Trust Me, Danny Boy Domelevo, Corruption Is Endemic to Ghanaian Culture

He has every inalienable constitutional right to foolishly talk himself into thinking and supposing that the state of rank corruption in Ghana that he is bitterly complaining about has absolutely nothing to do with the cross-ethnic and cross-cultural fabric of Ghanaian society and the people. unfortunately for Mr. Daniel Yaw Domelevo, the former Auditor-General, those of us who have studied the sociology, the politics and the culture of the country do not have the luxury of such self-infatuated foolery to either fully back or complacently hide behind the name or guise of either professional or scientific objectivity to proudly gloat in self-denial. Unless, of course, as it glaringly seems evident in his stance, the self-described Kumasi-born Ewe native has absolutely no notion of what “culture” entails or means, in terms of the moral values that inform the thinking and the behavior of the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian people (See “Corruption has become a leadership crisis; has nothing to do with our culture – Daniel Domelevo” Modernghana.com 8/30/24).

It is very obvious that the Akufo-Addo-hired and fired former Auditor-General wants to almost wholly and squarely blame his archnemesis for a long-standing behavioral canker that may very well be prehistoric and innate to our humanity. Our discipline-bereft humanity, that is. At any rate, Mr. Domelevo is reported to have made the foregoing observation at the Harvard Club of Ghana or Ghana’s Chapter of the Harvard Club, at a conference or a discursive forum that was recently hosted by the faculty and the administrator of the University of Ghana’s School of Law, presumably, by some of the most shamelessly corrupt academic politicians in Fourth-Republican Ghana.

On the latter count, of course, we have in mind such John “I Have No Classmates in Ghana” Dramani Mahama minions and surrogate beneficiaries and cronies and lackeys as Dean or Prof. Raymond Atuguba, the prime beneficiary of the Justice William Atuguba- presided 2012 Presidential-Election Petition Panel of “Hocus-Pocus” Adjudicators, and Mr. Mahama Ayariga, the Dramani Mahama political pet and cash cow of Minister of the Environment, Science and Technology, that is, the young man who once imported several Mercedes Benz SUVs into the country and criminally under-invoiced the same, so as to avoid paying the requisite customs duties for them, and then literally caught with his pants down, hung and all, mischievously resorted to what some have characterized as “A Frafra Brinkmanship Game” with former Independent Special Prosecutor, Mr. Martin ABK Amidu, his fellow Frafra homeboy, from the Upper-East Region.

If, indeed, corruption was not integral to Ghanaian culture, as My Dear Brother Domelevo so smugly and cavalierly alleges, then maybe the internationally renowned accountant and auditing specialist would be better off explaining to the rest of us, precisely why a legally trained Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, reported by Forbes Magazine to be worth at least $50 million (USD), the last time that Yours Truly checked, and that was approximately some ten years ago, would make a beeline with his fellow double-salary scamming Mahama former cabinet and executive appointees for the Manhyia Palace of The Asantehene, His Majesty, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, and earnestly plead with the most powerful and influential invested traditional Ghanaian monarch, as well as other influential chieftains in the country, as the vice of justice closed in on these reprobate and unconscionable nation-wrecking politicians, as was widely reported by the media at the time, that is, early 2017, to intervene and intercede for them, instead of bravely and courageously facing up to the bitter pill of the music of justice in a manner that would have been routinely expected of a Japanese Minister-of-State literally caught with his pants down, or the latter’s Beijing and South Korean counterpart?

You see, the fact of the matter is that the culture of corruption has been endemic to Ghanaian “Cultures” at least since the morally and socioeconomically apocalyptic era of the Massive Enslavement of Black-Africans, so-called, Across the Atlantic Ocean in the 1400s and, evidently, perhaps even well before; unless, of course, My Dear Brother Daniel “Yaw” Domelevo missed most of his History and Civics lessons in either primary, middle or secondary school. Which is why it is rather downright silly on his part to suggest that “We don’t need to go to school to teach our children [and one also supposes our grandchildren] what corruption is. Just hit the people at the top and everyone [at the bottom?] will learn a lesson.” He obviously has absolutely no competent understanding and appreciation of the endemic culture of official corruption the country, let alone be expected to be able to teach our youths and future leaders anything worthwhile about the same.

It is also quite obvious that somebody needs to remind Nyebro Domelevo that the late Chairman Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings-led Apostolate of “Probity, Accountability, Transparency and Justice” is precisely why the level of corruption in the country has reached the “leadership crisis” apogee that Mr. Domelevo so bitterly claims. Unless Nyebro Domelevo had been out of the country for most of the period that the Rawlings Posse embarked on the nose-chopping and face-spiting “Donkomization” of state-owned real-estate and landed properties by literally gifting the same almost exclusively to themselves as their private properties, the vintage fruits of “The Revolution,” that is, as dividends for a “brilliant” launching of “Revolutionary Accountability” under the aegis of the Rawlings-led junta of the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC).

And we have not even begun yet talking about the politically and the socioeconomically at once suicidal and genocidal destruction of the Kwame Nkrumah-established Ghana Industrial Holdings Corporation (GIHOC), comprised of some 120 to some 140 factories and manufacturing plants, depending on who is doing the reckoning. Now, if it is not only a thoroughgoing corrupt cultural mindset and a nihilistic one at that that would so primitively, bestially and recklessly embark on such a criminal exercise of unspeakable depravity, let Mr. Domelevo tell the rest of us, that is, the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian citizenry, precisely what it is. And to think that people like the ratpack members of the Ghana Chapter of the Harvard Club would have Ghanaian voters return the Mahama Posse and their kleptocratic scumbag associates to Jubilee House could not be more criminal. To be certain, this is an insufferable act of provocation that could impel the patriotic likes of Yours Truly to call for an all-out Civil War, that is, for a revolutionary conference to settle matters once and for all.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
August 31, 2024
E-mail: [email protected]