Amid all the efforts from various fronts towards Ghana’s socio-economic development, former Power Minister Dr. Kwabena Donkor is making a passionate case for Ghana to consciously cultivate a stronger sense of nationalism among younger generations.
Dr. Donkor warns that national development cannot be achieved if public officials become complacent or lose sight of the larger purpose for which they were elected.
According to him, while he sees encouraging signs in the country’s improving fiscal management and renewed hope under the current administration, sustaining that progress will require more than sound economic policies. For him, the efforts will also demand a deliberate effort to instil patriotism, sacrifice, and a sense of national purpose in a generation that did not experience the ideals that shaped Ghana’s founding years under Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
The former Minister and legislator made this case when he was speaking during an interview with veteran journalist Kwesi Pratt Jnr.
Development Begins with National Consciousness, Not Just Economic Policies
Dr Donkor strongly believes that one of Ghana’s greatest development challenges is attitudinal. He argues that governments can introduce sound policies, improve fiscal discipline, and restore economic confidence, but those gains can easily be undermined if the people responsible for implementing them lack a strong commitment to national service.
“I see improvement in the fiscal regime. I see the emergence of hope and leadership, but I also see the possibility of slipping into old moods if we don’t consciously re-energise the state and government,” he remarked.
Yet he quickly cautioned against what he described as a growing tendency for some public officials to become “too comfortable too early”. His concern is rooted in the overwhelming electoral mandate that brought the current administration to power.
According to him, such a decisive victory created extraordinary public expectations. Ghanaians did not vote for marginal improvements, he argued; they demanded a fundamentally different style of governance characterised by urgency, accountability and transformational leadership.
“The expectation is for things to be very different, not slightly different, from the previous regime,” he stressed.
The Nkrumah Generation Was Shaped by National Ideals; Today’s Generation Was Not
A central pillar of Dr Donkor’s argument is that many younger public servants grew up in a vastly different political and social environment from the generation that witnessed Ghana’s independence struggle and the leadership philosophy of Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
He noted that President John Dramani Mahama carries a unique historical perspective, having been raised in a family deeply connected to Ghana’s first republic through his father, Emmanuel Adama Mahama, who served under Nkrumah.
To Dr Donkor, this background partly explains why he believes President Mahama is determined to leave behind a lasting national legacy.
“This is really his legacy term,” he remarked. However, translating that ambition into reality presents a significant challenge. The President, he argued, must rely on people who largely belong to a different generation, one that never experienced the values, discipline, and nation-building ethos associated with Nkrumah’s era.
Many younger officials, he suggested, entered public life after observing successive governments where politics often appeared more transactional and less transformational. Some were classmates, friends, or associates of politicians from previous administrations and naturally came to view that style of governance as normal.
Without deliberate efforts to shape a stronger national consciousness, he warned, those attitudes can easily become institutionalised.
“The challenge of the younger generation who did not see Nkrumah, who were not bathed in the spirits and the methodologies of Nkrumah, is that if you have to work with this generation, there has to be a conscious effort at instilling nationalism in them,” he remarked.
Comfort Is the Enemy of Transformation
The former Minister emphasized that development is never automatic. Countries do not become prosperous by chance, he argued, but through disciplined leadership, deliberate policy choices and an unwavering commitment to improving society.
“Development is not accidental,” he said, adding that “It is the result of conscious decisions, conscious activities, and conviction to do better.”
That conviction, he believes, must remain alive throughout an administration’s tenure.
He is warning about officials becoming “too comfortable too early,” which reflects a broader concern that governments enjoying strong political legitimacy can gradually lose the urgency that earned them public trust in the first place.
Once complacency replaces purpose, he implied, reform momentum begins to fade. For that reason, he believes civil society, policy thinkers, and citizens have an important responsibility to keep reminding governments why they were elected and what the electorate expects of them.
According to him, constant public accountability helps prevent leaders from drifting into routines that merely replicate the shortcomings of previous administrations.
