As usual, there will be empty rituals and pointless pontificating.
We will puff our chests and declare that we are better than Burkina Faso, which now sells us tomatoes, and Rwanda, which now has clean streets.
We will pointlessly debate whether Ghana had a founder or founders. And we will assert shrilly that we need more time to transform Ghana, even though Deng Xiaoping laid the foundation for China’s transformation in just 15 years, while most of our “independence classmates” have left us far behind in development.
Truthfully, our biggest problem is that our democracy is failing badly. Don’t take my word for it. In the 2024 Afrobarometer survey, 52% of Ghanaians, a majority, felt no affinity for either of the major parties.
This is 15% up from the previous survey. Furthermore, only 1-in-4 Ghanaians believe Ghana is a full democracy.
In that survey, a majority of Ghanaians felt the Presidency, Tax officials and MPs are all corrupt! And during the 2025 inauguration of President Mahama, the person who got the most cheers was Sojaman Traore of Burkina Faso.
Let that sink in. In candour, while we may have been a democracy in 1992, we are becoming a kleptocratic plutocracy – a government of rich people, most of whom, Tafraky3, are thieves.
In 1992, most of us believed that our vibrant democracy would deliver development. After all, President Rawlings once said, “Democracy is not just the abstract guarantee of freedom of expression and the right to vote but also the right to food, a roof over your head and clothes on your back.”
On their part, the NPP promised to establish a “property-owning” democracy. Unfortunately, our parties have joined forces to establish a property-looting system in which the two parties trade places, with one party issuing looting mandates that extract wealth from the public space into private hands while the masses suffer.
We cannot clear our garbage. We are quietly returning to “cash and carry” and maintenance of the “no-bed” healthcare system, where newborn mothers and accident victims may die.
Despite repeated assurances, the diaspora remains unengaged. Despite all the protests, Galamsey marches on while our rivers remain polluted.
Corruption and impunity remain so rampant that a private businessman could walk onto the floor of Parliament to bribe MPs protesting the removal of Ken Ofori-Atta. Added to this, there are persistent rumours that MPs need “drinks” to do the government’s own business!!
Indeed, the malfeasance affected God’s own 100 million USD cathedral while God’s children studied under trees with empty stomachs. Don’t get me wrong, in this benighted 4th Republic, there have been bright patches and spots.
There was the surprising flourishing of Judicial independence under President Rawlings. There were Kufour’s six years of good growth and social interventions marred by the neglect of corruption.
There has been admirable responsiveness in the first year of the Mahama II administration, coupled with the Lazarusian revival of the cedi exchange rate.
And there was Captain Kojo Tsikata’s intervention that may have prevented another Rawlings coup just before the Kufuor inauguration in 2001.
And there are the general election voters who have tried repeatedly to give us good governments only to be thwarted by the political parties.
But all in all, our democracy is not working, and it is not delivering development. It is tempting, under these circumstances, to yearn for alternatives to democracy. But we must not. Those alternatives, in the long term, will be worse.
We need, instead, to stand up and reclaim our democracy. First, we need to rescue our political parties from the moneyed elites who have turned them into private clubs. We must let all who are qualified voters vote in their party primaries.
What happened in the NPP presidential primaries and in the NDC primary that produced Baba Jamal was disgraceful. They were not primaries; they were auctions.
In addition to this, the Supreme Court can help by vigorously affirming the self-evident truths contained in the suit filed by Drs Frimpong-Boateng and Nyaho-Tamakloe with Ms. Nuamah.
Second, the media need to break free of its shackles and help educate the public about patriotism and democracy.
We cannot build a democratic nation when many NPP and NDC members feel more loyal to their parties than to Ghana, to such an extent that they defend those whose theft of public resources deprives them of public benefits.
Third, it is becoming increasingly clear that if the NDC and NPP will not reform themselves in the national interest, patriots must birth a new party that would, at a minimum, push presidential elections to run-offs and be capable of winning them sometimes. My fellow Ghanaians.
We are the men and women we have been waiting for. Let’s save our democracy. Happy Independence Day. Long live Ghana.
