The adage that "if our leaders go through what ordinary Ghanaians go through everyday all our problems would be solved" did not strike hard on me until I read in the news that the Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Atta, has indicated that some toll booths on our roads will be closed down.

This, according to the Minister, is to ease the comfort of the road users.

This announcement by the Minister is coming after he endured an uncomfortable delay at the Kubease toll booth in the Ashanti Region.

What is worrying here is that this heavy vehicular traffic on our toll booths is not a new thing and this Minister has been in office since 2017. So does it mean all this while the Minister did not know the difficulties we go through on our toll booths? Or is it the case that he just did not care because he was not enduring the pain himself?

Now that he has gone through the pain himself see the enthusiasm with which he wants to do something about it.

This brings to the fore why our numerous problems often don't get solved. The people who are expected to take the lead in solving the problems don't bear the brunt of the effect of the problem so they don't know how it feels much less to do something about it

Take the nature of our roads. As bad as they are, our leaders don't feel it because they use the type of vehicles that can give them the comfort they need.

With our poor health system? When they fall sick they fly out to seek better treatment elsewhere.

On our poor security system? They demand enhanced security for themselves and so on.

This is the state we find things in this country and until the citizenry demand that our leaders go through what ordinary Ghanaians go through our problems will remain unsolved for an uncomfortable period of time to come.