Whispers Of A Revolution

It has been well over 7 months since my last post on this blog. I took the backstage. Perhaps because I'm not an ardent fan of blogging and tweeting. Or was there was a dry out of ideas? Umm.. I doubt. I wanted to "take care of life" first...hope you know what I mean. I've been a little busy though, with a couple of travelling here and there. A couple of partnerships here and there. A couple of setbacks here and there, raising funds here and there... makes me realise its time to resume with some blog posts cos you never really finish "taking care of life," do you?

That was enough time for me though, to conceive a vision. I have a dream, you know? It started when I became a partner in a two man regional supervisory team to the Amansie West and Central Districts of the Ashanti Region during the recent NID on polio. Prior to that was a similar monitoring on LLIN distribution in the Bekwai municipality, and that's where the dream began: in the deprived villages of these districts.

NID monitoring: some kids sharing a meal at Mile 9 village, Amansie West District. The one below 5years was given 2 drops of the polio vaccine. He may be protected from polio, but how about diarrhoea or worm infestation? An example of "health without wealth".

The more I saw malnourished children playing football barefooted in the hot African sand, the more I witnessed them eat plain rice without stew, the more I saw young men my age burning precious time away in the  village squares apparently because there are no jobs, the more I heard stories of their recent poor returns on farming, the more I saw young ladies visibly struck with poverty with four or more children, the sparkle in their eyes upon seeing you step out  of a government 4WD presuming you're some sort of Santa Claus... the more I saw, the more the dream took shape.

I believe in order for Africa to be fully liberated, there must be another scramble; this time, by Africans.

I began to wonder whether these public health interventions we supervised could really make significant  impact in the lives of the recipients. My mind got back into academia mode thinking about what my academic supervisor, Dr. Otupiri had said about the interlinking complexities of health and wealth back in school. 

The past few weeks have really been an epiphany for me. I began to see the bigger forest as I zoomed out of the Amazons of life with my mind going back into history. You see, it took a group of white men to partition Africa for their own parochial interests in what we famously call the Scramble For Africa - a scramble that changed the course of history forever. The question has always been: "How do we undo the effects of this scramble?"

I believe in order for Africa to be fully liberated, there must be another scramble; this time, by Africans. It will take a group of young, passionate forward looking African visionaries to partition the continent once more, and I'm obviously not talking about political partitioning here. A scramble... a scramble... an economic scramble to be pioneered by the young enterprising nationals of each country.

I repeat: I have a dream. And its not the MLK kind of dream. It's a dream bigger than my job. It's a dream bigger than my startup business. It's a dream bigger than the government. Its a dream where Ghana is controlled by bold passionate Ghanaian entrepreneurs. The way I see it, we've been dependent upon our governments for far too long... and our governments in turn, have counted on the support of international donor partners to make a change. The result? Supports comes, but only for temporary relief. They don't always result in the creation of long term jobs that fit well into our strategic plan for the future. The problem, we all know: we've been talking about what we need to do for far too long and each "we need to" is tied to the government. 

I have a dream...

It's a dream bigger than my job. 

It's a dream bigger than my business. 

It's a dream bigger than the government.

The good old quote by an American, Baron M.A. Rothschild still holds water today. He said: "Give me control over a nations currency, and I care not who makes its laws.” We need a generation of thinkers who would not just think, but act. Thinkers who don't just think, but think big. Thinkers who have the capacity to control our nation's currency. Thinkers who believe they're made to be millionaires - for  disambiguity, I mean millionaires in the world currency, US$. Thinkers who will build big multinational companies and invest in the people. We need entrepreneurs passionate about agriculture. Those with a knack for production and manufacturing. We need researchers, sortware developers, historians, artists etc... we need them all. 

My boss in a chat with a household in Gyasikrom, Bekwai Municipality 

We are going to scramble for Ghana. We'll partition the country among ourselves. We'll share the over 140 districts among ourselves. Each visionary will take up a number of districts to focus on. We'll draw our own manifesto. We're not going to depend on donor support. We'll not be an NGO, just a group of passionate Ghanaian entrepreneurs who want to make a change. We'll create a timeline.  The first four years will be a time for building each other's entrepreneurial capacity up for expansion. We'll collaborate with the GIPC and the various  District and Municipal chief executives. By the end of the second four year term, over half of our visionaries should be millionaires. This is where the dream fully takes off. Investments in rural Ghana begins. We'll create jobs. Sustainable jobs, I mean. We'll collectively increase the GDP of our country substantially. The dream is big. Its enormous, gargantuan, if you may call it. 

There're a couple of millionaires in Ghana who've made it big and are doing well. Unfortunately, rather than create more jobs for our rural folks, they focus on politics, trying to win political power before they "help". See my first picture with 4 kids eating from a bowl? Imagine they have one father. There is a small scale cassava processing plant within a 2-3 mile radius from their village, or perhaps a palm oil mill, or a well organised legal and environmentally friendly mine [galamsey] within reach that pays well. He'll be able to take good care of his children. He could, perhaps learn how to trade forex online and make some extra money. His socio economic statue will be improved. These boys will be cleaned up, eating good food on a table.  Who is making these opportunities available to them? WE GOTTA!! 

Lets just say we'll create a government in which all ministers are professionals and entrepreneurs investing in deprived areas of our country with their own money. 25 years from now, when your son goes to monitor a health intervention as I did, there must be a change because health interventions without wealth creation cannot work. 

There are so many people who drift along in life; very uninspiring people. All they think about is their work to get money, take care of their family, have something for themselves and the few people they know. It is their reason for doing whatever they do; a very little dream. Very unadventurous, just wanting to hang on somewhere in life. It is not God's plan. - Pastor Chris Oyakilome

The dream is big; it has began. We're not after huge numbers... just a few who are passionate about creating wealth by creating jobs... not just jobs, but spreading the gospel of Christ Jesus  through wealth creation. Meetings of these Ghanaian visionaries who want to be part of this scramble will not be hyped with long speeches to beef up the egos of people who only want some bit fame. We'll talk less and do more. I've got the district level political map of Ghana hanging in my room. Get one. Begin creating mental patterns, lets start whispering... whispers of a revolution.

Emmanuel Asare, MPH
easaree@gmail.com