THE IMPORTANCE OF CHIEFS IN BRINGING BACK PATRIOTISM IN THE NATION

In the 21^st century, Ghana and patriotism seem to have been divorced from each other. Elders in society who lament incessantly about the lack of patriotic youths nowadays are right. Reckless and selfish disposition towards national resources has now become the order of the day. Clarion calls for concerted measures to be made in order for to restore the love of nation over personal interest have all fell on deaf ears.

Before we begin talking about the measures we ought to adopt in order for a patriotic spirit to be restored and in the republic, let us first take a look at personalities who would be required on our quest to restore chauvinistic spirit in the nation. From a theoretical perspective, all and sundry have a part to play. We need to make it a national goal to achieve a nation full of nationalists again. There are a group of eminent members of society who could lead the way. They are our chiefs/kings.

Chiefs are viewed as custodians of the land. This very sacred attribute makes it highly unlikely for a chief to choose personal preference over national/societal interest as it was the case in time past. The rich history around every chieftaincy position throughout the country makes all traditional leaders in the nation special and revered. Also, chiefs are mandated to protect the nation and people. Chiefs/kings of any area throughout the country have the honourable duty of ensuring good welfare for their citizens. The primary responsibilities of chiefs is one which discourages any portrayal of skewed personal interest. Further the people owe allegiance to chiefs. Our traditional customs enshrines chiefs and kings as the highest rank in the traditional setting. This presents traditional leaders with abundant prospects of influence devoid any blemish.

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Furthermore, traditional rulers possess external sovereignty. Chiefs are the only personalities in the country who are legitimately allowed to rule for life. The unlimited period afforded to chiefs enable them to establish a solid influence barring any scandal. Even in the unfortunate incident of a scandal, chiefs have the requisite elements to make wrongs right. Also, the everlasting sovereignty of chiefs afford them the avenue to adopt a systematic approach to all undertakings. Because we have had a derailed patriotic spirit for a long time now, any action to restore the good old days would be needing a gradual and measured approach. Chiefs are the only personalities with the luxury of time to implement such a rigorous development.

In addition, chiefs are prohibited form involvement in partisan politics. The laws of the nation deters any chief from indulging in active politics. Politics stains reputation of individuals. The type of politics being done in the nation is unhealthy. The last thing we need now to re-establish a loyalist spirit in the nation is a political brouhaha surrounding the torch bearers of the process. Also, the biggest culprit of unpatriotic spirit in the country are the politicians. Politicians have brainwashed people and led them away from pursuing national interest in favour of party agenda.

The role of chiefs has been undermined in recent years due to the influence of Western democracy but our chiefs remain the ideal personnel to restore the much looked-for patriotic spirit back into the nation. Chiefs possess the pivotal attributes which will enable them to strategize and implement conditions necessary for the revival of patriotic spirits in the nation.

THE SECRET BEHIND THE SUCCESS OF UNIVERSITY STARTUPS

Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, the list goes on. All the aforementioned companies were birth in colleges. Many more successful companies’ roots can be traced back the colleges that the founders of these companies attended. Even though, the trend is common in the West, the success of many college startups is a manifestation of the fact that colleges may just be the best environment for a startup.

UG and other colleges in Ghana also hold the Silicon Valley potential

The success or otherwise of a startup depends hugely on management. Students who are in colleges usually have more time to spend on their startups than a full-time-working-professional who is looking forward to making time in between work in order to take care of personal company matters.  The employed graduate always come home tired, and with several other responsibilities, he/she gets to spend less time on his/her personal startup whilst the college student has all the time in the world to direct his/her startup.

In addition, college students get to use the services of their tutors and colleagues at a reduced rate if not for free as compared to a graduate who contracts the services of other professionals. The college student who has less liabilities in this case is duped for bigger assets than the graduate who spends higher cash on crediting liabilities; because the balance sheet is very critical to the financial strength of every firm. As a student startup flourishes in assets, a grad startup languishes in liabilities. Some may argue that a professional will do a better job than a college student; l do not for one second buy this notion. The only difference between a graduate and a college student is a piece of paper-certificate. The certificate does not do the job, ability does the job. Further advantage of using a student for a job rather than a professional is that students tend to explore more creative avenues in the discharge of duties as compared to professional who mostly adopt methods that are cast in iron and repeated over the years.  

Furthermore, the enclosed nature of colleges also make them an ideal ecosystem for business startups. Take for instance, the time and technique that it would require to understand and segment the populace of Ashaiman as a target market as compared to the time and technique that it would take to understand and segment students of University of Ghana or any other university for that matter as a target market. The wide range of variables in the ‘’real’’ world makes it more complicated for startups to understand thus explore the market avenues. However, the simplicity of a somewhat enclosed environment like a university campus enables startups to measure and reach their target market.

When you examine circumstances under which companies like Aple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook were born, l am convinced that Ghanaian students have an ideal environment to carve a niche for themselves in the cooperate world. Numbers also count a lot, and we are blessed with more numbers than Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg had as primary target market. For example, Harvard had a student population of about 20,000 when Mr. Zuckerberg started Facebook. Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology has a current student population of about 40,000. The implication of a doubled population is that double as many as believed in Zuckerberg’s idea could patronize a student of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology’s startup-of same relevance as Facebook was eleven years ago.