This publication is the result of a live programme hosted by one Awura Amma Lydia on Hot FM UK on Thursday 5 November 2015 at around 14:40 hours. Some radio phone-in contributors held the view that the socio-politico-economic destruction of Ghana is being caused by our chiefs, pastors and politicians. Even though I had no time to listen to the entire programme, what I heard for less than five minutes was more than enough for a seasoned writer to come out with something for the public to digest.

Yes, chiefs, pastors and politicians are entrusted with the management of our localities, country and life to a greater extent. They are not only to formulate laws and policies but to implement regulations that are in the best interest of the public and also to give us directions. They should normally be the cardinal pillars on which any healthy society revolves.

However, for lack of probity, accountability and transparency on the part of our modern day Ghana chiefs, pastors and politicians, Ghana is retrogressing in all facets of her political, social and economic life rather than progressing or at worst stagnating.

CHIEFS
Chiefs are the custodians of our traditions and customs. They are the bona fide owners of our locally, but officially demarcated lands. Again, they are to lead and direct the local people such that they collectively get the best out of everything. However, our modern day chiefs unlike their predecessors of olden days have become selfish, insatiably greedy, myopic and pure crooks without any sense of discernment.

There are instances where a chief has sold the same plot of land to two or more people with the situation culminating in bitter litigations between the purchasers. There are instances where chiefs have not been fair when adjudicating cases brought before them. They accept bribes to declare verdict in favour of the otherwise guilty person or party. An instance of this is when a case was taken before Asantehene at his Manhyia Palace. All the chiefs present did establish that conventional breaches had been committed, but for unexplained reasons they still sided with the wrong party. This is made evident in a YouTube video titled, "Asantehene involves in corruption"

Some of these chiefs have become autocrats, conducting themselves as though they hold life and death in their hands with the inalienable right to inflict death on anyone as and when they want. Are not these same chiefs that have devised a clever means to exploit their subjects by indirectly reselling their immovable properties to them through what they call renewal of their lease? Did something of this sort not allegedly happen in Kumasi at the orders of "Ashanti Nana?"

If they abuse the trust reposed in them, then they are like salt that has lost its sweetness; they are no longer good for any purpose but to be thrown away. These chiefs who claim to be formally educated, thinking they are better than their uneducated predecessors are only using their formal knowledge so acquired to dupe their own subjects.

Some of these chiefs are selling lands to foreigners like the Chinese who are not only aggressively extracting the mineral wealth of our soil for their selfish gains but also, are causing terrible damage to the ecology.

PASTORS:
Pastoral job in Ghana at the moment is no longer a calling from God but a cunning way of making easy money by complete charlatans – wolves cloaked in sheep skin. These pastors do not preach salvation but prosperity. They constantly exploit the congregants, impoverishing them through incessant requests made to them to give out money for various church or Christian activities all of which are the figment of their methodical cheating imagination.

They require church members and prosperity seekers to be at church 24/7 hours if possible. How can people go to work to contribute positively towards the economy of the country if all of their time is spent at church crying unto God for manna to fall from heaven for them to enjoy? Do these pastors not often pit daughters against mothers, brothers against sisters, sons against fathers and family members against one another claiming they are witches or wizards doing the other who goes to see them for help to overcome their particular life problems?

Do the fake ones who are in the majority not take money from people who go to seek their supposed spiritual assistance even before they pray for them? Are these pastors not living in affluence at the expense and ignorance of the desperate poor and needy persons who visit their churches for guidance and help to overcome their personal problems? Do these pastors not sleep with people's wives, bath women and do all sorts of silly things that put their integrity in doubt as men of God?

POLITICIANS
Ghanaian politicians have become a total disgrace. They have come to make politics an arena for amassing immense wealth. The proverb, "Good name is better than riches" sounds nonsense in the ears of a Ghanaian politician. They do not understand their duties as politicians whereby they have to serve their nation and people with all their heart, soul and mind. Instead of being at the service of their people, they are constantly devising means to plunder the public coffers to impoverish the nation and the people therein.

A typical example is the John Mahama NDC-led government where a scheme nicknamed "create, loot and share" was hatched to swindle Ghanaians of millions of new Ghana Cedis and US dollars through what was/is judgment debt payments. Every member of this government, their cronies and all NDC party gurus, their assigns and agents are illegally rich and mouthy.

They do not know how to govern but they well do know how to steal, insult and intimidate people. Friends that I knew and trusted to be honest have almost all become crooks availing themselves of the stealing spree policies directly or indirectly put in place by the government as soon as they entered into the Ghana political arena.

CONCLUSION:
The contributors to the radio programme who held or still hold the view that Chiefs, Pastors and Politicians (CPP) are ruining Ghana have every reason to believe so. From the little said above about them, there is no wonder that they are not for the people and their betterment but are there to kill them and mother Ghana slowly, slowly. Oh, what a "Suffering in the land" under their hands. Our chiefs, please cease your ignorant quest for power and wealth. Let truth guide you always or else you will continually suffer humiliation. Pastors, please stop playing on the intelligence of people. You are leading God's people astray all for the sake of what you will get from them. Preach salvation but not prosperity. I am not an apostate but I hate the attitude of some of these "quick buck"-seeking pastors. Politicians, are you not ashamed of yourselves? Look yourselves in the mirror. Are you not embarrassed by your ever growing protuberant bellies (potbellies), the result of your propensity to steal money to overfeed yourselves? Ghanaian politicians, are you not ashamed of not being able to perform creditably unlike your contemporary Whites in the Western world? I hope you do.

One thing in common with all our chiefs, fake pastors and politicians is that they are all damn womanisers. They do not hesitate to bed any succulent damsel that crosses their path and is willing to engage in consensual sex with them hence seeking to acquire illegal wealth to satisfy these women.

Rockson Adofo