Was Obama’s visit a good thing or not?

The President of the United States of America’s visit to Accra can be described as joyous and something we should be proud of (As Ghanaians), yet also an extremely uncomfortable experience for the many Ghanaians.

It was joyous because, firstly, out of 53 States in Africa, Ghana was chosen to host Obama. Secondly, Obama stayed in Ghana for at least 24 hours, long enough for some serious talk with our government officials (I hope!). And perhaps lastly, Obama’s address to Parliament was inspiring and had a relevant message to us young people in Ghana and in Africa- in this address the U.S promised to provide $63 billion for health improvement in Africa.

But Obama’s visit was also a huge inconvenience to people who live in Accra because of the security precautions that were taken for the president’s visit. Motorists and pedestrians had to stay in traffic for as long as 4 hours. In most cases however the traffic delay was for about hour and half hours (as reported by some TV stations). The result was that many people were late for work, and I suspect that some could not even make it to work. Trotro drivers could not make their daily sales for the day as most of them had fewer hours to do their business.

My personal perception of Obama’s visit is that, it was inspiring and I feel it was a good visit for us young people. Not to mention the fact that the country was “able” to rehabilitate the La General hospital (something that was ignored for several years). Plus there was a lot of cleaning of the city of its filth that we seem to comfortably live with.

But why do we wait for visiting international personalities before we act? Where did the money come from all of a sudden? (I’m assuming the La General Hospital was not fixed up all this while because of lack of funds, as is the case with nearly all problems that need to be solved). Is this befitting of us as a people? Is this befitting of a country that claims it is the gateway to Africa? Should this be the case for a country that literally lead the independence struggle of African states about 50 years ago? And the most important question of all, what are “you” going to do, or perhaps, what are you doing about Ghana’s prosperity and development?

Are you satisfied with the way things are going in this country and across Africa? Well, I hope you and I will do something about it.

Well, until the next time I Think Out Loud, let us not forget what Barack Obama has been able to achieve personally, and his message to us. I hope his personal story propels us all to do something productive for our communities and country.