Opinions of Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Columnist: Afevi, Kormi

They Were Not That Corrupt (2)

In 2008, like many of my kinsmen from the Volta Region, I responded to the rallying call of the NDC to embark on a mission to rescue Ghana. I was made to believe Kuffour had institutionalized corruption at the castle. That his government was only interested in Asantes. That the entire government was a front for drug dealers.

Three and a half years down the lane, many of my kinfolks and me are having to reflect on a daily basis on how naïve we were in 2008. We have allowed sentiments and lies to cloud our minds to elect potentially the most corrupt regime Ghana has seen since independence. Like a sinking ship whose captain is more concerned with his own welfare, the president looks on clueless as government appointees are all over the place like headless fowls.
My last visit to the Volta Region revealed a sorrowful sight. Bad roads, ill equipped hospitals, deprived schools etc cry for attention. The more interaction I embarked upon, the more sober I became realizing that the average Ghanaian does not need much to be happy. In Accra, a podgy bloke whose first job after national service was a deputy minister moves from media network to network to justify why the political family of his godfather powerbrokers should be allowed to share their judgment debt booty in peace with criminal Arabian merchants.
J. A kuffour who we attacked incessantly in 2008 was not this corrupt.
Tsoooo NDC! So called ace investigating journalists have turned their newspapers into pro-judgment debt journals. Hard line socialists have thrown their pro-poor ideologies to the dogs. They still wake up in dreamland on Saturday mornings to shout loudest on Alhaji and Alhaji in their quest to rally us around again. Alas! we have become wiser.
I am simply going to sit at home on Election Day. Politics should be about principles. If it was wrong in 2008, it certainly cannot be right in 2012. If the NDC’s claims in 2008 are anything to go by, then this election is a battle between a perceived corrupt party and the government that institutionalized corruption.
I have made it clear to my kinsmen. You have a choice to remain a worldbank for politicians whose priority is to remain in Accra and drink French wine and duck soup; or to become a dynamic objective force that will hold leaders accountable irrespective of their ethnicity or party affiliation. After all, it is development that we are interested in.
As for the NDC, they promised us a government of the people, by the people and for the people. What we have at the moment is a government of corrupt and incompetent politicians, by corrupt and incompetent politicians and for corrupt and incompetent politicians.
Fiafi tsi tsi wo ! Jerry wordor na avu wo, wo du .
Kormi Afevi
Kormiafevi@yahoo.co.uk