In visits to my village, local youth regularly visit me at home. They know that I have some level of notoriety in national affairs and that I welcome these interactions. So they come to sit with me, to discuss issues.
Often, the assemblage of youth is not based on political affiliation. They seem to have noticed that I am someone who likes to imbibe the knowledge they come to share with me. A patient listener, I have learned to listen, and over the years, one persistent message has always come through; there are no job opportunities in our rural areas.
Indeed, if you travel through the hinterlands of Ghana, a cursory look should tell you that Ghana’s rural areas are dead. They are not dying; they are dead. You only have to meet with the people, the youth, men and women, to recognize the apathy, hopelessness, joblessness, and penury that is their lot.
Everybody is running away from the rural areas, particularly the youth.
I believe I have told this story on this page before, about my visit to an embassy of an eastern European nation and the long line of Ghanaian youth I met there, standing in line, trying to secure visas. Visas, so that they can flee our country.
It is against this backdrop that I read a recent statement by Majority Leader Afenyo Markin that his political party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), is an organization that recognizes that the contributions of its youthful members.
In other words, he was calling on those youthful enough and with the energy to spare, that they should go out these and campaign for the NPP and that that party would recognize their efforts and reward them accordingly.
I am sure that Mr. Markins’ sentiment is a sentiment that every politician in Ghana would wish for; that the entirety of our youth would go out on a wholehearted effort to campaign to bring his party to power.
The reasonable question the youth would ask, of course, is what they would get out of such an endeavor. The quick and factual answer, of course, is absolutely nothing. They would never, as the situation is today, receive any reasonable recompense for supporting any politician to reach the heights the politician wishes to attain.
How we can find a way around this, is for us to govern in such a way, that all the youth of the country benefit from whatever policy we implement. When such benefits arise and are across board, the youth would arrive at a reasonable conclusion that such and such political organization needs to be retained in power.
Which would bring us to the ideological bases of our political parties. Looking at our two major political parties from far off, one gets the distinct impression that they are not that different in terms of what they do and deliver. When both gets a chance at power, they allow leadership to steal rabidly. Both have the same stance on corruption; they are corrupt when they are in office, and oppose corruption when they are out of office.
They are agreed that they can procure many loans on a senseless spree. They have mutual agreement on big houses and the latest four-wheel drives for all appointees.
They both have an affinity to educating their sons and daughters abroad. They both love scholarships for themselves and their children and family members.
They all have no idea on how to deliver good governance. They both like leaders who can talk a mile a minute and crawl slower than a tortoise when it comes to development. And so on, and so on.
If you are youth, and you heard Afenyo-Markin, and you want my advice, I will tell you this; find some pieces of cassava, and some cocoyam leaves, and cook something to eat.
Do not waste your energy on the NPP and NDC.Â
They do not mean well for you.Â
