The forebears of this country fought with all the arsenals at their disposal to move the country from being dependent on British rule to an Independent State where the energies, intelligence, culture and everything about the Ghanaian would be used to build a prosperous Ghana.

The idea of having independence as a country was to reflect in both politics and economics.The Ghanaian expected that our politics solely will be the preserve of the Ghanaian and so will be our economy.

At Independence, Ghana’s population was a little over 6 million people with our per capita pegged at $490.

We were the most prosperous nation in Sub Sahara Africa at the time of Independence and were tipped ahead of our peer countries such as South Korea and Malaysia to be miles apart in 50 years time .

Ghana after independence tried a President from a political party, tried military leaders for a long time, came back to leaders from a political party and still we seem not to be getting the much needed development that every Ghanaian yearns for.

In fact, this morning, as I type, on an Independence Day, the light just went off. All the countries that at independence the world predicted we will do better than them in 50years are miles ahead of us in terms of governance and development. Ghana cannot compare itself to South Korea today though at Independence, we were both on the same wavelength. Korean cars, electronics and food abounds in our supermarkets with the country looking helpless.

The per capita income we both had at $490 in 1957 is enough indication as to how wide our differences have become.The per capita of South Korea today is in the region of $33,000 and that of Ghana is in the region of $2,400 according to the world bank.

Ladies and gentlemen this explains our reality. We may however say that South Korea is far off and have different conditions so let’s do comparative analysis with our neighbours in the Sub Saharan Africa and that even makes it worse.In Sub Saharan Africa,Ghana has the worst interest rate regime as well as inflation and cost of living after 67 years of independence.Whereas we are doing a policy rate of 29% and lending rate of close to 40%,Burkina that has been invaded by extremist,Mali that is not stable,Niger that had coup detat recently etc are all doing a little over 5%.

The above stack reality is what our 67th Independence Day is about.The Independence of the country day in and day out is becoming meaningless as we are unable to as a country have our economic independence.We are told that 8.4million Ghanaians went without food last year with close to a million Ghanaians moved into the poverty brackets in 2023.How can we be proud of such a statistics.

We are supposed to be independent under a democratically elected President who stood on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party to win political power.We are being told by the Western world that if we do not accept LGBTQ+++ or what in local parlance is called trumutrumu or trumudeeee,loans that attracts interest to enrich lending institutions will not be advanced to us.

An Independent country making laws to protect its citizens and its country identity is being told by other countries that we have no right to pass our own laws and we say we are celebrating independence today?

The only reason Ghanaians are not feeling the independence our forebears fought for is that economically we are not independent.We still go around the world with cup in hand begging from every available dollar when we could get the same dollars even much more with little effort back home.

Our leaders who have come in either as leaders of political parties or military leaders have shown over the years that they lacked the plan to take us out of our economic melee.

We have fertile lands,we have natural resources,we have scholars,engineers and prophets who could see into who wins elections.How is it that we are unable to develop to the level that we all expect? The missing link from my point of view is a leader with a clear plan who is ready to take the system on.A leader whose constituency and pre-occupation is Ghana and its citizens.A leader who sees Ghana as first in all his planning.

Today marking the 67th Independence anniversary of our country and with less than 10 months to select or elect our next leader,the nation has the opportunity to right the wrongs of yesterday and entrust its destiny into the hands of a leader who will not check out a year to the end of his tenure.The nation is presented with an opportunity to choose a leader who will not come and say I was a mere mate or conductor though mates or conductors are the ones who fill vehicles with passengers whether good or bad and are also responsible for collecting fares.The nation has an opportunity not to choose a leader who in difficult times will come and tell the country that he has turned a dead goat.

On the 25th of September 2023,the movement for change led by Alan Kyerematen was launched with Alan declaring his intentions of contesting as an Independent candidate.The country Ghana though independent has never elected an independent candidate to be its President.The inability of our citizens to elect an independent candidate particularly an independent candidate that has a workable plan which plan he has themed the Great Transformational Plan (GTP) could be the reason behind our snail pace when it comes to development.

The country Ghana has a vast potential in agriculture which is never tapped to the extent that desert countries like Burkina Faso,Niger and Mali are even threatening to stop the supply of food stuffs to Ghana,a country that has fertile land.This can only happen in a country that has lazy leaders whose vision does not transcend beyond their 12m square rooms.

Alan Kyerematen is promising to utilize our vast resources in agriculture to revolutionize the sector.The revolution of the agricultural sector alone will deal with the 14.7% unemployment situation we currently find ourselves.

Industrialisation is also part of his core plan.Out of agriculture is produced raw materials for effective Industrialisation.Once again the man whose vision has led to the proliferation of leading automobile companies in Ghana is assuring that industrialization will be given the much needed attention.

We risk as a country losing our identity with any mistake to by pass a candidate who has a plan and not just a plan a workable plan,credibility and character to lead us into the promise land as compared to the rest who do not have vision except to say we should vote for them because they are from the North etc.

I entreat you all on this Independence Day to settle on Alan and relive the dreams of our forebears. Vote for Alan and beyond 2025,you will greet me Happy Independence Anniversary and my response will be God bless our homeland Ghana.