Thank Goodness Ghana Still Has Many Decent People In It

By Kofi Thompson

The cynicism and bile elicited by an article of mine posted online (entitled: "Helping Ghanaians In The Diaspora Execute Projects Successfully"), suggesting an untapped Diasporan business opportunity existed, for reputable financial services sector companies in Ghana - and that perhaps they ought to consider offering a service enabling Ghanaians living overseas, to successfully complete their projects in Ghana from their bases abroad - illustrates perfectly the depths to which public morality seems to have sunk in Ghana.

Abuse from strangers one does not know - many immature adults, judging by their inane and abusive comments on articles they could not possibly have read with any degree of comprehension: from their reaction - can be expected on some online platforms, but that so many people who commented on the article seemed to actually believe that no honest individuals can be found anywhere in Ghana, is worrying in the extreme.

Of course, not all Ghanaians hold such negative views about themselves and those they know - and it will do Ghanaian society no good at all, if our children and their children's children, were to become infected by the cynical and limiting viewpoint that we are a dishonest people.

Yes, we must go through life being careful, to ensure that we are not taken advantage of, by dishonest people - who are to be found in every nation on the surface of the planet Earth, incidentally - but we must not be so negative as to believe that there aren't many Martin Amidus in Ghanaian society, for example. Indeed, there are.

It is true that there are many not-so-honest individuals in Ghana - just as there are everywhere else in the world, for that matter - but not all Ghanaians have been infected by the money-at-all-costs-virus that makes some lose their values and bearings.

At any rate, most of the people I personally know, are people with values, who are men and women of integrity. In that old-fashioned world, helping each other, is not a shady-business-opportunity to rip one another off.

In light of such socially destructive cynicism amongst the commentariat, I am certainly glad I did not grow up in a Ghana, in which having values and integrity, meant one was an oddball and a fool.

I admit to the fact that I am no saint myself - I have a vile temper, I am ashamed to say. And I can be very mean: I hate flies and mosquitoes - both of which I annihilate on sight, when spotted, with water-based pyretherium insecticide.

Let the cynics who think every Ghanaian in Ghana is a crook, speak for themselves.

Luckily for me, the everyday world I inhabit in the Ghana of today, as I edge towards my 60th year on this earth, is still full of individuals with values and integrity. Thank goodness, for such little mercies, say I.

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