Would anyone want to buy Ghana considering its current state and dwelling citizens? You must be a daring business man to want to purchase such a country with corruption as its first name and incompetence as its surname—yet unnoticed by those who claim to be in charge.
Over the years, I have heard countless people throwing punches at the Government (it doesn’t really matter which party is in power) as the fountainhead of corruption—and occasionally I have joined the shout against corruption too. The Ghanaian government is corrupt, has always been corrupt and will forever be corrupt.
I do not need to refer to any corruption index to establish for you that corruption has become part and parcel of our existence—to the extent that it has somewhat lost its shock in our society.
The relationship between the corrupt government officials and the citizens falls within the confusion of the chicken and egg paradox; very difficult to ascertain which comes first. In this case, I would settle for the citizens being the source of corruption—which grows to have a larger effect when same citizens take charge.
Corruption starts on a tiny scale as dishonesty influenced by money and this is the game most Ghanaians play at the bottom of the food chain. Can you remember the last time you met a sincere Ghanaian whose opinions couldn’t be influenced by cushioning his bank account? Of course such a person may exist but you would have to go through the eye of the needle to locate one in our current societal settings.
Being dishonest for financial gains is no more an offence against our individual conscience—let a lone a taboo in our collection of morals. From afar, we are able to point at how those in charge are doing this, perfectly called corruption but in our daily lives, we are no different.
The test of real honesty is not just when you are able to point out the truth but when you are able to do so irrespective of the in your face influence—money does the influencing magic. The president, his Ministers and his bunch of associates are corrupt; that is a daily cry in Ghana and you would be a ‘dead goat’ not to know this but the citizens are no different…