Should You Be A Ghanaian Politician, What Is Your Legacy To Be Remembered?

There are genuinely remarkable people in our world, politicians, inventors, scientists, inventors, journalists, musicians, actors, actresses, and well-known writers, who have left us with a legacy of both their concrete creations and wise proverbs that are worth hearing from time to time. For instance, Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of the greatest American presidents and has left a lasting impression on political history because of his unwavering commitment to preserving the lives of the millions of slaves who lived in the country.

Politicians, judges, and other high-ranking individuals in Ghana enjoy being respected; they especially love it when their names include "honorable," and more importantly, they enjoy it when people bow down before them. However, the truth is that these individuals are to blame for the challenges these vulnerable members of society face, as they continue to deny them basic social amenities through corruption and justice because they lack the money to pay the bribes these judges demand.

Money rules the country in Ghana today; therefore, many people believe that committing crimes to get plenty of money is necessary to survive. As a result, financial crimes involving judges, politicians, and other high-ranking members of society continue to rise without consequence. Those financial crimes with impunity infuriate the vulnerable in society to believe it is their right to steal since high-level corruption by the elites negatively affects and deprives them of better possibilities and growth.

While committing crimes, many of the offenders are apprehended, brought before judges, and sentenced to ten to fifteen years in prison. However, God only knows how much money these judges and politicians have embezzled and continue to embezzle with impunity. While most Ghanaians are starving, do you want to be known as the politician who stole $1 million and stashed it in your home? What legacy do these politicians and judges want to leave behind in Ghana’s political history?

Do you want to be known as the judge who refused Ghanaians' demands for justice by keeping the head of the Electoral Commission from testifying in court to provide an explanation to the people about how the irregular election results were obtained? Many Ghanaians, including judges and politicians, are quite wealthy, yet they never seem to be content with their lives because they obtained their wealth by various immoral means, such as corruption or accepting bribes to judge the innocent guilty.

The happiness of life is not about having plenty of money but about being sincere and living to make the lives of other people who are suffering better. The late John Lennon was not only rich and famous, but at the point of his career, he realized that being happy, rich, and famous is meaningless; therefore, he said, "I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts.”

This came about as a result of witnessing the horrific images of the Biafra-Nigeria war spreading over the globe and the inaction of powerful and wealthy politicians. How good is it for a man to acquire all the wealth in the world and then pass away empty-handed? Is it your legacy to mislead Ghanaians into believing that you will combat corruption as president, only to allow it to grow unchecked? Is your legacy to promise Ghanaians lower taxes just to increase them later on?

The vice president, Mahamudu Bawumia, recently gave a speech in which he blamed the Russia-Ukraine conflict and COVID-19 for his party's failure. However, he failed to mention that the NPP politicians shared the COVID monies that were stolen. This didn't make sense to me because the countries that were severely impacted by COVID had economies that were superior to Ghana's. The misappropriation of COVID funding caused greater troubles in Ghana than COVID itself.

What is the benefit for a man to inherit the entire world's wealth and pass away penniless?

Regardless of your profession, judge, politician, journalist, etc, remember that the true measure of success in life is not being a celebrity, the number of cars you own, the number of houses you've built, or the number of kids you have. Rather, it's the people you've helped become assets to the development of your country and the transformation of an impoverished community into a success story. These experiences will leave you with a lasting legacy that will live on long after you pass away.