News:
March 30, 2022
President Nana Akufo-Addo on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 delivered the long awaited message of the State of the Nation Address in giving an overview of the difficult times the country finds itself. According to him as a nation “we have started on a good footing by accepting that we are in a difficult place and are taking the difficult decisions that will get us out”. “The road to recovery would be hard and long” he admonished.
And if, anyone ever had any doubts about the need to be self-reliant, the point has now been forcibly drilled home to us. The pursuit of the Ghana beyond Aid agenda is even more compelling now, he stated. He further noted that he has no doubts whatsoever that as Ghanaians we have in us to build the Ghana of our dream and saw the spirit of togetherness and the willingness to help each other when COVID struck.
Again, look out for each other and saw the sense of enterprise and innovation of the Ghanaian, “I saw our manufacturers quickly adapt their plants to produce sanitizers and our tailors equally quickly displayed the innovation they had always been known for, by turning face masks into fashion items”.
“Let us, more than ever, hold our heads up high, and face the future with courage, hope and assurance and recall our age-old Ghanaian values of hard work, enterprise, solidarity, dignity and hospitality. Look around you, believe in Ghana, and be inspired by Ghana, we will bounce back together”.
According to the president, the world before COVID now seems such a long time ago, and the trauma of a world ruled by a pandemic has changed all our perspectives. “Back in March 2020 when the first cases of COVID hit our country, we and the rest of the world were in unchartered territory, fear and sheer terror gripped our land. Probably, to future generations, it will look quite obvious what should have been done, but, two years ago, it felt like we had fallen into a dark, malicious and terrifying abyss”.
We could not have been prepared for the catastrophe that hit us, even the richest economies with the most sophisticated structures were unprepared. Maybe some of us have forgotten what the experts were predicting at the time. Our health and medical infrastructure was woefully inadequate, and we would not be able to cope. There were going to be piles of dead bodies strewn across the streets of Africa.
He added that, he took the decision that would prioritize the saving of lives, and, then, we would get together to rebuild the economy. Nobody imagined the devastation would be so widespread and last so long.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com