The recent harassment of Ghanaians in South Africa should not only anger us at South Africa. It should force us to confront Ghana. Our people are not leaving in droves because they enjoy hardship abroad. They are leaving because we have failed to build enough at home.
This is not a resource problem. It is a thinking problem. A leadership problem. A moral problem.
Government must take the heaviest blame.
A country that cannot create jobs for millions somehow finds money to maintain luxury convoys for a few. A state that cannot mechanise agriculture, scale industry or fund skills development consistently can still justify $150,000 vehicles for officials. That choice is not neutral. It is a decision against jobs, against tools, against factories, against farms.
Every unnecessary luxury in government is a cancelled opportunity for thousands.
We have normalised excess in public office. A modest man enters Parliament and is quickly upgraded into state-sponsored comfort. The system teaches him consumption before production. The result is predictable: optics over output, comfort over impact, entitlement over responsibility.
This is organised indiscipline.
But it is not only politicians.
Entrepreneurs must also face themselves. Many who could expand businesses, employ more people and build capacity choose instead to accumulate cars, houses and symbols. In a country with this level of unemployment, that is not a harmless personal choice. It is national negligence.
I have seen a different mindset. Tony Oteng-Gyasi has, for decades, chosen restraint. One personal car. The rest of his earnings pushed into factories, production lines and enterprises that employ thousands. When I once suggested an additional luxury car, his response was simple: There is too much poverty around to justify it. That money could employ more people.
That is clarity. That is patriotism.
Many could have been like him. Many had the same opportunities, the same profits, the same moments of decision. Instead, they built personal car showrooms at home, filled compounds with idle luxury and postponed expansion that could have created jobs.
That is how nations stagnate.
Ghana does not need millions of heroes. It needs a core. Even 100,000 disciplined individuals who prioritise enterprise over indulgence can transform this country. If each employs just 30 people, that is 3 million livelihoods. That is fewer desperate journeys, fewer humiliations abroad, more dignity at home.
This is arithmetic, not theory.
We must reset what we celebrate. Not the loudest spender, but the quiet builder. Not the biggest convoy, but the largest payroll. Not the most visible wealth, but the most useful investment.
Patriotism is not slogans. It is restraint. It is choosing machines over mirrors, payroll over polish, production over prestige.
Until government cuts excess and redirects it into real sectors, and until entrepreneurs replace vanity with expansion, nothing will change. We will keep exporting our youth into hardship and calling remittances success.
A serious country builds people before it decorates power.
Ghana must end the convoy mindset and start building capacity.
