A silent generation of young Ghanaians seems to have found its voice.
Joshua Boye-Doe, among the nation’s active social media users, put it this way: “This is the right time for us to come together as one people to speak and let [government] know that we are tired.”
Boye-Doe is credited with launching a youth-led campaign that has showered the government with online pictures, videos and posts describing official shortcomings and failure to address social and economic problems, despite election promises to do so.
The campaign, on Twitter, is called # FixTheCounty. It has brought tens of thousands, according to some surveys, out in the open, putting government on notice that more needs to be done for the generation of young people without jobs, without incomes, without futures.
Among the frequently expressed complaints were rising youth unemployment, a dilapidated health system, skyrocketing rents, and poor road networks.
Barely four months after winning the presidential elections of December 2020 for a second term, President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government now finds itself challenged by formerly apolitical activists, incensed by the recent imposition of new taxes and high levels of unemployment.
FixTheCounty was launched May 2, when some Twitter influencers and activists started a thread highlighting problems they say the government has failed to address. Other hashtags such as #FixGhanaNow and #FixMotherGhana have been used to rally support and gain attention.
One post by “citizen Kofi Megail” accompanied a photo of a huge pile of plastic trash, opposite the La Palm Beach Hotel, with the message: “Can’t the government ban plastic to save Ghana as Rwanda did and they are free?”
Seyram Fiakeye, a self-described Afrocentric-minded filmmaker, photographed himself next to Ghanaians sifting through mountains of trash. “Living in Ghana has become a waste of our youthfulness, this is where and what some of the young people in Accra, Ghana have to work to survive,” he wrote.
Xcalibar responded: “In a country where lecturers are thieves.. police are thieves.. lawyers and judges are thieves.. parliamentarians are thieves.. the laws are more or less fairy tales to the rich. Until we learn to fight under the sun we can never fight under the moon…#FixTheCountryNow.
Finally, in a post to “Dear Ghana,” the author wrote: “Like seeing a new light at the end of the tunnel, our rallying cry bursts out louder and deepens with pain, at the same time with hope.”