Value of a Ghanaian Life: Mahama Must Act Now

Value of a Ghanaian life cannot be proven by ceremonies alone. Therefore, protecting lives must become your highest duty.

Mr. President, this is our native land, bought with the sacrifices of those before us. Consequently, the task of safeguarding it now belongs to you. At this critical moment, your decisions will outlast your presidency. Thus, the choice is whether to act boldly or let history repeat itself.

Eight men have died in service to Ghana. As a result, their names will appear in records, their funerals televised, their pictures framed. However, beyond these tributes lies a pressing question: What is the value of a Ghanaian life to the state sworn to protect it?

Before these eight, Dr. Kwame Adu Ofori died because Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital lacked a cath lab that could have saved him. Likewise, sixteen teenagers from the Saviour Church of Ghana died in a crash on the cratered Kumasi–Accra highway. Furthermore, servicemen, journalists, voters, protesters, and countless others lost their lives to tragedies we could have prevented.

You know these stories, Mr. President, because you have attended their funerals. Yet you also know the cycle: speeches, pledges, committees, and then a slow loss of urgency until the next disaster strikes. Therefore, this cycle must break under your watch.

You returned to the presidency not only through political victory but also through fragile, battered hope. People did not elect you to manage the old system. Instead, they trusted you to change the very logic of governance. While lowering the flag is easy, raising the standard is far harder. Nevertheless, it is the hard work that will define you.

If Ghana leaves this moment without a modern forensic and disaster identification facility, we will fail the dead. Similarly, without a strengthened and well-equipped emergency healthcare network from Gambaga to Accra, we will repeat these losses. Moreover, without treating galamsey as treason against the Republic and building infrastructure that withstands known dangers, we will bury more than eight men we will bury hope itself.

Therefore, I urge you to place the “needful” before the “nice-to-haves.” Demand solutions from your ministers that endure beyond your term. Additionally, remove anyone who brings excuses instead of results. Use the rare freedom of your second term to protect your people without fear of losing office.

One day, when you leave Jubilee House, a new generation will speak your name. Let them say you ended the habit of mourning without reform. Let them remember you as the leader who turned grief into lasting protection.

Indeed, whether this nation prospers or falters depends on the character of its citizens—and now, on the courage of its President. Therefore, for their sake and yours, act today. The dead are watching, and history waits with its pen.