MENTAL CHANGEOVER

I was having a  conversation with a friend of mine and he was telling me that he had to pick his uncle from the airport some months back. On their way home, his uncle was telling him about how "Europe" was clean and how there were many sanctions against those who flouted the sanitation laws. Immediately after the conversation, he threw an empty mineral water bottle out of the car. My friend was shocked and he asked why, the response his uncle gave was even more shocking, he said, "this is Ghana". This story drew my mind to the sanitation problems we faced as a country and as a continent in general. Coming to my own country and to a popular central hub called Tema station in Accra, Ghana, you see people struggling for space to dump their refuse. Believe you me, the stench coming from this heap is beyond measure. Commuters who use that part of town can attest to this. Recently we inaugurated the National Sanitation Day,( 1 day in every month to keep our surroundings clean) that is all well and good but I asked myself, can we use just 12 days in a year to unlearn something which has been part of us for years? We must resolve to put in our little quota (daily) by keeping our immediate surroundings clean and making sure they stay that way.
 In my opinion, the place that really needs cleaning up are our minds. I think there should be a mental makeover. Sometimes when you think of some our cultural practices that we still engage in, one can only wish for a mental revolution. We have "witches" in Ghana and have gone ahead to build witch camps?. Really? I thought "Harry Potter" was just fictitious why then do we make it a reality in our part of the world? By the way what is the "measuring rod" used to verify these witchcraft claims? Who invented these "witch buster" mechanism? Female Genital Mutilation, considering the birth of twin children as a curse in some parts of the country, "trokosi" ( a form of slavery) and a host of many other practices need to be kicked out into oblivion. We must strive to unlearn our "dirty tendencies" and pick up "healthy" habits and practices. The "sanity" of the world and some of our wife's sexual arousal depends on it. This is Edwin Oko Lamptey and this is a RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT.
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