Yaw Nsarkoh explains why Ghana’s democratic rot is a structural crisis

Ghana’s democracy is not failing by accident—it was built on weak foundations and is now rotting from the roots.

That was the warning from former Executive Vice President of Unilever Ghana and Nigeria, Yaw Nsarkoh, during an interview on JoyNews’ PM Express on Monday, June 23.

“The rot is structural,” he said. “This is not about bad people or a few corrupt actors. We are facing a deep crisis of design.”

His remarks followed his lecture at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, titled ‘Iniquities of Iniquity in Our Santa Claus Democracy’, a searing indictment of what he described as a democracy corrupted by unregulated money and unaccountable power.

Mr Nsarkoh traced the problem to Ghana’s political transition in the early 1990s.

“It was a reluctant transition,” he said. “We opened up space just a little bit so that we could say that the forms of democracy had been put in place. But it was more cosmetic than real.”

The result, he argued, is a system where the people have votes but little voice. Elections have become auctions. Political power is sold to the highest bidder.

“In our Santa Claus democracy, you cannot track fund flows,” he warned.

“If you and I today are in the drug trade, we can carry money in sacks and give it to people who are going to become very powerful actors.”

That money, he said, does not disappear after the elections. It buys access. It buys appointments. It buys silence.

“We get the people there,” he explained.

“Then we start to make all sorts of demands: put this person here, appoint that one there. And it is not even always the people who are elected. It is the kingmakers behind them who are calling the shots.”

He said this isn’t unique to Ghana.

“You see these features across many African democracies. So you have to ask yourself: is it just bad leadership everywhere, or are there design defects in the model itself?”

Mr Nsarkoh cited the late Nigerian scholar Claude Ake, who described many African transitions to democracy as “reluctant” and hollow.

“Africa was robbed when Claude Ake died,” Yaw Nsarkoh said.

“But his book ‘The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa’ is one of the best works on the flawed conditions under which our democracies were born. And he uses Ghana as a case study.”

He challenged Ghanaians to ask the hard questions.

“You, the media guy—how much did the sitting President spend on his campaign? How much did the main contender spend? You don’t know. I don’t know. We don’t all know. But we should.”

In functioning democracies, he noted, campaign finances are tracked, reported, and debated openly.

“Even when we sit here, we know the budgets of American presidential candidates. It’s on TV. Why don’t we know that in our own country?”

Without transparency, democracy becomes a performance, not a process. “We are reduced to ballots,” he said, “not participants in governance.”

Yaw Nsarkoh warned that until Ghana fixes these foundational flaws, no change in leadership will solve the problem.

“We can’t keep blaming personalities. Yes, people must be held accountable. But when you’ve had three and a half decades and the same symptoms keep repeating, it’s time to admit: the system itself is broken.”

He ended with a call to action. “Let us not deceive ourselves. If we do not reform the system—if we don’t deal with the money, the power brokers, the lack of accountability—then Ghana’s democracy will remain a democracy in name only. And our future will keep being sold to the highest bidder.”

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