RISING SUN

                                                                            Rising Sun

            What are the differences between a successful country and an unsuccessful country? The answer is simply good governance. In 1957, the Republic of Ghana gained independence from its colonial masters and started to manage its own affairs. After Ghana’s independence, there came a series of coup d’états over the governance of the country. From 1960, Ghana experienced a dictatorship and autocratic type of ruling system, but on June 4, 1979, Ghana transitioned from the autocratic style of ruling to the democratic ruling. This type of governance brought stability and peace to the economy of the country. Since the year 2000 political system in Ghana has been monopolized by two giant political parties. This has capsized the political affiliation of the right to select any political party into a partisan way of politics. On March 2020, I lost my job with a government company I had been working for eight years, because of partisanship and that keeps retrogressing Ghana’s GDP. Moreover, a lot of private companies have collapsed and stopped operating because of partisanship politics.

One of the first effects of these politics was going through hard times when I lost my job. Building one’s life around something is very difficult especially when does not turn out as planned. Being the breadwinner of my family and losing the bakery where the bread comes from was disappointing and made me go through a series of hard times. I went through financially tough struggles. Every month, I used to send funds home for groceries and other miscellaneous expenses. Losing my job made it hard for me to send the family funds, but I had to always sacrifice and ensure they had enough money for food. At this time, I also had to live on a tight budget and only got to eat once a day.

            Furthermore, working in the company allowed me to take the initiative to academically upgrade by enrolling in school. I was in level 300 at the University of Cape Coast studying business administration and marketing when I lost my job. Without an income, I had to drop out of school because I couldn’t afford to pay for tuition fees and other miscellaneous expenses like purchasing textbooks, and transportation to class every day. In Ghana, it is very difficult to be granted student loans. Most of the scholarships are distributed among those with connections making it very difficult for citizens who do not have a keen interest in politics but are brilliant to get scholarships.

            Despite these hardships, there was a positive turn of events. One faithful day I met a pastor and had to tell him everything because I was emotionally traumatized. I could not think straight, and my mental focus was unstable. I was driving a taxi to earn a living, but driving a taxi in Ghana is not as lucrative in other parts of the world. I kept making mistakes. One time on the road while driving a passenger to the airport, I almost ran into a group of pedestrians without knowing the traffic light had turned red. The pastor took me through a series of counseling sessions and advice and taught me about the bible.

            Overall, meeting the pastor really changed my life. One day while sleeping at the church. I had a dream, “I heard a voice telling me do you remember the woman you drove to her house what did she tell you”. That was all I heard and woke up from sleep. I meditated on the dream, and I remembered I gave a woman a lift around 2017 while I was working with my old company. The woman told me to apply for the American lottery, and that it could change my life, so I eventually applied, and I won. The challenges I went through above have given me a sense of strength, and emotional maturity. Interestingly, the sun rose and overshadowed the darkness in my life, and now my life has changed.