Why are we so blessed?

No, Africa is not cursed. To put it more correctly, the African is not a cursed species. The works of the Ave Kludzes, the Professor Alloteys and Frimpong Boatengs of this world should tell us so.

My interpretation of Ayi Kwei Armah’s novel, ‘Why are we so blest’ is that there are certain habits which, unchecked over a long period of time, can constitute what may look like a curse. Otherwise we are a people so blessed. What good thing has God withheld from us?

Within Ghana’s nearest English-speaking West African brother, Nigeria, one man, Akinwumi Adesina, has been singled out for praise for the country’s astonishing achievement under him as Minister of Agriculture. For his efforts, Nigeria’s cocoa exports went up by 45 per cent. The country’s food import bill dropped to $4.3billion, down from $7billion in 2009. It is doable, if corruption does not wipe out the gains.

Sankara’s legacy With our neighbour up north, Burkina Faso, it is on record that Captain Thomas Sankara’s revolutionary zeal and selfless leadership by example there led to a doubling of the country’s wheat production, making Burkina Faso practically self-sufficient in basic foodstuff.

Of course, he paid the price for it because he achieved that feat on the back of a no-nonsense policy of redistributing land from feudal landlords to peasants. True, the feudal lords did not forgive him and banded together in the conspiracy that saw his overthrow and murder.

But guess what? On October 30 when the masses of Burkina Faso, in defiance of rubber bullets and teargas, invaded and burnt offices of the country’s ruling party and Parliament House, there were two distinguishable voices in the shouts of protest.

One was a shout for President Campaore to get out. The other voice was yearning for the return to the days of Sankara, the man whom Campaore, aided by foreign powers and the tacit approval of Houphoet Boigny of Cote d’Ivoire, killed in a coup d’etat 27 years ago, on October 15, 1987 other examples.

There are other examples in Africa, such as the miracle unfolding right before our eyes in Rwanda, which is becoming an economic miracle from the ashes of genocide. Time and newspaper space will not permit in-depth treatment of the Rwandan case.

I will come to Ghana, and to a man whose regime became another name for corruption. I am talking about General (later ‘Mr’) I.K. Acheampong who led a coup to overthrow Busia in 1972. I am not oblivious of his sins but for the purposes of this article, I am citing the success of his regime’s Operation Feed Yourself agricultural programme.

Like Napoleon in Animal Farm, you may decide to piss on his good works, but the fact cannot be erased that this agricultural programme was so successful that Ghana became self-sufficient in basic food production – to the point where we are said to have exported the surplus!

I am not overlooking his sins, such as signing chits with his presidential green pen for women to go to bank for loan and presiding over a regime that earned the accolade of “Fa wo to begye Golf.” But if corruption should take every leader to the stakes, then some leaders do not deserve to be alive today.

Demon of greed Back to my main point. I hope I have cited enough instances to prove that our fate is not in our star. It’s in something else.

Go for a chat at Soil Research Institute. They will prove to you that all the agricultural miracles in the world have been on the back of good soil management practices.

Indeed, when the Malaysians came to Ghana in the 1960s (during the Kwame Nkrumah era) to learn of our then “miracle” with oil palm, one of the secrets they took away was soil management.

Today, oil palm is known in Malaysia as “The Red GOLD” and “Miracle Crop.” Remember President Kufuor’s excitement on returning from his state visit to Malaysia, where he saw what that crop could do for an economy. The irony is that they borrowed the keys from Ghana back in the 1960s.

So why is Ghana so hungry after we have taught Malaysia how to produce food! Were the soil scientists and researchers at Kade, then different from those presently manning these institutions of research? I will answer the question by and by.

Do we need Einstein or Archimedes to advise us to return to the School Farms concept, which proved so important.