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In Ghana, politics is the quickest way to amass fortune

NDC And NPP Flag 1 File photo of NPP and NDC bags

Sun, 29 May 2022 Source: Joel Savage

Politicians strive to get elected in the developed world to serve the people and improve communities, but in Ghana and Africa in general, politicians struggle to gain positions through votes just to collect wealth, therefore corruption remains a major threat to state and security.

Bribery and corruption are particularly significant in our time since they are one of the results of sin that occurred from man's fall, and their impact on society is terrible. Despite the depravity that underpins it, corruption is routinely passed off as something nice and just.

Every administration that comes to power in Ghana promises to fight corruption, but once in power, they forget their promises and indulge in corruptible activities that have a severe impact on the lives of regular Ghanaians, and both the NDC and the NPP have been implicated in corruption.

"Many NDC officials were initially nothing, without any flamboyant status," a Ghanaian lawyer named Maurice Ampaw remarked, "but as soon as they finished school and joined politics, they became enormously rich within a short period of time."

"Many NDC politicians, like Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, Member of Parliament for North Tongu, suddenly became affluent just a short period of time after joining politics," the lawyer claims, citing a lavish residence the politician built in his hometown as an example.

Because Akufo Addo is aware that Mahama and the NDC did the same, it appears that the NDC made corruption easy for the NPP government. It doesn't make sense to me for a president who swore to defend the public purse to be implicated in enormous corruption with impunity.

But I've been arguing for a long time that Akufo-Addo should have been different on moral grounds. I don't agree with those who believe John Mahama was corrupt; thus, it doesn't matter if Akufo Addo is corrupt as well because such wrongdoings harm regular Ghanaians.

How misleading is it that a president who claimed to fight corruption keeps politicians, judges, and journalists involved in big corruption scandals in his administration out of the spotlight?

No sensible leader in the world who claims to be anti-corruption will bring to the government persons like Eugene Arhin, the president's director of communication, Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, the Chief Justice, and Paul Adom-Otchere, all of whom were implicated in major corruption scandals.

Corruption has become fashionable in every government that rules Ghana, and it will continue to be so because in Ghana, corrupt politicians or elites do not go to prison for the crimes they commit, and yet each of them thinks that Ghana would become a better country; fools.

Columnist: Joel Savage