I want us to look at Apostle Dr Kwadwo Safo (and his amazing inventions), whose auto-mobile company has recently announced that it will be producing cars in large quantity for the Ghanaian market.
However, let me set the tone for the above discussion by first attacking the sell out mindset of majority of Ghanaians, which dictates that, everything Ghanaians is inferior and everything foreign is superior…
I perfectly understand that some Ghana made products are inferior in quality compared to their Western made counterparts—and over the years, we’ve witnessed several incidents of certain Ghanaian made products or inventions causing more harm than good.
But this does not in any way mean that, everything foreign is superior to its Ghanaian made counterpart. Even if we do not have Ghanaian made products to compete with certain foreign products, that does not make the foreign products automatically good.
It is only in Ghana I learnt that Pizza is a ‘luxurious’ food and some of the most expensive girls you take out for dinner will go just for that. The main reason why Pizza which is more of a junk food in the West is worshiped like some Greek goddess in Ghana is because, it is foreign—and the Ghanaian accepts anything foreign as great with a class.
Let me share my experience with you…Few months ago when I visited Ghana, I went out for lunch with a female friend and from the different dishes on the menu that was given to us by the waitress, she kept flipping through for something. So I asked her, what are you looking for?
She answered; I love potatoes and chicken—that is my favourite food. At that stage, I did not really capture what she was talking about. Eventually, she found it and placed her order.
When the food came, I realized she had ordered for ‘chicken and chips’ and coming from the UK, I was shocked. Why will we come all the way to such a nice restaurant for you to order some damn ‘chicken and chips’. To me, she doesn’t really like that food but she feels like because it is foreign, it adds some sort of class to her personality to be going in for that…I mean, this girl will not eat ‘atormo’ which I think is not far from what she ordered, just that her order had a ‘foreign swag’ to it.
What she probably doesn’t know is that, in the UK where I live—any girl you buy ‘chicken and chips’ for on a date will slap your face—go home and call her sisters to come and slap you the more.
With just £2.00 , you can get some ‘chicken and chips’ with a can of coke—and the only people who live on this food are primary school children. In fact, it is another junk food.
I do not intend to slam ‘Chicken and Chips’ or Pizza, but I am just trying to establish the point that, we will leave our well cooked Waakye and opt for a tasteless Israel bread-Pizza, simply because it is foreign.
I am not by any logic saying Pizza or ‘Chicken and Chips’ are not good but I am saying they are not better or of any better status compared to our Kenkey, Waakye, Fufu, Banku, Fried Plantain and the other Ghanaian dishes…
We just love to put money in the pockets of others—and not our own.
What sort of people are we—using origin as an indicator of quality and status? In Ghana, foreign brands rule while the value of Ghanaian brands in eyes of the ordinary Ghana is less than the worth of a ‘toilet paper’.
You may not believe this but I’ve heard some Ghanaian women will sleep with you for free, SIMPLY because you are from ‘abroad’. What kind of mindset is this?
Anyway, it has emerged that Apostle Dr Kwadwo Safo has finally taken the bold step to manufacture vehicles for sales—moving his company away from the many years of manufacturing for exhibition purposes into the commercial market…
Apart from vehicles, Apostle Dr Kwadwo Safo can literally manufacture anything that the white man is capable of putting together and for me; it is great that he has decided to test the Ghanaian market with his vehicles.
Considering the mindset of majority of Ghanaians as explained above, my worry/question is, would Ghanaians patronise Apostle Dr Kwadwo Safo’s vehicles and not subject them to ridicule, while continuing to embrace foreign vehicles?
I hope we will not bring to play our mindset of tagging everything made in Ghana as inferior and those made abroad as superior. If you’ve never supported a Ghanaian product or invention before, make a bold attempt to support the creative intelligence of Apostle Dr Kwadwo Safo—and together, we can become the China or South Korea of Africa…
A lot needs to change about Ghanaians—especially our mindset.