Why Komla Dumor’s ghost haunts me…I am a young Ghanaian who believes in the Ghanaian dream (maybe if there’s one). I love Ghanaians and especially, I love my Ghana (do I even have any choice?). If for nothing at all, I get to everyday hear from our ‘saviour’ politicians the ‘second’ coming of a better Ghana of which I so excitedly want to be a witness.
Human as I am, I have ever wished the death of my enemies though I have never committed manslaughter or caused the death of any man. But… today, I can barely have a good night sleep because another man’s ghost just won’t let me be!
My nightmarish, sleepless nights have become so obvious. Like the President trying to unravel the ‘economic jigsaw’, my eyes are kept wide open each day from dawn to dusk. Ei! How I wish to be haunted no more!
I have a confession to make. Let me tell you why I am having insomnia…
Life never began at 40!
Some of us grew up (or are still doing so) with the myth that life begins at 40. They would while away time, after all they are not yet 40 to get serious. Like seriously?
Komla’s life ended a couple of years after 40 and stressing that it was a well-lived one will be the greatest understatement of the millennium. If you are waiting to be 40 to take life seriously, you might as well wait till 60!
A couple of our youth sit in the comfort of their homes looking up to some non- existent employment-reeling government to wave its magic wand to make them the bosses overnight.
After grabbing a degree from wherever and patiently waiting upon this ‘heroic’ government for God knows how long, two scores would have been long gone!
Life may or may not begin at 40… after all… when the supposed dream job (after all the wait) would shatter your dream asking for nothing less than a decade of job experience; the same decade you might have spent in ‘household-keeping’.
The point is… your destiny, as a youth, is in the hands of only one person- you! The youth that Komla was, even in his grave, is daring me and every young person out there to go out there and restlessly chase their dreams; with or without the government’s help.
Whether or not you have a degree, start something on your own as much as you can. Dream big; start small. Be creative like Komla was. Everyone can complain; only the purposeful work instead of singing choruses of challenges!
The youth dreams
Today, every young person’s dream is to go to ‘abrokyire’, foreign land, to wit. The church won’t let our ears rest with every prophet promising almost everyone of God blessing them with a visa. And… all I wonder sometimes is if that’s the only way God can bless the African, as portrayed by our anointed men of God.
Gone are the days slave masters came with those rusty ships to yank us to their homeland. Now, we throng the embassies queuing up endlessly to beg our ‘slave masters’ to be fair in considering this generation, too, like they did our ancestors.
The visa has become more hallowed than errrm… the cedi or even a degree. Can you imagine? For the cedi, at least, we can blame it on the dwarfs… but not the degree!
Many of our folks, both young and old, would dare risk their lives on deserts and all sorts of unthinkable means… just to be the slave of another of his kind. Ah! Many wouldn’t even mind starving the souls out of them on the cold seas… all because of… seeing some white man!
Our governments aren’t any different, crouching at the feet of their western co-equals begging for what they already have. Independence? Tweaa!
‘The Boss Player’ has proven beyond every doubt that the black man is as good as (if not better than) the white man. He’s daring every young man (and… oh woman) to see the white man’s land as another place like our homeland GH; one that doesn’t deserve that much ungodly attention given to it.
Playing ‘hide-and-seek’ and ‘catch-me-if-you-can’ games in a foreign man’s land (when your brains never got used up) never got anyone to the top!
(Selorm) | 
(Nana Kwesi)