Ghana: Past Perfect, Present Tense
A Touch Of Nokoko
By Kofi Akumanyi
I must say that my deep distrust of any conclusion drawn out of opinion polls notwithstanding, I found the Gallup experiment very exciting and told a lot about the British society past and present. If a similar opinion poll should be conducted elsewhere (say Zambia), would the participants be frank enough to answer the questions truthfully and thereby make it possible to have a complete picture of the society now and of the past?
Determined to find out what Ghanaians think of their society 20 years ago and now, a group of concerned citizens of Ghana commissioned a report from SANTROFI organisation, a reputable company in the opinion poll business based in a well-appointed flat in the fashionable Dzorwulu area in Accra.
The result is, to say the least, very surprising. In essence Ghanaians thought the world about their country 20 years ago but do not care two hoots about it now. However many still believe, to use a popular Ghanaian aphorism, that "providence is the sky".
The first question the Santrofi organisation asked people was: "Which is the best decade of the century?" Overwhelmingly, all age groups chose the 1960s, even those who were not born then. Asked why they picked the 60s they said their parents told them it was the best years of their lives, and that judging from the stories of the times when Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah was riding high on the crest of Pan Africanism, with Ghana hosting international conferences by the dozen a month, it could not have been better. That was on the political front, and the international recognition that Ghana gained barely touched the lives of the people within the country.
So apart from the "political revolution" how do Ghanaians think we have changed since then? The answer was an eye-opener. Seven out of ten said there had been a sexual revolution and women were having affairs outside their marriages. Since this aspect of social relations has existed for years, what makes it a revolution? About five out of ten of men interviewed said the "revolution" was concretised, so to speak, in the mushrooming of small hotels, popularly known as Rest Houses, all over the country where marital frustrations and tensions were released and young girls were corrupted. In the 1960s eight out of 12 marriages ended in divorce but now only two out of the same number break up and the reason for this was assigned to the sexual revolution! More men, it was revealed, instead of practising polygamy, have accepted the Western practice of going to the altar with one woman and maintaining two on the side. As far as the young women were concerned five out of ten believed that the social arrangement is quite satis- factory since the number of eligible young men have fallen dramatically since the 1960s.
If the survey showed that in the family arena things were topsy-turvy depending on which side of the social strata you are, 20 years on confirmed that in financial terms and general improvement in standard of living, while more people are struggling with daily existence, one per cent at the top are living very well. What are the indications?
Well, 20 years ago only a handful of Ghanaians passed through secondary school to the universities and landed good jobs. Now, thanks to Nkrumah, every child may have the opportunity to get to the top - but only just.
Even though many people have facilities to travel and the number of persons per car has increased 100% and the range of posh cars has far outstripped the country's resources taking inflation into consideration, the Ghanaian's standard of living, with a cool 2.5 million cedis one can own either a Mercedes Benz car or a house...!
When people were asked whether they felt safer in the 60s than now, the survey revealed that the fear of becoming a victim far outweighs the chance that they will become one. And rightly so. Every single individual asked was positive that Ghanaians felt safer 20 years ago. In fact everybody now lives in daily fear of suffering some form of brutality or even sudden and very unpredictable death.
The survey asked Ghanaians throughout the country what is causing the rise in violence which is popularly believed to be a typically non- Ghanaian trait. The answer was unequivocally straightforward - the MILITARY. Everybody believes that the military has turned from our so- called saviours to persecutors.
In 1965, the Ghanaian was the proudest nation in Africa, indeed, in the world. And in 1985 we are not sure: four out of five think we are capable of recapturing our lost glory. The question everybody is asking now is: "What is this country coming to?" and "How the hell did we get into this mess?"
Twenty years ago top of the list of groups we blamed for Ghana's problems was Dr Kwame Nkrumah and the Conventional Peoples Party (80%). It is the military now which has elements. of that party as their strongmen.
On the whole, as David Frost summarised the whole project, "The rich vein of nostalgia about the sixties is linked with a feeling that the decade did not really deliver on its campaign manifesto. We feel less contented now." The coming decade would not be any better.
