Cry, The Beloved Fatherland!

In conversation with a friend last week I told a friend that it is no longer raw anger I feel about the level of corruption in Ghana Inc., but deep, inexpressible sadness.

My sadness stemmed from the high hopes I, and many patriots, had for the fatherland.

In 192, while still a student in Europe, I made a trip around West Africa with some Dutch friends. President Rawlings was in power in Ghana then.

We came back with very positive impressions about the country. Whatever yardstick we chose to measure things, Ghana simply towered about her neighbours. Not only were the people highly disciplined, the civil servants provided service at par with what we were used to in Europe. Police officers were both courteous and efficient and they will not demand or accept bribe. Ghana's borders were the only ones we passed through where immigration officers have not turned their posts into illegal toll booths. Streets were clean and our party felt as secure as we felt in Amsterdam. We slept well without charlatans in priestly garbs disturbing our night-sleep with loud drumming and false promises of taking people to alujanah. We passed unmolested on pavements that were not cluttered with every manner of traders and peddler. We took STC buses around country and they all ran on time. There was not much material opulence around, but we saw a joyful, happy, confident people doing their best to make a living. We did not read about corruption cases in the dailies.

Fast-forward to 2014, things appeared to have fallen dreadfully apart. Hardly a day passes without one gargantuan case of corruption or the other being blared on newspaper headlines.

What is going on?
What has happened to propel the country into the league of the most corrupt nations on earth?

What happened to make Ghanaians become so dirty that cholera killed about two thousand people and affected nine of our ten regions?

A big national shame in this age.
What happened to make Ghanaman become so callous, so heartless, so selfish that all he cares for is ME, ME, ME?

What happened to all the patriotism our parents fought hard to instill in us? What happened to make us think that only unbridled, primitive accumulation of material wealth is the only noble goal in life? What happened to make us become so selfish?

These are potent question we need to ask ourselves and try to proffer answers and solutions before we are finally consumed by our corrupt filth.

It will not do to continue to bury our heads in the sand, continue to, hypocritically, pat ourselves on the backs and pretend that we are such great people.

Last week revelation about the rot at the National Service Scheme (NSS) vividly brought home the depth into which we have sunk in our corruption obscenity.

It is simply unconscionable that shameless officials turned a scheme that was designed to instill some sense of patriotism into our youth avenue to loot from the commonwealth. What is equally reprehensible is that officials of the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) were also alleged to have been bribed.

It is horrifying enough that every aspect of our national life have been invaded by the canker of corruption, but it bodes ill when sensitive organisations/institutions like the armed forces and the BNI succumb. Today, reports of members of the police and the armed forces abusing their positions to engage in illicit activities are routinely splashed on the front pages of newspapers. We are doomed if we do not do everything possible to promptly nip this in the bud.

What is going on? What type of future do we think we are building when we cannot think beyond our stomachs?

Okay, enough lamentations. What is to be done?
Few people today realize that the US was once among the most corrupt countries on earth. Not terribly long ago in the US, smarmy politicians colluded with Mafia bosses to steal government contracts, took bribes to get things done. What happened was that citizens got totally fed up and demanded that the government do something. Laws were passed and stiff penalties were imposed, until the system cleaned itself up. There were no sanctimonious appeals, but stringent penalties and fines and jail terms were enforced with such regularity that people realized that crime truly does not pay. No one argues that corruption has been totally eliminated in the US, but people think critically before embarking on perilous corruption track. They weigh the sanctions against the gains.

Our presidents have made the right noises about fighting corruption, but their solicitations appeared not to have dented the enthusiasm of public officials to steal us blind. The late President Mills (may his gentle soul rest in peace) cried himself hoarse at Tema, exhorting Customs officers to desist from corrupt practices. He could have saved his voice as it had no impact whatever. Despite all the preachments, cases of corruption in high and low places keep on ballooning.

It is time our president walk the talk. The truth is that we have not shown any serious commitment to demonstrate that the fight against corruption is more than verbal gimmicks. People simply pay no heed.

And why should they when we have not demonstrate any serious commitment by setting one or two good examples.

We cannot claim to be serious in the fight against corruption when all the cases of corruption in land are yet to result in a single official serving a jail term. We cannot claim to be seriously fighting corruption when Citizen Amidu got a Supreme (yes, supreme) Court judgment against a corrupt person and nothing has been done to redeem the judgment, months after it was delivered. We cannot expect to be taken seriously when heads are not made to roll at institutions charged with protecting the republic against malfeasance do nothing when rots are discovered. We cannot be serious in our fight against corruption our institutions do nothing until Mr. President comes in and give order or directive before cases of corruption are dealt with. We cannot claim to be fighting corruption when the boss of CHRJA is herself engulfed in a corruption and she still stay at post. No one will take serious our claim to fight corruption when the Chief Justice herself once engaged in land impropriety.

Every day our law courts sentence low-level criminals to lengthy jail terms, yet not one of those that stole public funds have seen the inside of jails. Petty thieves that stole fingers of plantain received stiff jail-terms while a departing speaker of parliament that stole everything from his official residence did not receive any sanction.

We can only successfully conquer corruption when corrupt officials are made to pay heavy penalties for their shenanigans and abuse of public trust.

We need not go the martial way of execution by firing squads, but there are other ways we can effectively fight corruption.

Currently, convicted drug barons not only serve jail terms, but they also forfeit their properties to the state. There is no reason for us not to borrow the same idea in our fight against corruption.

The enthusiasm of officials to dip their dirty hands into the public kitty will be somewhat dampened if they know that the penalty, when caught, is to forfeit ALL of their properties and those of their spouses to the state. We can even extend it to the properties of their children that cannot be proved to have been acquire by provable legitimate means. That may help persuade children to drum it into their parents' ears not to go the corrupt ways.

It might appear stiff and callous, but it pales compare with the damage and the havoc corruption has wrought on the land.

Since we also seem to want to keep face, naming and shaming looters of public purse might also go to deter corrupt officials.

We have become the butt of international jokes. And for good reasons. People now laugh at us. They, rightly, asked what manner of people will go cap in hand to beg for IMF bailout when millions of dollars snake into people's private pockets with nothing been done. They rightly question our sanity when they see people steal public money to build mansions in slums, and buy expensive jeeps for un-motorable roads.

PS: Kudos to those responsible for exposing the rot at the NSS and to all the gallant patriots fighting corruption in their own ways.