Dream, Think, Plan, Do!

“All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they shall act their dreams with open eyes to make them possible.” T.E. Lawrence

By this definition I hope to define myself as a dangerous woman. For I am very much a dreamer of the day, and like most, my dreams span far and wide. I dream for myself, I dream for my family and I dream for my country. It is interesting in the dawn of Samia Nkrumah being appointed as flag bearer for CPP that some may say that she may perhaps seek to forge a reality of the dreams of her father.

As Ghanaians, we live in a society fuelled by superstition and dreams. One observation made is that we are always so quick to respond to the bad dreams, and have been highly innovative in fending ourselves against perceived ‘evils’; thus fuelling the markets for gimmicks such as ‘back to sender’ concoctions. However we become dull and sluggish in our retort to defining an agenda for action, aimed at driving our aspirations and the hopes for our communities as inspired by the virtuous dreams of the masses.

In a recently lecture Presented by Baffour Agyeman-Duah: Reflections on Poverty and Wealth Creation in Ghana, he makes the assertion that; “Ghana should not be poor.” He continues by suggesting that the current disarray of our nations affairs may somewhat be attributed to the conditioning of our minds as a people. He argues the premise that;

“The more we believe and think poverty, the more poverty will come to us! The more determined we are to fight poverty the more poverty will come so we can continuously have a fight. Therefore instead of thinking and fighting poverty, we should rather be thinking to create wealth!”

A disheartening revelation was made in today’s Business and Financial Times. The headline declares that; “Jobs are our greatest worry!” In this article by Leslie Dwight Mensah; the biggest weakness of the economy is defined as the “chronic joblessness of a vast proportion of the people”, he continues to reveal that 50% of graduates who leave our nations universities will not find jobs for up to two years after their national service.

So what is the link between, wealth creation, my dreams for a nation and our agenda for action? In an economy abundant in mineral wealth and human resources what is hindering us from harnessing our revenues, employing our people, enabling all in society to meet the standards of basic human needs and investing in national infrastructure?

Baffour Agyeman-Duah continues to suggest that our greatest obstacle is the “Poverty of the Mind”. This condition of ignorance is hindering us from building the capacity to making appropriate decisions. I argue that such ignorance breeds an environment allowing for parasites, to good governance and against a prosperous civil society to flourish. These parasites most commonly; corruption, no public accountability, the absence of transparency in procurement processes, poor sanitation, lack of respect for the environment and disregard for the rule of law, are ever increasingly becoming characteristics of our national schematic.

So what are we to do? I believe that first we as a people need to say no to ignorance and inspire our people to want more for themselves!

We should take pride in learning, create a society where access to information is free and easy. Strengthen our education system to ensure that what we are teaching our youth is practical and gives them the foundations to not only find employment, but to compete with any other individuals from every other nation!

We need to name and shame those in public positions of power who are proven to value personal wealth over the best interest of the country!

We need to start innovating, broadening our dreams to being more than that of just poverty reduction!

We need to emancipate the masses by communicating a clear national agenda, thus mobilizing the local communities to exercise their democratic rights and vote for economic prosperity against tribal allegiances, thus buying into the directive of wealth creation furthering the prosperity of Ghana!

We need to implement policies with speed and efficiency, , streamline processes and invest in structures to mobilize our industries!

We need to leverage the funds of foreign investors, moving the burden away from government coffers and link planning permission to policies designed to attain maximum benefits for the infrastructures available to the native communities!

We need to Dream with intent, Think with resolve, Plan with consciousness, and Do with vitality!