When Lord Acton; a British historian (1834-1902) wrote “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” He was right, he was absolutely right but he did not live to see this era in Africa where thoughts of power corrupt even before the power is served.
I was appalled when children in the school I teach started vying for various positions in the school. Students who were normally aggressive became calm, students who dressed haphazardly started looking presentable, students who kept to themselves started opening up to their peers, and students who never thought of their tenses started befriending English teachers and so on.
Then days to the elections, students started buying many things for their fellow students in exchange for their votes. This reminded me of the saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I thought of it and realized that even the thoughts of gaining power stirs corruption. This is because people in the political arena no matter how pious they are, in order to win elections do many unpleasant things to gain the attention and votes of the electorate.
Let’s take the many gifts that flow around especially in Africa where people see election time as a time for reaping whatever benefit there is. I remember some people in my area saying
“Ei, I should vote for someone who will not grease my palms? When many people are giving motors, bicycles, cloths and money for people to vote for them, you are here with your bare hands asking for votes”
I was not surprised. I just listened as they spewed all their sympathetic ignorance about the power they held. This was because the attempt to explain to them as to what was at stake when choosing a leader would have been tantamount to being on the side of another party. If care is not taken, you would be lynched when around very passionate people whose palms have been greased. And I didn’t want to be a roasted chicken to be served at the after party elections (Even that was a form of corruption on my part but in my defense, there is a local saying that a wise man in the midst of fools is considered the fool).
During the 2012 elections, we saw many cars flying around from candidates to the houses of some chiefs. The ‘politrickcians’ claimed some chiefs had no cars and that they were just being benevolent by giving them expensive cars as gifts. If this is not corruption and emotional blackmail aiming at the electorates’ votes, then what could it be? We heard it all from different manifestoes as to how well politicians had planned to save our country from hardships. Personally, when they had the presidential debate, the only candidate who spoke like he knew what he was about was the candidate who many praised but said:
“Too bad he is in that party. No matter how many years he contends he will never win because of the party”
So the people had spoken and he knew he was a lost cause. Then there were the many azonto dances flying around by some of the candidates, many showing they were on the side of the electorates by painting so many good pictures from the mouth of our stars, children, the elderly, their friends and family. We saw it all. I will not be surprised if that together with the greasing influenced the election results. As for me I do not want to dabble in the rumours that the elections were rigged.
Africans and for that matter Ghanaians will never learn sense until the end. All these hardships stems from the very beginning when the gifts were flying around. No politician will want to enter into politics and be at a loss. So whatever they spent during the elections, they must be able to get it in many folds. Why do you think many losers protested the outcome of the elections? It was not because of the loss of power alone, but the financial loss.
Until we are able to nudge the giving of gifts for our mandate in the bud, the whole continent will continue to suffer until Thy Kingdom Come, because that is where thoughts of corruptive power starts and once that power gets served on a very hot plate, they get to show us where the power lies.
Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © 2014.
Mum Cee 