Planning to Fail: A Fifty-Year Masterclass
By A Concerned Ghanaian · 1 May 2026 · Politics
I suspect the ancestors are currently holding a collective forehead in their hands, watching the latest episode of our national drama. We haven’t even reached the official season of the ban on noise-making, yet the Republic has already plunged into a silence so profound it borders on the supernatural. The Electricity Company has begun issuing its polite little “Dumsor Alerts,” treating total darkness as if it were a distant relative who showed up unannounced for dinner and simply refused to leave. When I hear the word "Dumsor" these days, I find myself wondering if it should end with a question mark or an exclamation point, is it an inquiry into our survival or a shout into the void?
It is a staggering thought that after fifty-something years of "independence," we are still preoccupied with the basic stability of a lightbulb. It seems we have mastered the art of failing to plan, which, as the saying goes, means we have successfully planned to fail. Entire neighborhoods are now inadvertently practicing for the ban, no drums, no dancing, and certainly no lightbulbs to reveal the frustration on our faces.
Down at Akosombo, the turbines have supposedly hissed back to life after their recent brush with fire. The engineers are busy issuing assurances of restored generation, yet the rest of us are still wandering about like human fireflies, squinting at the glow of our mobile phones and rediscovering the sun with a sense of genuine surprise. It is a peculiar national rhythm: we alternate between the roar of a generator and the silence of a dead grid, all while the churches negotiate their annual ceasefire with traditional authorities. They say the Ghanaian may have a short memory for political manifestos, but they never forget when you lead them through the valley of the shadow of darkness; the trauma of a dead transformer is etched deeper into the soul than any campaign promise.
Speaking of the church, the plot has thickened regarding our murky waters. Immediately after Apostle Nyamekye dared to complain about the state of our water bodies, the authorities suddenly "discovered" and arrested an illegal miner whom they pointedly labeled a "Pentecost Elder." It appears we have reached a new stage of judicial transparency: if you engage in galamsey now, they won't just find your tools; they will find your religion, your denomination, and your choir robes just to name and shame you. It’s a fascinating new strategy combatting environmental decay with a dash of theological character assassination.
The institutions, as always, are performing their favorite ritual dance. There is fresh talk of "strengthening" the mandate of the Special Prosecutor a man whose office has spent more time fighting for its own budget than it has fighting the "fat cats." We seem to have perfected the art of building a house, starving the occupants, questioning the foundation, and then promising to buy new curtains as a sign of empowerment. Even the gods would require a complex flowchart to track the logic of our anti-corruption efforts.
In a move that truly defies the humble expectations of a small nation, our Narcotics Control Commission managed to seize five million opioid tablets. It is a shipment so vast it could either medicate a continent or sink a small ship, and it leaves one wondering why the smugglers thought our borders were a welcoming "Free Zone" for such a haul. Meanwhile, the energy sector has sent its leading man to African Energy Week, carrying the heavy burden of our collective hopes. We are praying he returns with something more substantial than a new slogan, so that we might finally stop charging our phones with the frantic urgency of people preparing for a biblical flood.
So long,
Ato_KD