Ghana is a paradox.
We're a country with such promise, yet so little to show for it. A land of opportunity, yet so few can access it. For its youth, Ghana presents a stark existential dilemma.
On one hand, there is the promise of a better future. We, a youth-filled country have the potential to make a positive impact with little skills acquisition and education.
Yet, on the other hand, there is little to show for that promise. There's the reality of low access to jobs and opportunities, and an insanely high cost of living. We have for ourselves, a Ghana not suited for Ghanaians.
For the average young Ghanaian (educated or not), there are no jobs. And the unavailability of jobs has meant constant frustration and exasperation. Yet, even if there were jobs, our youth are woefully ill-prepared for them.
We keep churning out graduates who severely lack the practical skills and experiences needed to navigate the complex, ever-changing world of work. Yet, we're expecting the absolute best from them. We keep handing them carrots to a gunfight.
True, we've tried to implement several youth intervention programs -NSS, NYEP, NABCO, and the likes. But these programs have failed to meet their objectives, and are leaving the rising youth population more frustrated than ever.
For example, the national service scheme. An innovative program with the aim of "providing newly qualified graduates with the opportunity to have practical exposure on the job, both in the public and private sectors, as part of their civic responsibility to the State". Yes, copied exactly from their website.
An honest assessment of it shows that rather than fulfilling its objectives, it has become like a right of passage.
All graduates are required to serve their country for one year but the program has become a source of discontent for many of them, who are often exploited and used as cheap labour. To say that these service personnel are underpaid, if paid at all, is a huge understatement.
I love numbers, so let me pour some here. The World Bank's extreme poverty line is set at $1.90 a day. In cedi terms, that's 22.89 cedis (about 686.7 cedis monthly). National service personnel who solely rely on their earnings of 559 cedis are all EXTREMELY poor, by these definitions.
But then here we are being forced into entrepreneurship, as the solution to all our problems. The paradox is more prominent here as we're being told to "create opportunities" for ourselves by people who resort to huge lending sprees to "band-aid" the nation's problems.
A country which trains its youth to be employed is forcing them to create employment! Paradox. Yet it feels like we're being silenced with the "you're lazy" tag each time we talk about our plights.
In our ill-taught history classes, we learn of a Young, driven politician whose activism on Ghana's economic climate at the time shook the country. The "ku me prɛko" demonstration on Ghana's high cost of living and the imposition of Value Added Tax (VAT) on items is undoubtedly one of Ghana's most prominent movements.
And it was huge! Yet (...)
"Yɛ ti sika so" is telling us today that whatttt? "sika no ashi". "I would put my presidency on the line to fight galamsey" is telling us that a report he sanctioned is "hearsay" because it doesn't have a cover page.
And I don't think the president lied to us. The President didn't promise to stop Galamsey. He promised to win the fight against Galamsey. But the twist is that this victory was supposed to be for Galamseyers. We completely missed the point.
What did we do wrong to deserve a future with a depleted environment, huge debt levels with nothing to show for, and resources that are no longer ours? Where did we go wrong?
And for us, the future, what do we do?
