Category: Culture and identity

Technology Stepped In When Man Failed Man: A Ghanaian Reflection on Technology’s Reluctant Rescue

July 20, 2025

Culture and identity, Governance, Philosophy, Politics

By Lord F Quayle

Inspired By Ransford Sosi, July 20,2025

Amidst the shared grief and murmured condolences, I found myself standing next to Ransford, an old school mate. Our conversation, drifting from the solemnity of the moment to the frustrations of daily life, inevitably turned towards the state of things: the government, the legendary inefficiencies, the beleaguered Ghanaian task force. “Sometimes,” Ransford sighed, “it feels like the system is built to fail us. When the very people meant to serve become the barrier… what then?” It was then, amidst the raw vulnerability of loss and shared exasperation, that the phrase landed with the weight of a tombstone: **”Technology steps in when man fails man.”** That mid morning conversation with Ransford became the stark motivation for this reflection.

Ransford’s lament wasn’t abstract. He spoke of containers languishing at Tema Port for weeks, hostage to opaque procedures and whispered “facilitation fees.” He spoke of the farmer watching his perishable harvest spoil while waiting for rickety cars to transport them to market places. He spoke of the ordinary Ghanaian trying to make ends meet yet Human gatekeepers seemed more obstacle than aide. These are not system glitches; they are profound human failures – failures of empathy, integrity, and duty.

And it is precisely into these chasms of human frailty and systemic breakdown that Ghanaian technology is increasingly, and often heroically, stumbling.

1. Bypassing the Bottleneck (Ports & Logistics): Where human intermediaries created costly delays and opportunities for graft, digital platforms are emerging. Online port clearance systems, real-time cargo tracking apps, and electronic payment gateways are slowly but surely reducing the physical touchpoints where “man fails man.” Technology doesn’t eliminate corruption instantly, but it shines a harsh light on deviations, creates auditable trails, and empowers the honest importer or transporter. It steps in where human gatekeeping became a failure of service.

2. Connecting the Disconnected (Agriculture & Markets): Remember the farmer Ransford mentioned? Mobile technology is his lifeline. Apps connecting farmers directly to buyers, mobile payment systems eliminating the risky cash-carry to distant markets, SMS-based weather alerts and agronomic advice – these tools bypass the often unreliable or exploitative middlemen. When traditional market structures failed smallholders, technology offers an alternative channel, ensuring fairer prices and reducing spoilage. It steps in where market access, hindered by human inefficiency or indifference, failed the producer.

3. Demanding Accountability (Civic Engagement): When traditional avenues for holding officials or task forces accountable feel inaccessible or ignored, social media and civic tech platforms become the megaphone. Citizens document service failures, report corruption anonymously via apps, and mobilize communities online to demand action. Technology amplifies the voices that human systems might deliberately silence or conveniently overlook. It steps in where transparency and accountability, core human responsibilities of governance, failed the citizen.

The Ghanaian Paradox: Hope Tempered by Caution

This technological intervention, as Ransford and I acknowledged, is a double-faced KENTE cloth:

* The Efficiency Mirage: Does a sleek app for business registration truly fix the underlying culture of bureaucratic inertia or rent-seeking it tries to circumvent? Technology can be a workaround, masking the deeper rot rather than curing it.

* The Exclusion Risk: Not every farmer has a smartphone; not every trader is digitally literate. When technology steps in, who might it inadvertently leave behind, amplifying existing inequalities? The human failure of exclusion must not be replicated in the digital solution.

* The Accountability Vacuum (Redux): When an algorithm flags a customs irregularity instead of a human officer, who bears ultimate responsibility? When a civic reporting app is ignored by the authorities, is the failure technological or profoundly human? The buck must not disappear into the server rack.

Beyond the Workaround: A Call for Human Reformation

My conversation with Ransford at the funeral wasn’t just about identifying problems; it was a shared yearning for a better Ghana. Technology’s role in stepping where humans fail is not a permanent victory lap for silicon. It is, as we agreed, a stark diagnostic tool and a temporary crutch.

* The Diagnostic: Every fintech app succeeding points to a banking sector that failed the informal trader. Every successful e-government portal highlights the inefficiency of the manual system it replaced. Every civic tech platform gaining traction underscores a failure in traditional accountability mechanisms. Technology holds up an unforgiving mirror.

* The Crutch: It keeps things moving DESPITE the failures. It allows the farmer to sell, the importer to clear goods, the citizen to report – even when the human system stumbles. It prevents total collapse.

The Uncomfortable Question for Ghana:

As Ransford and I parted ways at the funeral, the question lingered, heavier than the humid air: Are we using technology merely to paper over the cracks of our human and systemic failures, or is it catalyzing the deep, necessary reform?

Technology is catching Ghana’s fall in countless ways, big and small. It powers the mobile money transaction when the bank is too far or too slow. It delivers the lifesaving health information when the clinic is understaffed. It tracks the goods when the human chain is broken. But its true award-worthy potential lies not just in the efficiency it brings, but in the uncomfortable truth it forces us to confront about ourselves.

The circuits are holding up parts of our broken system. The challenge Ransford and I grappled with remains: Will we use this technological intervention as a wake-up call to rebuild the human foundations – fostering INTEGRITY, EFFICIENCY, and GENUINE SERVICE – so that technology becomes a tool for progress, not just a reluctant SAVIOUR from our own FAILINGS? The answer to that will define Ghana’s future far more than any app.

GHANA MUST WORK AGAIN

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The Confused third world; Understanding a world we do not understand(Two Modes of Existence)

July 13, 2025

African culture, Culture and identity, Governance, History, Philosophy
By Lord Fiifi Quayle. July 2025

Putting on my philosophical cap
1. The Mode of Fragility (Technological Modernity):
  - Being: Rooted in abstraction and universality. It sees the world as a collection of problems to be solved by standardized, efficient systems. Value is measured by speed, scale, connectivity, and control.
  - Knowing: Relies on externalized, digitized knowledge. Wisdom resides in databases, algorithms, and global networks. Understanding is fragmented, specialized, and dependent on complex, invisible infrastructures (the “black box”).
  - Ethics: Prioritizes individual empowerment, consumption, novelty, and often, a subtle alienation from place and community. Resilience is sought through more technology, more complexity, more control.
  - Vulnerability: Its strength is also its weakness. It creates profound dependencies and systemic fragility. A single point of failure (power, data, a supply chain link) can collapse vast swathes of perceived reality. It operates on borrowed time and borrowed stability.
2. The Mode of Robustness (Culturally Embedded Tradition):
  - Being: Rooted in embodiment and particularity. It understands the world through lived experience within a specific place and within a web of relationships (human, natural, ancestral). Value is measured by endurance, reciprocity, harmony, and meaning derived from context.
  - Knowing: Relies on embodied, tacit, narrative knowledge. Wisdom is passed down through stories, rituals, craftsmanship, and direct interaction with the local environment. Understanding is holistic, contextual, and resilient to external disruption because it resides in people and practices.
  - Ethics: Prioritizes community well-being, respect for limits (natural and social), continuity, and a deep sense of belonging. Resilience is inherent in diversity, redundancy, local adaptation, and mutual aid.
  - Vulnerability: Its weakness is often inertia and inadaptability to truly novel, large-scale challenges. It can ossify, preserving harmful practices alongside valuable ones. Its strength lies in weathering known storms, not necessarily unforeseen global tsunamis.
The Philosophical Crisis of Transition

The “third world” transition is not merely economic; it’s an existential migration from one mode of existence to another, often forced and incomplete. This creates a profound disorientation:
- The Epistemic Abyss: The old, embodied ways of knowing are devalued, deemed “backward.” Yet, the new, abstract knowledge remains inaccessible, unreliable, or contextually meaningless when the infrastructure flickers. People are left knowing neither way fully, existing in a limbo of partial understanding.
- The Ontological Shattering: The stable, meaningful world defined by tradition and place is fractured. The new, globalized world offered by technology is enticing but phantasmal – it appears and disappears with the power grid. Identity becomes fluid, contested, and often rootless.
- The Erosion of Meaning: Robust cultures derive meaning from deep narratives – connection to land, ancestors, community roles, sacred practices. Fragile modernity often offers meaning through consumption, individual achievement, and fleeting digital connection, which feel hollow when the screen goes dark. The “quality of life” diminishes not necessarily in material terms (which may improve), but in existential depth and resilient purpose.
- The Paradox of Complexity: Evolution towards greater societal complexity does create fragility (as per Joseph Tainter). Each new layer (global supply chains, digital finance, hyper-specialization) adds points of potential failure. The wisdom lost is often the wisdom of simplicity, sufficiency, and local repair – the very things that buffer against systemic collapse.
Cultivating Robustness: A Philosophical Imperative

Protecting ourselves isn’t just practical; it’s an ethical act of preserving meaning and authentic being in the face of homogenizing fragility. How?
1. Embrace Rooted Fluidity: Reject the false choice of stasis or surrender. Be deeply grounded in the wisdom, values, and practices of your place and culture (rootedness), while developing the critical capacity to selectively integrate useful elements of modernity without losing your core (fluidity). Like a deeply rooted tree that bends in the wind.
2. Value Embodied Knowledge as Sacred: Recognize that the craftsman’s hand, the farmer’s eye, the healer’s intuition, the elder’s story – these are not primitive relics, but repositories of irreplaceable, lived wisdom. Actively engage in and transmit these practices. They are epistemology made flesh.
3. Practice Critical Frugality: Question the necessity and true cost (existential, not just monetary) of every complex technology. Does it enhance our rooted being, or merely create new dependencies? Choose tools that empower local agency and resilience, not just convenience. Value repairability over novelty.
4. Cultivate the Communal Self: Understand that robust individuality arises from strong community, not in opposition to it. Invest in face-to-face relationships, mutual obligation, and shared rituals. This web is the ultimate safety net and source of meaning when abstract systems fail. Your robustness is intertwined with the robustness of your neighbors.
5. Seek Appropriate Scale: Recognize that not all problems require global, complex solutions. Robustness often thrives at the human scale – the village, the neighborhood, the watershed. Foster systems (economic, social, agricultural) that are understandable, manageable, and repairable at this scale. Complexity should serve the local, not dominate it.
6. Accept Finitude and Impermanence (Wisely): Fragile modernity often promises control and immortality (digital legacies, medical miracles). Robust traditions acknowledge limits – of life, resources, and human understanding. This isn’t resignation, but a source of profound realism and appreciation for the present. Build things to last, but understand that everything ultimately changes. Build for endurance within the cycle, not for illusory permanence against it.
In Essence: The Unbreakable Vessel

Living robustly in an unfolding world is the practice of being authentically human within a specific place and time, amidst the seductive chaos of abstraction. It’s recognizing that the microchip offers light but casts long shadows, while the clay pot, shaped by generations of hands knowing this earth, holds enduring sustenance.

The transition to “first world” status, philosophically understood, is not about replicating fragility, but about building a new synthesis: a society where the power of technology serves to amplify and preserve the depth of rooted being, embodied wisdom, and communal strength – not replace it. True development is measured not just in GDP or bandwidth, but in the unbreakable resilience of meaning, connection, and authentic existence that persists even when the lights go out. This robustness isn’t a rejection of progress; it’s the foundation upon which truly sustainable and meaningful progress can be built. It’s the art of holding the light without shattering the vessel.

GHANA MUST WORK AGAIN
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New Faces, New Futures: Celebrating 68 Years of Independence in Ghana

March 5, 2025

Culture and identity, Governance, History, Politics, Tourism

By Lord Fiifi Quayle

As we stand on the cusp of our 68th Independence Day, it is a moment for reflection and renewal. Tomorrow, we will commemorate the monumental achievement that Kwame Nkrumah and our forebears fought so valiantly for our freedom from colonial rule. Yet, as we celebrate, we must also confront the reality that, despite nearly seven decades of independence, many Ghanaians feel as though we have regressed rather than progressed.

In this pivotal moment, the recent victory of John Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) feels like a new dawn a resurgence of the hope we longed for during the earlier years of our independence. Mahama’s leadership symbolizes a return to the ideals of unity, progress, and national pride that our founding fathers envisioned. As we reflect on the significance of independence, we must also honor the pioneers who paved the way for our liberation.

Figures like Jacob Wilson Sey and Mensah Sarbah were instrumental in sowing the seeds of nationalism and self-determination long before Nkrumah took the helm. Their advocacy for the rights of the Ghanaian people laid the groundwork for the independence movement. J.B. Danquah and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, with their eloquent speeches and unwavering commitment to the cause, inspired a generation to rise against oppression. If these great leaders were alive today, what would they think of Ghana’s current state?

It is likely that they would express disappointment at the divisions that have plagued our nation. They would lament the conflicts in places like Bawku and the pervasive sense of disillusionment among our youth. Our independence was not merely a political victory; it was a promise of prosperity, hope, and a better future for all Ghanaians. Yet, too many of our young people are still searching for opportunities, their dreams stifled by economic challenges and social unrest.

As we celebrate this anniversary, let us heed the lessons of our past. Our founding fathers would implore us to set aside our differences and unite for the common good. They would urge our leaders,especially the new NDC government to chart a course that fosters peace, inclusivity, and progress. The path forward must prioritize the aspirations of our youth, ensuring that they believe in the Ghana we are building together.

This Independence Day, let us not only reflect on the sacrifices made by our ancestors but also commit ourselves to a brighter future. The NDC, as the new face of Ghanaian leadership, has the opportunity to reignite the spirit of collaboration and innovation that characterized our early years of independence. By investing in education, infrastructure, and social programs, we can create an environment where every Ghanaian feels valued and empowered.

As we raise our flags and sing our national anthem, let us remember that independence is not just a date on the calendar; it is a continuous journey toward self-determination and collective prosperity. Happy Independence Day to us all! May we honor the legacy of our pioneers by striving for a peaceful, united, and prosperous Ghana. God bless our homeland, Ghana!

GHANA IS WORKING AGAIN

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The Himba Tribe of Namibia

April 8, 2017

African culture, Culture and identity, Tourism

The Himba are an ethnic group of about 20,000 to 50,000 people living in northern Namibia, in the Kunene region (formerly Kaokoland) Recently they have also built two villages in Kamanjab which have become a tourist destination. They are mostly a nomadic, pastoral people, closely related to the Herero, and speak Otjihimba, a dialect of the Herero language.What you need to know about the African birth song:

Himba is a tribe in Namibia where the birth date of a child is counted not from when they’ve been born, nor from when they are conceived but from the day that the child was a thought in its mother’s mind.

And when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to come. And after she’s heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father, and teaches it to him. And then, when they make love to physically conceive the child, some of that time they sing the song of the child, as a way to invite it.

And then, when the mother is pregnant, the mother teaches that child’s song to the midwives and the old women of the village, so that when the child is born, the old women and the people around her sing the child’s song to welcome it. And then, as the child grows up, the other villagers are taught the child’s song. If the child falls, or hurts its knee, someone picks it up and sings its song to it. Or perhaps the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rites of puberty, then as a way of honoring this person, the people of the village sing his or her song.
And it goes this way through their life. In marriage, the songs are sung, together. And finally, when this child is lying in bed, ready to die, all the villagers know his or her song, and they sing–for the last time–the song to that person.

You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn’t. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you’ll find your way home.

Credits to howafrica.com

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