Lawyer and Convener of the Fix The Country Movement, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, has stated that there is a lack of belief and faith among the general Ghanaian populace that the county can rise to its full potential.
Speaking on The Probe on JoyNews, he explained that after witnessing several disappointments in the country without any real accountability, people feel tired and do not believe the systems can change.
“Generally, there’s a lack of belief and faith that anything good can come out of the country and when people have that faith, that sense, they stop trying…people just resign themselves to a particular faith. But in fact, systems can change if we have faith that they can change because then that leaves us to move more,” he told the host Emefa Apawu.
He said this is as a result of the fact that, over the years, there have been many promises to the citizenry but all that have not been fulfilled.
“There were so many promises that were made that whether they were not believed by the elite class that made those promises, or in fact there was no commitment to actualizing and realising them. As a result, many people have seen groups broken, many people have lost people within the dysfunctional healthcare system, and many people have lost job opportunities, and opportunities to grow for themselves.”
“A lot of us are working into retirement where our pensions are not secured. So, we have seen a whole generation lost. All of this is happening in our lifetime and we haven’t seen punishments being given to anybody, (or) we haven’t seen any sense of real accountability for some of the things happening in the country,” Mr Barker-Vormawor noted.
The Fix The Country convenor explained that in such situations people give up after years of witnessing system failures and injustice.
“If I was slapped and they took my phone, I just want the phone back and I don’t want to deal with it, because I don’t truly believe that justice can occur. So just the little, I can get out of this system that is not invested in restoring the faith of its citizens. Gradually, we feel the effect.”
Additionally, Mr Barker-Vormawor said that corruption has seeped into the public systems because of the corruption witnessed at the top.
However, the Fix The Country Convenor believes that if there is real transparency and accountability where people pay for the wrongs they do, it will transcend across the public space.
He stated that the populace must regain the faith that the country can change, adding that without that sense of faith and belief, nobody will be invested in the process of building the republic.
“That for me is the essence of our advocacy in general, that a lot more young people have to believe that this country can in fact be able to achieve justice for them, that they might be able to see their dreams actualised in this republic. We’ve allowed disrespect to go on and we have allowed the kind of substandard leadership that continues to occur.”
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