what effect has it on the Ghanaian citizen?
The national pledge, as a basic school student, is the breakfast from Monday to Friday and continues to be a strict choice on the menu through to senior high school until we are finally freed to choose our own words to break the fast. Every school going child or Ghanaian educated individual will strongly agree with me that the national pledge was part and parcel of us as basic students until some point on, when we were not obliged to recite them by some strict supervision.
In our early schooling ages, if we can recall, the national pledge may have injected some spirit of nationalism and zeal to pursue higher. Many of us felt very proud as Ghanaians and the sort of admiration we offered to this nation retrogressed as we grew up.
Although many of our mates did not really pondered on the words of the national pledge to understand the obligations placed before us as citizens, many were still conscious of what they were saying. It is rather unfortunate that many Ghanaians today are practically not nationalistic contrary to what the pledge is suppose to teach us.
This solemn promise has been betrayed by ourselves in an unpardonable ways and manner as we carried out our various duties as citizens.
Do you recall that you ever said this?
“I promise on my honor to be faithful and loyal to Ghana my mother land…?”
Sincerely, have you been faithful and loyal to the nation? Certainly, many are not. Social conventions that define our civility as citizens have not been observed by many.
The moral standards are not right and we seem to be sinking deeper than we think. Issues of corruption keep erupting up everyday in almost every sector of government and even in private institutions. Many have abandoned their social duties for their own selfish interest at the expense of others. This is a nation where each and everybody’s loyalty to the nation is questionable.
Truthfulness has elude many to the extent that, lies have gradually been accepted as a normal phenomenon to win peoples acceptance especially on political grounds. So where is the ‘faithfulness’ we promised this nation?
‘’I pledge myself to the service of Ghana, with all my strength and with all my heart‘’, how lovely it is said with a strong spirit of patriotism only exhibited when the Ghana black stars are on the football park, playing with another nation or in some competition. Apart from international sporting competition, I cannot easily pin point any other activity where high level of patriotism is portrayed by the Ghanaian.
Averagely the Ghanaian worker is very lazy in his or her duties.
Even at the high national offices like the ministries, people sit all day doing nothing when there are very important things to attend to. If you ever went to any of the ministries to get some work done for you, how many weeks or months did it take to complete? How many times did you meet the absence of the person in charge when he was supposed to be at work?
Did you not have to steer the process by giving out some little brown envelopes to the one in charge? Many a times we have to pay our way through illegally. It should tell you the kind of services rendered in this country. In our public educational institutions the situation is far worse when it comes to service delivery with respect to management, teaching and enrollment of students. Students who do not meet the required qualifications are able to bribe their way through to most of the prestigious institutions.
By the mere fact that your father is a minister of state, a member of parliament or any high state official or simply rich gives you a higher advantage over the ordinary by all standards as observed in current day Ghana.
‘‘I promise to hold in high esteem our heritage won for us, through the blood and toil of our fathers…. ‘’
This part, I must say is a very brilliant inclusion by the writer. It calls for a high national pride and admiration of the beautiful culture and structures developed by our national heroes by whose strength and efforts we are free as a nation today. It calls for respect for the national institutions and establishments that bind us as a nation.
In my opinion, many did not grow with this portion said. In one way or the other we might have forgotten what we said or may be we did not really mean what we said because it is not reflecting in the state of the nation as at now.
Many are seeking immigration visas to live and work outside the country when there is much to be done for our nation. Our independence is therefore becoming meaningless if we cannot mange our own affairs. Remember Kwame Nkrumah said “the black man is capable of managing his own affairs” but his statement is almost becoming a fallacy since Ghana and Africa have seen complete mismanagement over the years since we took over from our colonial masters. If that admiration and respect for our independence had been exhibited by all, Ghana would have been a better nation by now.
“I promise to uphold and defend the good name of Ghana, so help me God”
This is a declaration of defense. We cannot defend a common course without the strength of unity. We are segregated by tribal sentiments and political party affiliations today forgetting the meaning of the border lines drawn around us. Irrespective of the tribe one may belong to we should see ourselves as one nation and in that sense we can effectively defend the land in every situation we find ourselves.
The national pledge is a powerful instrument to push our development as an empowerment of true citizenship and should as such be enforced as the breakfast for all Ghanaian and not only basic students.
It should be recited by parliamentarians in every sitting and all civil servants and students from basic to the tertiary level.
