Opinions of Sunday, 20 June 2010

Columnist: Arthur, Patrick Kobina

Why I pray for Prof. Frimpong- Boateng to be President of Ghana

Why I pray every for Prof. Frimpong- Boateng to be President of Ghana*

The name Frimpong-Boateng gained national and international attention not by a popularity contest but by a sacred desire by one man to serve his nation. A man who believed that his own life will be even more worth living by a devotion to a higher service for the nation. Today, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng has served this country by overcoming many seemingly impossible problems he encountered to establish a world class centre in Ghana. The reason God will answer my prayer for The-soon-to-be-sworn-in-President Frimpong-Boateng for Ghana is simple, that he more than anyone else in Ghana at this moment can inspire the nation to go back and discover and take hold of her creative birthright.

The chaotic environment in which the nation Ghana was born has caused our progress and development a great deal of harm. We should have quickly metamorphosed our desires for freedom into that of progress and development through skills and great ideas the very moment we gained our freedom. But after gaining freedom we forgot to understand that freedom is not an end in itself, but that freedom is worth its value in blood only when it is directed properly. Freedom is like a compass, it is only useful when you know where you are going and understand how to get there and for what reason. Why is progress and development so fundamental? It is because progress and development brings dignity and dignity is engraved in the human spirit, to always live to see a better tomorrow. if today we drink contaminated water and for that reason average lifespan is 41 years. Then our tomorrow or the next generation should improve water quality so much that it will prolong life. Progress and development of a nation can be likened to a child starting to walk, the child has to crawl before attempting to sprint. It cannot be imported neither can it happen suddenly, it only takes meticulous assembly of all the right components in time and space to make it happen. Assistance from outside can only provide a little push when we ourselves have made all the right moves.

Ghana can go back to the teething stage and attempt one more time and the person rightly positioned by destiny to lead that charge is Prof Frimpong-Boateng. He has done it before in his field of endeavour better that everyone else in Ghana, he knows how to start from the scratch and deplore the creative energies of Ghanaians to attempt this progress and development exercise. I pray every day to the most high GOD, that for the sake of the many brilliant children gifted to this country a leader be so appointed in Frimpong-Boateng for us. The patience for mending heart of flesh will reshape the heart of a nation that has missed its birthright and to lay hold of creative thinking as a way of life and to assembly all manner of skills to build this country.

So fellow citizens it is no long "Yes we can" - there is no doubt about that.

it should be: "Yes we will"

God bless our homeland Ghana -------------------------------------------- Patrick Kobina Arthur (PhD), parthur14@gmail.com