SIGNIFICANCE OF REPUBLIC DAY (JULY 1)

The annual ritual of celebrating Republic Day is here with us again. Today marks the 49th anniversary of the day when Ghana achieved full Republican status.
The auspicious occasion is significant in many respects in the sense that it marks the day which affirmed our true independence, having achieved political independence in 1957 but with the British monarch still the ceremonial Head of State.
The Republic Day of July 1, 1960 was, therefore, the moment in history when Ghana was completely delinked from all colonial ties with the United Kingdom.
Our hopes and aspirations as a people then were that we would use our newly acquired self-determination to secure economic independence to bring us to the status of a modern state.
There is no doubt that to some extent we have achieved some measure of economic success, notwithstanding the fact that we still have some challenges.
Although our political maturity was truncated by a series of military interventions, in 1992 we finally decided on the path of multiparty democracy, which we have practised for the past 17 years.
The beauty of our democracy, devoid of acrimony, conflict, violence and political upheavals, has made Ghana once again the shining star and model of good governance in Africa.
The Daily Graphic wishes to salute all those whose toil and sweat earned for us true freedom and gave us cause to celebrate, once again, Republic Day.
We also doff our hats for all those whose sacrifices, commitment to duty and hard work have brought the nation this far.
We, however, wish to use the opportunity to call on the government to work towards economic freedom, which has eluded us so far.
Admittedly, the fundamentals of our economy are weak and the nation is currently saddled with huge expenditure.
The national economy is heavily dependent on imports and economies of the developed world, to the extent that we easily catch cold anytime our foreign partners sneeze.
As we celebrate Republic Day, it is our considered opinion that it is about time the nation looked within and used home-grown solutions to overcome the economic challenges confronting us.
Nature has endowed us with human and natural resources which provide us with the capacity and the potential to make available the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter and clothing to all and sundry.
It is only when we reach a point where we eat what we grow and produce what we wear and what shelters us that we can safely claim that we are on the right path toward development.
As we wish the rest of Ghanaians a happy anniversary, we should remind ourselves that this is the time to rekindle our national spirit, believe in ourselves and resolve now, more than ever before, to build our nation free from poverty, illiteracy, squalor, ill health, crime, violence, conflict and general backwardness and underdevelopment.
The Daily Graphic is sometimes worried about the emerging culture of extreme politicisation of almost every national issue, since such a trend has the potential to engender division, rancour and bitterness in our body politic.
We call on our politicians and political parties to use this year's Republic Day celebration as an occasion to begin the process of consensus building and using a bi-partisan approach where necessary to solve some of the difficulties that we face as a nation.
The success stories of countries such as Korea, China, Japan and Thailand should convince us that developing a self-sustaining and self-reliant economy is achievable. For, where there is a WILL, there is always a WAY and where there is HOPE there is always LIFE.