In talking about corruption, let us be clear: corruption in Ghana is a chronic disease. It is a systemic moral cancer at every level of government. A government of corruption cannot serve its people. What can we do to cure the disease of government corruption? Let us begin by making the punishment for those convicted of corruption excruciatingly painful. I will work towards passing laws that will make a conviction for public corruption punishable by extended jail terms, forfeiture of all assets, and even death. A nation that is being killed by corruption must reciprocate by executing the perpetrators.
Those who say it is extreme should talk to the mother whose child died from fake medicine approved by a corrupt official. Ask the family buried under collapsed buildings—because someone took a bribe to approve substandard materials—if the death penalty is justified. It is not an extreme punishment to the small business owner who gave up on their dream because every license required a bribe they could not afford.
Corruption does not just steal money, corruption murders hope. Corruption kills dreams. Corruption buries futures. Corruption kills road projects when corrupt officials steal from the contracts. Your brother’s blood becomes the asphalt of unsafe roads. Hospital equipment is antiquated and poorly maintained due to government corruption; your sister’s life is thrown away by the late diagnosis of a curable disease.
When a corrupt official steals, they do not just steal cedis; they take our children’s education, our parents’ healthcare, and our future. We must kill corruption before it kills us. The choice is simple: seek a complete forfeiture of all assets for those convicted of corruption. Jail terms and execution must be options if we are to end corruption. I will prioritize new laws and punishments for corruption. As a nation, we must kill corruption because corruption is killing us.
Ghanaians know the Constitution needs changes that serve the people, not government officials. We have learned to be comfortable in our suffering. We can no longer imagine a radical transformation. The Constitution of Ghana needs a complete overhaul—not amendments, not reforms, but a total constitutional reset.
Ghana needs a new Constitution that makes it impossible for any political party to hold this nation hostage. Ghana needs real change, not cosmetic fixes. Neither the NDC, the NPP, nor any other party will voluntarily give the people a constitution that serves all Ghanaians. Separately and together, these parties protect their own power. They legalize and embed corruption and their ability to plunder into the laws they make, including changes to the Constitution.
The choice is real. Option one is to continue the charade of democracy while the future of all Ghanaians is auctioned off to the highest bidder. Option two is the hard decision that will hurt now but save generations of Ghanaians. If we do not force a change in the Constitution, our grandchildren will remember us as too cowardly to act when it was necessary to save Ghana.
Presidents Mahama and Nana Addo both proved that a bloated government exists only to reward party loyalists while the nation bleeds money. Ghana is a country that can work when politicians do not add a layer of corruption for personal gain. I will immediately move to slash the size of government by 73%. A government without bureaucratic parasites sucking the life out of every initiative will unleash Ghanaian creativity and industry, allowing it to flourish.
Government should provide critical infrastructure and then get out of the way. Ghanaians are creative, industrious, and capable. I will enshrine a complete separation in the new constitution: MPs legislate, and the executive governs. MPs will not be allowed to double as government appointees. The goal is to completely end conflicts of interest. Parliament will not be allowed to function as a pension scheme for party cronies. Lean, efficient, accountable government, or continued bankruptcy and dependency—the choice is clear.
The agricultural production of Ghana has been stymied by the corruption of its central government. The politicians and their cronies profit more from a weak, hungry, and dependent Ghana than from a strong, food-secure nation. Temporarily, it is more profitable to import than to empower local agricultural production. There is more money in graft and corruption than in a long-term plan to invest in making Ghana an agricultural hub.
It should make your blood boil that not only are current food prices higher because of importation, but galamsey—illegal mining—will destroy Ghana’s agricultural potential within twenty years. The water is already poisoned. Cancer rates are high and climbing. Your children are already drinking “death water,” laced with the runoff of the corruption from galamsey. This is not just a result of incompetent leadership; it is systemic, deliberate corruption at the highest levels.
Government officials, from the Presidential dining room to the halls of Parliament, have enabled their cronies to mine our future into poison dust. This government and previous administrations clipped the wings of security services and created a force driven by bribes and corruption. It is not that we cannot fight galamsey; it is that stopping it would cost the party too much. Not the people’s party, but their party of corruption.
The party of the powerful will hoard the gold profits and bribes. The party of corruption will live abroad, eat imported food, and collect ex-gratia and Article 71 entitlements. Left behind in Ghana, we and our children, parents, and grandparents will drink cancer causing water and eat imported rice that costs double what we could grow ourselves.
Ghana can feed the world. It needs someone willing to cripple the party politicians, break the galamsey cartels, and put our survival above their profit.
Wake up. You are dying slowly, and your silence is your children’s death sentence. It may not dawn on us today, but there will not be a country worth living in for our children tomorrow.
Why does Ghana never progress beyond four-year cycles of promise and disappointment? It is because we allow political parties to campaign on their agendas instead of our national destiny.
I cannot institute a mandatory national development plan without constitutional change. This is why constitutional overhaul is my highest priority. The NDC and NPP are too powerful and too entrenched; we, the people, are constrained from stopping them from doing whatever enriches their wealth.
Let us imagine this together, a Ghana where no political party can campaign on anything except executing a unified, long-term national development plan. A Ghana where parties compete on competence, not promises—where our votes choose leaders, not messiahs. No nation has ever developed without a firm, sustained national development strategy.
A weapon my administration will deploy is strict campaign finance limits enshrined in the Constitution. We will mandate equal airtime on national media for all parties with public published audited party accounts that every Ghanaian can inspect. Any party that exceeds spending limits? Automatic disqualification. Any party hiding donor names? Out. Forever.
Because the people funding political parties today own politicians tomorrow, and we pay the price. I will lead an administration that will serve the people, or we will not serve at all. The era of shady sponsors buying our destiny ends now.
In 1992, a new constitution was ratified with great fanfare and high hopes to refresh the democracy of Ghana. The anticipation was that those who served as government officials and civil service employees would pledge allegiance to the ideal of a nation that had broken the chains of colonialism on March 6, 1957.
The road to prosperity took a detour to the valley of corruption. Government officials and their industrialist friends saw Ghana as a treasure to plunder. The ideal of service to the nation and its citizens was replaced with self-interest and greed. Differences that once strengthened us became tools for separation. Cooperation and compromise were abandoned, and our country has paid the price.
My earliest memories of life in Accra centered around my parents. My father was a career police officer whom I respected and admired. He taught me to respect authority and offer my help to others. My mother, an administrative assistant, encouraged me to view learning as a lifetime endeavor. Together, my parents were young and idealistic during the early days of a free, independent, and democratic Ghana. Proud of their nation, they had high expectations that Ghana would prosper and offer me endless opportunities.
I attended primary school in Accra and continued my education at Adisadel College in Cape Coast. Among my peers, it was becoming abundantly clear that the post-independence government was not serving the people of Ghana. As college students, we began to theorize and discuss how the elected government was engaging in patronage that served only the relatives, friends, and corporations of those in power. Like many of my peers, I decided I had to leave Ghana to further my education.
I was sad the day I left for London. I could see the darkness in the eyes of my parents, as well as those around us who were also watching their children leave. My grandparents, parents, and their entire generation had fought for decades for an independent, democratic Ghana. Their dream was that their descendants would find opportunity in a free, progressive nation; however, Ghanaian politicians and corrupt political parties had other ideas.
At the prime of my life, I was forced to leave Ghana to complete my education. Among my peers, it was becoming abundantly clear that the post-independence government was not serving the people of Ghana. As college students, we began to theorize and discuss how our elected government was engaging in patronage that served only the relatives, friends, and corporations of those in power.
In name, we were a free Ghana with elections, but we had become a nation of corruption and bribery. The colonists were no longer our overseers; worse, our new overseers were fellow Ghanaians with a hunger for power and a thirst for money. Elected politicians paid lip service to the people, speaking of manifestos while plotting their own enrichment. Along with my peers, I began to wonder if colonialism had not been a better option for the nation. Ghanaians who worked their way into government created a vicious bureaucracy of nepotism and disdain for the governed.
