Poetry Corner: Once Upon A Mealtime

A recent conversation with a board member — on how boards of financial institutions actually treat artificial intelligence and its models — surfaced a set of questions considerably sharper than AI-related ones circulating in board packs. Assuming those questions are being asked at all.

Picture this. A founder walks into a boardroom in Accra, or a finance manager jumps on a Zoom call with investors in Lagos.

Few policy announcements in Ghana’a 2026 Mid-Year Budget Review carry as much long-term economic promise as the decision to establish a Women's Development Bank.

It is 1:47 a.m. somewhere in Accra. A man is lying beside his wife, phone tilted away from her at that particular angle we have all mastered.

Ghana loses 315,000 hectares of forest every year. In 2024 alone, that figure was 77,000 hectares, land that, once gone, takes decades and far more capital to recover than it would have cost to protect.

Kojo Sardine, a densely populated community in Labadi, is facing a growing transport challenge as narrow roads designed for a much smaller settlement struggle to accommodate a rising population, increasing vehicle numbers and expanding roadside businesses.

For Ghanaian businesses, the cost of certainty, not the direction of the cedi, is the number worth watching right now, and it has rarely been lower.

Last Friday, during my appearance on JoyFM TV, I reflected on a question that is becoming increasingly urgent for African leaders: we have spent considerable time discussing what artificial intelligence can do, but are our organisations actually ready to use it well? This matters because the global AI conversation is changing. The issue is no longer simply adoption. It is value.