INDISCIPLINE AND ARROGANCE

INDISCIPLINE AND ARROGANCE;
.......The bane of our development.
“Then what happiness will you enjoy, with what delight will you exult, in what pleasure will you revel, when in so numerous a body of friends you neither hear nor see one good man!” – Cicero.
It was a calm but very hot afternoon in an over populated Political Science class stashed in a small room. Mr Mohammed Abass, a very dedicated and inspiring young lecturer takes the class through what development is all about. Majority of this class gets a deeper understanding of what development is and are spurred on and enthused to go out there and make it happen. As we all trooped out of our last Development studies class, we had high hopes that our dear motherland which used to be the coast of gold also has a bright opportunity of becoming like all the other developed nations.
However, like the working of a mirage, one gets out and finds that the realities on the ground are so different and very much bleak. Ghana has gone through a lot of metamorphosis till this point. The torch bearer for a better Africa have been outpaced and outrun. We have tried a lot of method to ascertain which can help us accelerate our development. Try as much as we have over half a century, becoming a developed nation still seems to be just a wishful thinking. We still live the life of that village boy who always dreams of getting all the goodies during Christmas, but who only wakes up on Christmas day and is sent to the stone quarry or the farm for hours of hard labour.
There is this story of a man who fell off a cliff. He is lucky enough to get hold of a tree branch just on the edge of the cliff. Unfortunately, just like the GLICO advert, the branch starts to break. This unlucky man starts screaming for help. Luckily for him, a very strong man appears on the scene and offers to help him if only he will let go of the tree branch and grasp his hand. The falling man ignores the benevolence of this man and starts screaming for another helper. This story might sound quite confusing or absurd, but objectively, that is the very character we are putting up as a nation. We have a burning desire to reach the same pedestals that the so-called first world countries have been placed, but we are very much reluctant to let go of some behaviours which to a larger extent impede development.
Gross level of indiscipline and a rather equally high level of arrogance have plagued our nation and have made our vision and desire of a developed nation just a sort of a fairy tale that we will always repeat to generations unborn. My understanding of development tells me that it can be partitioned into economic development, political development, social development and the like. This makes it a very broad and herculean business not just achieved by spending numerous working hours in the cathedral. Until the whole country is exorcised of these demons of indiscipline and arrogance, then we must as well forget about that utopia that we all dream of.
Indiscipline has clothed itself in a lot of styles and colours in Ghana and has become a canker that has eaten deep into the developmental fabric of our nation. All and sundry are guilty of acts of indiscipline and arrogance that impedes the nation’s development.
In our religious quarters, discipline has vanished from the house of God just like camphor. My Bible makes me understand that the God we serve is a God of discipline, but little can be said of so-called religious leaders and followers of today. Almost all acts of indiscipline in our country now, have its root from our churches. Majority of fraudsters in our country now are people who call themselves men of God. Paedophiles and rapists are all mounting our holy pulpits now. Churches decide to make excessive noise at night when they know very well that there are regulations against noise pollution. An attempt at enforcing this law against a culprit church will see the law enforcement officer described as the first nephew of Satan.
Taking a cursory look at our political arena, one would notice an unprecedented level of indiscipline and a resulting level of arrogance in these agencies. From our security agencies to our utility companies, none can come out clean on these charges. Soldiers who are paid with the taxpayers’ money decide to take advantage of the popular saying that “soldiers are no-nonsense people” and brutalise these same taxpayers and commit all kinds of acts without any reference to the laws of the land. The high command also feels they must protect this kind of ‘respect’ by not exposing these anarchistic soldiers. This is sheer indiscipline. Our law-maintaining officers are worse-off. The word ‘police’ have become synonymous with bribery. An early morning drive along the lake road of Kumasi, one will see a bunch of police officers pretending to be inspecting vehicles. In actual sense, they stand there to take GH¢1 bribe or whatever they choose to call it, from every trotro driver who plies that road. If officers will take this meagre amount and overlook the road worthiness of our vehicles, how will we prevent the carnages on our roads?
Mores so, our ‘honourable’ political figures and traditional authorities have also descended into the gutters of indiscipline. There is this evident case of a suburb in Kumasi, where the traditional authority in that neighbourhood has decided to place sand meant for the renovation of their palace right on one part of a single road. This is absolutely incorrect but no one dares raise a voice against this lawless and irresponsible act. They will go all length to flaunt their royal powers been oblivious of the fact that, that act alone, impedes the development of the nation to an extent.

Sadly enough, our educational institutions, which are supposed to be places of good orientation, have become places where indiscipline has become the head of state. Today, the whole nation is lamenting about how long our students should be in school. Others are also of the view that, the number of years is quiet irrelevant compared to the provision of adequate resources. In as much as I would not debunk these view points, the main problem plaguing our schools is the lack of discipline. If senior high schools in the country are upgraded to the status of Oxford University or even MIT, with a ten year duration, nothing will change with the kind of abhorring behaviours we put up. Teacher absenteeism is so alarming. Throughout my last academic year in a so-called first class senior high school, which is deemed one of the best in Ghana, if not the best, I saw my Integrated Science tutor only three times. Our universities are now seriously inventing various prototypes of indiscipline.
Furthermore, our radio stations are now full of partisan political argy-bargies which do not necessarily contribute even a hair to the development of the nation. Our elders can no longer be disciplined and circumspect in their choice of words. You can hardly get a thing line between a statesman and a hoodlum. The rather rising nuisance being created by the activities of these so-called political party foot soldiers is worth mentioning. These hooligans have become the ambassadors and crusaders of indiscipline. It is so sad to note that they go away easily with these lawless acts.

Our elders say, it is only the child who learns to wash his hands, who is fit to eat with elders. Until all Ghanaians eat our humble ‘abolo’, and drink our humble ‘pito’, with deep introspection and make a strong resolve to change our attitudes for the better, the predicaments of those foolish virgins in that famous Biblical parable will keep visiting us. It will be foolhardy on our parts to engage in the blame game. We are all responsible for the state of our nation. No politician with sugar-coated and honey-garnished words will ever take us to the land that flows with milk and honey. Our destiny lies in our own hands. He who this smelly snail shell fits should either wear it and suffer the consequence or clean it up and make it an ornament. A bright future lies ahead. Let us not lose it to that gifted thief, INDISCIPLINE.
NB: This article was originally published in the September 6 edition of the Daily Graphic.

By: COURAGE AHIATI.
courageislove@gmail.com
Couragesdiary.blogspot.com