The news agency Reuters reported a story about corruption in Africa involving a Ghanaian politician and the headline goes: Ghana sanitation minister resigns over alleged stashed cash. Headlines reporting corruption in Africa are not new and anyone who claim to be shocked hearing news of corruption perpetrated by African politicians is either a non-African who don't care about Africa or Africans who are agents and collaborators of these criminals who steal from their commonwealth. African politicians do not steal from their people because they are really in need, it is because they have some undiagnosed afflictions. Some illness I believe is of spiritual nature; perhaps mental derangement. Any average reasonable human being may tend to have some limit.
These people are sick and the root of their sickness has it's origin in gluttony; unnatural desire to have more than they need - avarice. Gluttony is a spiritual affliction. The African politician, male or female, is capable of all sorts of political and financial malfeasance. Even so, I am an advocate for giving women more opportunity to occupy high offices such as ministers, governors and even the presidency. Women can be more reliable in most cases, in my opinion even as we have the shoes, bags, Brazil hair and nails types in the mix.
How many men will have the balls to do what the female returning officer in Abia state did in the recently concluded fiasco called an election? She saw beyond the immediate lure of financial gains and promises of future political patronage from the men of darkness, the destroyers of Nigeria. There was another professor in Rivers State who also rejected inducements and refused to rig; it's another female while there are countless male professors bereft of a soul, who helped to bring the country into such as disrepute and hardship.
In Nigeria there are high profile cases of corruption involving female politicians, there is even a case of a female Nigerian governorship candidate who conspired with a rogue electoral body staff and announced herself winner without proper collation of results as provided by law. There are women in politics and in civil service who are terribly greedy and capable of doing all it takes to lay their hands on ill gotten wealth and aggressively protect their loots but they are the lesser evil compared to the male folks.
The new kid on the block in Ghana is a female cabinet minister named Cecilia Abena Dapaah who until her resignation was the minister of sanitation under the incompetent government led by President Nana Akufo-Addo. Her sh*t hit the fan after a "newspaper report on the $1 million, 300,000 euros and millions of local cedis allegedly stolen from Dapaah's home." came out. The lady minister threw caution out of the windows and reported the theft of "her" money by her domestic workers to the police.
The minister purportedly stole from the state and stashed the loot away in her home, possibly in empty septic and/or water tanks. Her equally kleptomaniac domestic staff, who are not as dumb as they looked, stole the loot from the house for their use. The domestic staff knew exactly what to do with their loot; they didn't stash it away. It was reported that "Prosecutors told the court that the accused bought houses and a vehicle with the stolen money and gave some of it to relatives." It's like the proverbial case of the field rats stealing from the public barn and then hid the loot in holes in the home. The house rats, not being that dumb, stole from the home and went on a spending spree. What a game.
From all indications, it is quite reasonable to assume that the sources of Cecilia Abena Dapaah's stash of raw cash stolen from her home may be fraudulent. This is because it is quite unbelievable that a woman of such political standing will hide huge amounts of legitimately earned money in different currency denominations banked in the home. The prosecutors litigating the case against Cecilia Abena Dapaah's domestic staff for theft must also seek answers from her as to the sources of the money found in her possession and why it is stashed away in her home, not in a bank. I'm assuming that she is not into the business of buying and selling of goods. She cannot claim to be unaware that banks exist and for waht purpose.
Ghana may have their issues of kleptocracy, however, Nigeria is the melting for kleptomaniac politicians and no Nigerian thief will have the decency Cecilia Abena Dapaah showed by voluntarily stepping aside in order not to bring the government into disrepute. A Nigerian politician in similar situation will dare the people and continue with impunity. In Nigeria Cecilia Abena Dapaah would be vociferously defended by the president, her tribesmen and fellow criminals as they do with known political kleptos whose cases are gathering dust with the EFCC. That is the difference, unfortunately.
The stealing, plundering and looting has got to stop and the time is now.
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