WE ARE HONOURED (JULY 11)

FOR days and weeks, Ghanaians have been full of anxiety about the visit of United States President Barack Obama. The final moment came last night when President Obama and his wife, Michelle, touched down at the Kotoka International Airport to begin a two-day visit.
Apart from strengthening the US-Ghana relations, Ghanaians are indeed honoured by the visit of President Obama. Coming after only seven months in office as President of arguably the most powerful nation of the world, President Obama's visit is a huge endorsement of Ghana's democratic credentials and a signal that Africa would engage attention of the American leader during his administration. It is also significant that the visit comes at a time that our President, who also campaigned on the platform of change, is about seven months into his mandate.
The reference to Ghana gives the people hope for a better future. It is also an acknowledgement that Ghana is a stable and peaceful country to grow business. The success story of our democratic experience should inspire us to greater heights.
Furthermore, President Obama's visit offers a huge opportunity for our political leaders to build bridges because it is only by unity that we can make progress. It is for this reason that we commend President Atta Mills for holding a novelty meeting at the Castle to interact with the leadership of the major political parties last Thursday.
The President's reminder to the political leaders that they all have a common and collective responsibility in the development of the country could not have come at a better time.
It is incumbent on political parties, irrespective of their differences, to always engage in fruitful activities and discussions to give more hope and confidence to the electorate that we are at peace with ourselves and focussed on making the country a better place to live.
No one political party can take credit for our democratic achievements but we still have a long way to fine-tune our democratic institutions and systems to reduce the occasional friction in the system.
Good governance, it is said, is the cornerstone of development. It is, therefore, not surprising that President Obama's visit has come with huge business opportunities which we should be able to take advantage of.
Our brothers and sisters on the ‘Oxford Street’ at Osu in Accra and other business concerns have shown the way. They have taken advantage of the visit to make some modest gains by producing paraphernalia of President Obama for the market but we can do a lot more than that.
But far beyond that, we should use the platform which the visit offers to attract more investors to the country. The fact that Ghana would be on the world radar and media circuits can be used to market the investment potentials of the country.
Blazing the trail of his predecessors who visited Ghana, President Obama is likely to make a policy statement on Africa and announce some financial and development assistance packages for Ghana, which will inure to the benefits of the United States and Africa, particularly Ghana.
Such packages, if they come at all, should only serve to encourage us to move on but not replace entirely our responsibility to take our destiny into our own hands.
We should take inspiration from the campaign slogan of President Obama that “Yes, We Can” to break the back of underdevelopment, extreme dependency, poverty and squalor.
As we pride ourselves in the honour bestowed on us by President Obama, we should draw lessons from the experiences of our development partners to move the nation forward in the right direction.