agreements were signed for the establishment of a large, modern oil refinery, an iron and steel works, a flour mill, and sugar, textile and cement factories. Hmmmm! I have sad news to report to you, Prophet Nkrumah. These factories are either defunct or dashed to neo-colonialists you incessantly warned us against. You may be interested in some details. Yes, grandpa, I can’t deny you of them. First, the textile industry is on its knees waiting for the last stroke while synthetic Chinese wax invades your country. We import lumps of sugar for daily survival; matches and tooth pick are added to the wage-bill of government. What may interest you most, Osagyefo, is the refinery. You know, as I address you Prophet, those back-looking folks running the country after you feel jealous. I don’t give them a damn! You recollect that your vision for the refinery was to complement it with an oil find. Yes! Commercial drilling of oil kicked start about 2 years ago amid greater poverty of your children. Paradoxically, the refinery is grounded. But people still sit there and just watch the edifice, yet they withdraw fat sums from government coffers each month while our oil is carted out of your beautiful Ghana.
Let me refresh your memory with this, grandpa: “In forestry, we have introduced a programme for conservation and disease control, which will both safeguard our forest reserves and permit an advance in timber production”. You remember these words you uttered far back in 1963? I greatly admire your affirmative audacity! After you, this affirmative language has changed to “we will do this, we will do that” but it will never yet been done. That forest you spoke of with love has been scaled and lacerated out of ineptitude. Chinese are imported into the forest to shot Ghanaians with impunity in order to harvest gold. All Ghanaian rivers now flow with ‘golden water’ as a result of contamination by illegal miners.
Not much has been added to Akosombo despite the astronomical increase in population. What we have been good at, though is an annual assemblage of clergymen at the bank of the dam whenever the water level falls. We are now used to darkness and massive layoffs of workers by employers who will not want to keep dormant workers as a result of power cuts. I just endured a rapidity of power-cuts as I sit down to scribble this letter to you.
Everybody has become greedy and selfish without an iota of nationalism or self-determination. Our leaders are the guiltiest. What I see today in Ghana, Osagyefo, is opposite of what I heard and read about your selflessness, patriotism and Africanism. The‘wisemen’ who rule us now always make it a point to retire every 4 years with several millions of money they named after your ‘Holy Ghana’ and other properties as gift from the poor citizenry. Yes, gift I said. It doesn’t matter whether it is given in good will or hatred. I bet you if you were still living here with us, considering the struggle you went through to liberate Ghana from the foot-hold of the Queen of England, you would not have ‘travelled’ a pauper without even a hut for your children. I do not mean to ridicule you, grandpa; your integrity is indelible and could not have been swayed in the midst of a people who could not still access basic health care, good roads, education or
clean drinking water.
Grandpa, have some patience for me to add that education is a sham. It is just by the grace of our ancestors that I could put this together in a letter. Our children 50 years after your struggle continue to sit in disgusting structures called classrooms; sometimes they could go terms without learning materials. Your children in the northern part of Ghana suffer the most. Your scholarships for them are scorned, and the successive governments look at them as a nuisance. The governments are directionless and they kick education around like a game of football. The roads in every part of the country are lacerated with pit-hole scars. Deaths on the roads are still rampant. Potable water is a mirage with its concomitant cholera infested gutters and diets.
Prophet Nkrumah, as a result of selfishness, greed and corruption, apathy has set in. Those African principles of self-determination, patriotism and the ideals of communal work are dead and gone. Your Black Star, the shining star of African, with their accomplices has become the mocking star in the eyes of the world for their greed. We crave for useless Euro-American religio-cultural confusion and their financial cohorts, IMF and WORLD BANK to solve the Ghanaian problem.
My grandfather, you remember in 1961 alone your administration established 60 factories and “... agreements were signed for the establishment of a large, modern oil refinery, an iron and steel works, a flour mill, and sugar, textile and cement factories. Hmmmm! I have sad news to report to you, Prophet Nkrumah. These factories are either defunct or dashed to neo-colonialists you incessantly warned us against. You may be interested in some details. Yes, grandpa, I can’t deny you of them. First, the textile industry is on its knees waiting for the last stroke while synthetic Chinese wax invades your country. We import lumps of sugar for daily survival; matches and tooth pick are added to the wage-bill of government. What may interest you most, Osagyefo, is the refinery. You know, as I address you Prophet, those back-looking folks running the country after you feel jealous. I don’t give them a damn! You recollect that your vision for the refinery was to complement it with an oil find. Yes! Commercial drilling of oil kicked start about 2 years ago amid greater poverty of your children. Paradoxically, the refinery is grounded. But people still sit there and just watch the edifice, yet they withdraw fat sums from government coffers each month while our oil is carted out of your beautiful Ghana.
Let me refresh your memory with this, grandpa: “In forestry, we have introduced a programme for conservation and disease control, which will both safeguard our forest reserves and permit an advance in timber production”. You remember these words you uttered far back in 1963? I greatly admire your affirmative audacity! After you, this affirmative language has changed to “we will do this, we will do that” but it will never yet been done. That forest you spoke of with love has been scaled and lacerated out of ineptitude. Chinese are imported into the forest to shot Ghanaians with impunity in order to harvest gold. All Ghanaian rivers now flow with ‘golden water’ as a result of contamination by illegal miners.
Not much has been added to Akosombo despite the astronomical increase in population. What we have been good at, though is an annual assemblage of clergymen at the bank of the dam whenever the water level falls. We are now used to darkness and massive layoffs of workers by employers who will not want to keep dormant workers as a result of power cuts. I just endured a rapidity of power-cuts as I sit down to scribble this letter to you.
Everybody has become greedy and selfish without an iota of nationalism or self-determination. Our leaders are the guiltiest. What I see today in Ghana, Osagyefo, is opposite of what I heard and read about your selflessness, patriotism and Africanism. The‘wisemen’ who rule us now always make it a point to retire every 4 years with several millions of money they named after your ‘Holy Ghana’ and other properties as gift from the poor citizenry. Yes, gift I said. It doesn’t matter whether it is given in good will or hatred. I bet you if you were still living here with us, considering the struggle you went through to liberate Ghana from the foot-hold of the Queen of England, you would not have ‘travelled’ a pauper without even a hut for your children. I do not mean to ridicule you, grandpa; your integrity is indelible and could not have been swayed in the midst of a people who could not still access basic health care, good roads, education or
clean drinking water.
Grandpa, have some patience for me to add that education is a sham. It is just by the grace of our ancestors that I could put this together in a letter. Our children 50 years after your struggle continue to sit in disgusting structures called classrooms; sometimes they could go terms without learning materials. Your children in the northern part of Ghana suffer the most. Your scholarships for them are scorned, and the successive governments look at them as a nuisance. The governments are directionless and they kick education around like a game of football. The roads in every part of the country are lacerated with pit-hole scars. Deaths on the roads are still rampant. Potable water is a mirage with its concomitant cholera infested gutters and diets.
Prophet Nkrumah, as a result of selfishness, greed and corruption, apathy has set in. Those African principles of self-determination, patriotism and the ideals of communal work are dead and gone. Your Black Star, the shining star of African, with their accomplices has become the mocking star in the eyes of the world for their greed. We crave for useless Euro-American religio-cultural confusion and their financial cohorts, IMF and WORLD BANK to solve the Ghanaian problem.
Grandpa, I am not joking, your Ghana has been declared
Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) and we are more than proud to draw this
inscription on market sheds, KVIPs, School blocks and other conspicuous
projects. I know you might be down-spirited! Grandpa, just let Auntie Fatima be
closer to you and give you that motherly care she has showed for so many years.
Please grandpa, I would not write further until you urgently reply to the nuisance I have stated here. I however, have some pressing requests to make. Please strike out these fruitless people who desired to drag your country back to your imperialist enemies. Invoke the spirit of our motherland to clear off also brainless leaders. Or change the name Ghana back to Gold Coast and dash it back to the Queen and her folks. I am sure she would be grateful because one of her foot-holds is backing out soon from her EMPIRE so she would urgently need a replacement.
I have trust in you and hope you will act with some expediency. The integrity of your toil, blood and sweat is at stake here.
Please grandpa, I would not write further until you urgently reply to the nuisance I have stated here. I however, have some pressing requests to make. Please strike out these fruitless people who desired to drag your country back to your imperialist enemies. Invoke the spirit of our motherland to clear off also brainless leaders. Or change the name Ghana back to Gold Coast and dash it back to the Queen and her folks. I am sure she would be grateful because one of her foot-holds is backing out soon from her EMPIRE so she would urgently need a replacement.
I have trust in you and hope you will act with some expediency. The integrity of your toil, blood and sweat is at stake here.
A concerned disillusioned grandson!
Isaac Limpu
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