By Lord Fiifi Quayle
There is a quiet exhaustion spreading across the streets of Accra. You won’t always see it but if you listen closely, you will hear it in pauses between sentences, in forced optimism, in the way young people say, “we’re managing.”
Because beneath that word managing is a deeper truth: trying is no longer enough.
Take Micheal.
Micheal did everything right. He went to school, completed his national service, and stepped into the world with the expectation that effort would translate into opportunity. But Micheal carries a weight many do not see, both his parents are gone. There is no safety net anywhere. No one to fall back on. No “let me call someone for you.”
Every morning, Accra is not just a city to him it is a test of survival.
He walks through offices, submits applications, follows up relentlessly. He queues for hours, spends money he does not have just to chase opportunities that rarely respond. Sometimes he is told, politely, that there are no openings. Other times, more quietly, he is told to “see someone” if he wants things to move.
But Micheal has nothing to offer except his qualifications and his will to work.
And in a system where those are often not enough, survival begins to feel like failure.
Then there is Umar.
Umar came from the Savannah region with a different kind of pressure the weight of expectation. His parents invested everything they had into his education. Not because they were comfortable, but because they believed in a promise, that their son’s success would transform not just his life, but theirs.
Umar is not just chasing a job. He is chasing redemption for sacrifices made in faith.
Every call he receives from home is a negotiation between truth and hope.
“Yes, things are moving,” he says.
“Yes, something will come soon.”
But inside, Umar is calculating time. His rent is due. Trotro cost from Madina to Accra keeps rising. The gap between expectation and reality keeps widening. And the system he believed would absorb his effort seems indifferent to his urgency.
For Umar, failure is not personal it is collective. It echoes back to a village that believed in him.
And then there is Afari.
Afari is, by all accounts, one of the lucky ones. He was sponsored by the government to study in Canada a testament to his brilliance, a symbol of what is possible. Unlike Micheal and Umar, Afari has seen systems that work. He has experienced what it means to have processes that are predictable, institutions that function, and effort that meets opportunity halfway.
But Afari is afraid.
Not of failure but of returning.
Because he knows what awaits him. The same slow systems. The same bureaucratic fatigue. The same quiet compromises that chip away at belief. He fears not just unemployment, but something deeper the erosion of his spirit.
Afari left Ghana with ambition. He is not sure he can return without losing it.
So he hesitates.
And in that hesitation lies a painful truth: for many, leaving is not the dream it is the strategy.
What ties Micheal, Umar, and Afari together is not just their struggle it is the system they must navigate.
A system where:
• Queuing is a daily ritual with uncertain outcomes
• Bureaucracy moves at the pace of indifference
• Access often outweighs merit
• And integrity feels like the slowest path to survival
This is not just inefficiency. It is a distortion of incentives.
When doing the right thing consistently yields the least progress, while cutting corners accelerates outcomes, the system begins to teach its own lesson adapt or be left behind.
And adaptation, in this context, is dangerous.
Because it asks young people to choose:
• Between patience and survival
• Between principle and progress
• Between staying true and simply staying afloat
This is how migration becomes inevitable.
Not because the youth of Ghana lacks patriotism but because they crave functionality. They want to live in a system where effort has a fighting chance. Where dignity is not negotiated. Where trying is not an endless loop with no reward.
So we must ask ourselves, honestly:
• Why does Micheal, who has nothing but his resilience, find no place to land?
• Why does Umar, carrying the hopes of an entire family, find no system to catch him?
• Why does Afari, one of our best, feel safer building a future elsewhere than bringing his knowledge home?
If the honest path continues to feel like punishment and the dishonest path like acceleration, then we are not just witnessing corruption we are cultivating it.
And if our brightest minds are either struggling to survive, burdened by expectation, or afraid to return, then we are not just losing talent we are losing belief.
Because the most dangerous outcome is not that young people leave.
It is that those who stay begin to think like those who left detached, disillusioned, and quietly giving up.
Micheal is still trying.
Umar is still hoping.
Afari is still deciding.
But for how long?
The future of this country will not be decided in policy rooms alone. It will be decided in the lives of people like them in whether their effort begins to matter again.
Because when trying dies, a nation does not collapse loudly.
It fades.
To the youth of Ghana
Continue to strive for the best regardless
African economic strategist, sovereign risk analyst, and public intellectual. Author of Pricing Uncertainty. Creator of the Africa Macro Intelligence Terminal.