Celebrated playwright and CEO of Roverman Productions, Uncle Ebo Whyte, has lamented the tendency of Ghanaians to frustrate their own people while making it easier for foreigners to succeed.
Speaking passionately on The Career Trail programme with Irene Adubea Aning, he noted that life in Ghana can often feel like punishment for those who are born here.
“Ghana will make you sweat unnecessarily. Sometimes it’s almost as if Ghanaians are determined to punish anybody who allows himself to be born a Ghanaian,” he said.
According to him, Ghanaians are quick to support foreigners but reluctant to uplift their fellow citizens.
“If I were a Nigerian, a South African, European, or American doing what I am doing in Ghana, it would be celebrated. But because I am Ghanaian, I have to struggle. That is Ghana. We don’t want to see our own prospering. We don’t want to see a Ghanaian doing well. Yet, if it’s a foreigner, we don’t mind,” he stressed.
He warned that this attitude contributes to the desperation that drives many Ghanaians to seek greener pastures abroad.
“The day we change that mindset, no Ghanaian will have to leave Ghana. All the people queuing for visas, all the people risking their lives through the desert to get to Europe, it will stop. Because the truth is, you can’t get the quality of life you can have in Ghana anywhere else. Ghana is a blessed place, but unfortunately, the people are not making it easy for each other,” he highlighted.
Uncle Ebo Whyte also challenged the popular narrative that Ghanaians are hospitable.
“People say Ghanaians are hospitable. That is not true. We are hospitable to foreigners. It is about time we become hospitable to our own. Because if we don’t, what happens is that foreigners will look down on us. They come here with nothing, we make life easy for them, and they succeed. Meanwhile, we are busy sabotaging our fellow Ghanaians,” he explained.
He urged citizens to rethink how they treat one another, insisting that national progress depends on it.
“If there’s one thing we must change, it is this: a Ghanaian supporting another Ghanaian, rooting for another Ghanaian, celebrating another Ghanaian. Until we do that, we will go nowhere. More seriously, we will create an environment where foreigners will always be ahead of us and will never respect us.”
He concluded with a call to action: “It’s up to you and I. If you see a Ghanaian doing something, that’s your brother, that’s your sister. Whatever you can do to help that person, do it. That is the only way we can keep faith in this nation.”