Does It Make Sense Requesting A Thief To Monitor A Thief?

Ghanaians, please let us live above reproach by being a bit more reasonable. I do not mean to insult anyone by the statement just made. It is all about querying the rational behind a request I completely find very nauseating, but often made, to President John Dramani Mahama, alias President “Ede bii keke”.

Some Ghanaians, well placed of course, are always entreating him to check the chronic corruption within his government, and among his government appointees and his party’s (NDC) gurus. From empirical observations, circumstantial evidence and what more knowledgeable persons with insight into government operations say, one can almost correctly conclude that President Mahama is equally deeply involved in the out-of-control near-institutional corruption in Ghana. Subsequently, he is a thief if all those involved in the perpetuation of, but bemoaned, corruption, are thieves.

How could someone knee-deep in corrupt acts, be capable of controlling corruption to his own detriment? It will take someone else, a clean person of course, to control corruption in Ghana, but not President Mahama with Ibrahim Mahama and Asiedu Nketiah as his lieutenants. It is therefore a joke when people make requests to President Mahama to check, curtail or rid his government and Ghana of corruption.

Corruption is like a daily intake of Vitamin C to him as gulping fufu down the oesophagus is to Rockson. This shows how difficult it is for him to control corruption in Ghana.

I have never heard of an instances of a thief or a gang member successfully persuading their colleagues not to steal while they are themselves heavily mired in corrupt practices, stealing gluttonously as though tomorrow never comes. However, I have heard the elders say, “When you leave your valuables with a thief, they never go missing”. Why is this so? Because when they go missing, you certainly can tell that he/she has stolen them. To avoid the shame of being accused to the face of having nicked the valuables, which of course will be the case, he/she will vigorously ensure the safety of the property entrusted to his/her care.

Therefore, President Mahama is never the right person to be asked to control corruption within his government. Those who are asking him to control corruption within his government that abounds in student-Ministers and Deputy Ministers know how much the President himself has soiled his hands in corruption. If he chastises them, they will expose his extensive involvement in the very act that we vainly task, or request, him, to monitor or control. To avoid the shame of such an exposure, he will leave his appointees to continue with their stealing spree as we see at the moment.

Simply put, President Mahama can never control or eradicate corruption from the system. He is already guilty of involvement in the dastardly act hence the difficulty of even attempting to control it, let alone, fighting to eradicate it.

From the little explanation above, are we still going to earnestly entreat him to fight corruption within his government? I shall not, because he cannot do it. And by dwelling in the false hope that he can, will turn me out as the biggest fool of all time.

Rockson Adofo