Accra Main Daily, Watson Road, Accra (2026)

12/01/2026

When Identification Becomes a Privilege: Why the Cost of the Ghana Card Is Unjust

A state that claims to serve its people cannot, in good conscience, price citizenship beyond their reach. Yet this is exactly what Ghana risks doing by charging GH₵400 for a National Identification Card in a country where per capita monthly income stands at about GH₵2,280.

Eighteen percent of a person’s monthly income for a single document is not a fee—it is a barrier. For millions of Ghanaians living on tight budgets, this amount competes directly with food, rent, transport, school fees, and healthcare. When identification becomes this expensive, it stops being a public service and becomes a privilege reserved for those who can afford it.

What makes the situation even more indefensible is that the same GH₵400 is charged for replacement, regardless of circumstances. Whether a card is damaged, lost through no fault of the holder, or rendered unusable by administrative failures, citizens are forced to pay again. This approach punishes ordinary people for systemic shortcomings and shifts institutional costs onto the poor.

The Ghana Card is not optional. It is now required to access banking services, register SIM cards, obtain employment, receive social protection, and participate fully in civic life. To attach such a high price to an essential document is to effectively tell low-income citizens that their participation in national life is conditional on their ability to pay.

Across the world, national identification systems are treated as public goods, because governments understand that inclusion strengthens the state. Accurate population data improves planning, enhances security, broadens the tax base, and enables efficient service delivery. Ghana gains far more from an inclusive identification system than it ever could from fees that exclude a significant portion of its population.

A government committed to equity must act decisively. First-time issuance of the Ghana Card should be free or fully subsidized. Replacement fees must be minimal, fair, and income-sensitive, not a flat charge that ignores economic realities. At the very least, the cost of essential documents such as National ID cards and birth certificates should never exceed 5 percent of the average monthly per capita income.

This is not a call for charity. It is a demand for justice. When access to identity is restricted by cost, inequality deepens and social trust erodes. A nation cannot speak of inclusive development while erecting financial barriers to citizenship itself.

Government exists to serve the people—not to burden them. The cost of being Ghanaian should never be GH₵400. It is time for policymakers to listen, rethink, and act in the true interest of the people they serve.

10/01/2026

Why Building Housing for Security Personnel Is a Strategic Mistake

Governments often justify building fenced or isolated housing for security personnel as a welfare measure—safe, affordable, and convenient. While well-intentioned, this approach is fundamentally flawed. Housing security professionals in segregated enclaves weakens, rather than strengthens, national security. True security is not built behind fences; it is built through integration, trust, and everyday proximity to the communities security personnel are meant to protect.

Isolation Undermines Intelligence

Security work depends heavily on human intelligence—local knowledge, informal conversations, community sentiment, and early warning signals. When security personnel live apart from society in guarded housing estates, they lose daily exposure to the rhythms of civilian life. They stop hearing the rumors in local shops, sensing tensions in neighborhoods, or building relationships that often yield critical intelligence long before formal reports do.

A security officer who lives among civilians is not just a resident; they are a listener, observer, and trusted neighbor. This organic flow of information cannot be replicated by surveillance technology or periodic patrols. Physical separation creates informational blindness.

Segregated Housing Creates a “Us vs. Them” Divide

Fenced housing reinforces social distance between security professionals and civilians. Over time, this separation breeds mistrust. Civilians may view security forces as outsiders or an occupying presence rather than partners in public safety. Meanwhile, security personnel may begin to see the public as a risk rather than a community.

This psychological divide is dangerous. Effective security institutions rely on public cooperation. When communities feel ownership of their own safety, they share information willingly and comply with lawful directives. Segregation erodes this social contract.

Integration Enhances Professional Effectiveness

Security personnel are citizens first. Living normal civilian lives—shopping locally, attending community events, sending children to neighborhood schools—keeps them grounded in the realities of the people they serve. It sharpens empathy, improves judgment, and reduces the likelihood of excessive force or alienation.

Integration also improves morale. Being confined to security-only housing can feel institutional, restrictive, and stigmatizing. Choice, autonomy, and dignity matter. Treating security personnel as capable professionals who can live responsibly within society reinforces pride and accountability.

Better Alternatives Exist

Instead of building housing complexes, governments should provide:

*Rent assistance or housing allowances that allow personnel to choose where they live

*Home-buying subsidies or low-interest mortgages to promote long-term stability

*Geographic flexibility incentives to ensure even distribution across communities

These measures achieve affordability without segregation. They also stimulate local economies rather than locking public funds into costly, often poorly maintained housing estates.

Security Is Strongest When It Is Invisible

The most effective security presence is not always uniformed or fenced off—it is embedded, observant, and trusted. When security professionals blend into communities, they become part of the social fabric. Threats are noticed earlier, tensions are defused quietly, and cooperation becomes natural.

Housing security personnel behind fences may feel safer on paper, but in practice it weakens intelligence networks, damages civil-military relations, and undermines long-term security goals.

If governments are serious about safety, they must stop thinking of security as something separate from society. Real security lives next door.

03/01/2026

Bootlicking, Sycophancy, and the Crisis of Leadership Renewal in Africa

By elevating individuals above institutions, African politics has repeatedly undermined its own future. Nowhere is this more evident than in the persistent culture of bootlicking and sycophancy that surrounds political leadership across the continent. This dangerous phenomenon continues to weaken democratic growth, destroy legacy-building, and block the generational transfer of power and knowledge.

In this context, the stance taken by Fifi Kwetey, General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), deserves recognition. His fortitude and foresight in resisting calls for a third-term agenda for President John Dramani Mahama reflect a commitment to institutional integrity over personal ambition. Unfortunately, those pushing such an agenda exemplify the very culture that has stalled political progress in Africa.

Bootlicking and sycophancy are not harmless acts of loyalty; they are corrosive behaviors that hollow out political systems. When party faithful and citizens elevate leaders to untouchable status, they weaken internal democracy and silence critical thinking. This blind allegiance discourages honest feedback, suppresses merit-based leadership development, and creates an environment where longevity in power becomes more important than competence, vision, or legacy.

Across Africa, this culture has produced a troubling pattern: leaders remain in power far beyond their most productive years, while younger generations are denied the opportunity to learn, lead, and innovate. Instead of nurturing successors, political spaces become personalized empires. The result is a vacuum—one where institutional memory is distorted, leadership pipelines collapse, and nations struggle to adapt to new realities.

History has shown that no individual is bigger than an organization, a political party, a nation, or even a family. Sustainable progress is built on strong institutions, not on personality cults. True leadership is measured not by how long one stays in power, but by how well one prepares others to take over and improve upon existing foundations.

If Africa is to move forward, bootlicking and sycophancy must be deliberately curtailed. Political parties must encourage internal democracy, principled dissent, and generational renewal. Citizens must learn to value systems over personalities, ideas over individuals, and accountability over blind loyalty.

Leadership is a relay, not a lifetime entitlement. Until African societies fully embrace this truth, the cycle of stagnation will persist. The future depends on our willingness to break free from the culture of sycophancy and build institutions that outlive individuals.

26/12/2025

Humility Is Not a Leadership Metric—Results Are

Africans are often told to look for “humble” leaders. Humility is praised as if it is proof of wisdom, discipline, and service. But humility—while personally admirable—is not a leadership metric. It is not a policy. It is not a plan. It does not build roads, improve schools, stabilize currencies, or create jobs.

Public leadership is not a personality contest. It is a performance contract.

The problem with using humility as a yardstick is that it is easy to perform. A politician can speak softly, dress simply, and posture as “one of the people,” while governing incompetently and escaping scrutiny. Over time, this cultural habit has helped normalize low expectations: citizens become emotionally satisfied by modest language while being materially harmed by poor outcomes.

That is how mediocrity survives.

Results are harder to fake. Results can be measured. They show up in service delivery, institutional strength, economic opportunity, security, and the fairness of the system. And when results are missing, leadership has failed—no matter how humble the speeches are.

If Africa wants better governance, we must shift our political evaluation from symbolism to outcomes:

What did you promise, and what did you deliver?

What institutions did you strengthen?

Did you reduce corruption or simply manage headlines?

Did citizens’ lives improve—or did your personal network expand?

Humility can be a good trait in a competent leader. But competence without results is still failure. And humility without accountability is often just a mask.

Africa does not need more “humble” politicians.
Africa needs leaders who deliver.

25/12/2025

Gold Exports Can’t Be Ghana’s Only Gold Standard: Why GoldBod Must Add Environmental Sustainability to the Fight Against Galamsey

Ghana deserves credit where it’s due: the push to formalize the gold value chain is producing visible results. Recent public reporting indicates that GoldBod has surpassed its 2025 small-scale gold export target—bringing in over $10 billion in foreign exchange. (MyJoyOnline) Earlier in the year, GoldBod/PMMC also reported over $8 billion in small-scale gold export earnings between January and mid-October 2025, a figure echoed by Reuters in the context of Ghana’s reserve rebuild. (Ghana Gold Board)

That matters. Formal export channels, tighter oversight, and reduced smuggling are essential if Ghana is to capture fair value from its mineral wealth.

But there is a hard truth we cannot keep postponing: gold revenue is not the same thing as national gain when the environmental cost is ignored or treated as an afterthought. Galamsey has turned too many rivers into mud, destroyed farmlands, and left long-term liabilities that communities will pay for long after today’s export numbers are forgotten. Scientific work continues to document the heavy metal and turbidity pollution associated with illegal mining in Ghana’s water bodies, including contaminants such as mercury and arsenic, and levels that exceed permissible thresholds in affected areas. (Wiley Online Library)

So yes—celebrate export performance. But Ghana needs a second question alongside every export milestone:

What are we doing—systematically—to repair the environmental debt?

Galamsey is not a “security issue” alone. It’s a governance system failure.

For years, the anti-galamsey conversation has swung like a pendulum: crackdowns, task forces, political declarations, and periodic enforcement surges. Some of these efforts disrupt operations temporarily. But the problem adapts because it is not only about lawbreaking; it’s about incentives—money, access, weak enforcement, and a value chain that can still absorb dirty gold.

That is why fighting galamsey must be integrated. Not integrated in speeches, but integrated in structure: enforcement, licensing, community alternatives, transparent traceability—and critically, environmental mitigation and restoration treated as a core pillar, not a side project.

Reuters has reported that Ghana’s strategy includes reforms like an anti-smuggling task force and plans for a national traceability system and refined gold exports—steps that speak to improving oversight and legitimacy in the trade. (Reuters) Those initiatives are important. But traceability without visible environmental restoration can still feel like Ghana is simply becoming better at exporting while the land and water continue to bleed.

The missing piece: a dedicated Environmental Sustainability Division inside GoldBod

If GoldBod is going to sit at the center of Ghana’s gold trade—regulating and supervising large parts of the value chain—then environmental sustainability cannot remain “somebody else’s department.” GoldBod’s own materials describe a broad mandate over the gold value chain and compliance. (Ghana Gold Board) In practical terms, that positions GoldBod as one of the few institutions that can connect trade governance with environmental consequence in a measurable way.

Ghanaians should therefore press for GoldBod to create an Environmental Sustainability Division—not as a PR unit, but as a working, resourced division with public deliverables. Why?

Because it aligns responsibility with influence. If an institution can help generate and channel billions through gold exports, it should also help ensure that gold is not funding environmental collapse.

What should this division actually do?

Not everything needs to be reinvented. Ghana already has agencies with environmental mandates—the EPA, Forestry Commission, Water Resources Commission, Minerals Commission, MMDAs. The point isn’t duplication. The point is coordination, financing, transparency, and measurable remediation tied to the gold trade.

A GoldBod Environmental Sustainability Division could focus on four practical roles:

1) Make environmental compliance part of trade credibility.
If GoldBod is licensing, supervising, or working through aggregators and traders, it can require basic environmental compliance checks and red flags as part of due diligence—working with regulators, not replacing them. This does not “end galamsey” overnight, but it makes it harder for harmful supply chains to hide behind the formal economy.

2) Help fund reclamation as a standing obligation, not an occasional project.
The biggest reason reclamation fails is predictable: it’s underfunded, irregular, and politically timed. A sustainability division creates a consistent vehicle for restoration financing—so clean-up is not dependent on the mood of the moment.

3) Publish public-facing environmental scorecards for mining-affected districts.
If citizens can see export numbers, they should also be able to see reclamation outcomes: river sections restored, degraded lands reclaimed, reforestation progress, and the status of high-risk zones. This is how you rebuild public trust—through evidence, not slogans.

4) Force an integrated national conversation: “gold value” must include environmental value.
Galamsey is a national emergency partly because it harms the environment, and partly because it breaks confidence that the state is protecting the environment. Institutions regain legitimacy when they demonstrate seriousness about the public interest.

The core principle: you can’t count forex while ignoring ecological bankruptcy

Ghana’s environmental crisis is not “separate” from economic strategy. When rivers are polluted, water treatment costs rise. When farmland is destroyed, food systems weaken. When forests are degraded, climate vulnerability increases. When public health suffers, productivity falls. In other words, environmental damage quietly becomes a long-term tax on development.

That is why export success alone cannot be the headline. We should treat it as one side of the balance sheet. The other side is the environmental liability—still accumulating in too many communities.

So this is the appeal to GoldBod—and to government more broadly:

Keep improving the gold trade. Keep formalizing. Keep curbing smuggling.
But if Ghana wants to call this a national win, then GoldBod must also help lead a credible environmental response—structurally, financially, and transparently.

Because a nation is not wealthy when it exports billions and inherits poisoned rivers.

A truly integrated fight against galamsey means Ghana defends both: the value of its gold, and the value of its land, water, and future.

And in that national equation, an Environmental Sustainability Division within GoldBod is not an extra. It’s overdue.

25/12/2025

The “Homeless President” Narrative Is a Distraction Ghana Doesn’t Need

President Mahama’s recent framing of his post-2016 transition as a period of “homelessness” is, at best, a misplaced metaphor—and at worst, a self-serving political story that adds more heat than light to Ghana’s real housing crisis.

To be clear: leaders are human. They experience uncertainty, pressure, loss, and the sudden silence that comes after power. Mahama has spoken before about how quickly public attention evaporates when office is gone—how the crowds thin out, the visits stop, and life becomes quieter after defeat. (CitiNewsroom.com) That’s a valid reflection on the psychology of power and the transactional nature of politics.

But “homelessness” is not a convenient synonym for “transition discomfort,” nor should it be used as a rhetorical device to reframe elite inconvenience as ordinary hardship. In a country where many citizens face real housing insecurity—overcrowded rooms, precarious rent arrangements, unsafe structures, family displacement—words matter. When a head of state centers his own accommodation challenge with a term that describes the most extreme form of vulnerability, it risks trivializing the experiences of people for whom homelessness is not a storyline but a daily threat.

Context Ghana Already Knows—And It Was Never Simple

Ghanaians remember the tensions around presidential transition housing in 2017. Mahama vacated the official Cantonments residence (earmarked as the vice president’s official residence), and media reports at the time noted that he had requested to keep the bungalow as a retirement home—a request that was declined. (Graphic Online)

Around the same period, the debate spiraled into public commentary, including a widely circulated opinion piece that framed the controversy as the spectacle of “a homeless president,” built around reports that he sought to retain specific state bungalows for retirement and office use. (Modern Ghana) The point here isn’t to relitigate who was right in that dispute. The point is that the issue was fundamentally about state property, transition rules, and entitlements under Ghana’s governance framework—not the kind of homelessness most citizens understand.

So when the word “homeless” is revived in this context, it doesn’t clarify. It clouds. It shifts attention from institutional questions (how transitions should work, what is reasonable, what is transparent) to emotional performance (sympathy, moral positioning, narrative advantage).

Why This Framing Lands as Self-Serving

In politics, personal narratives are rarely neutral. They are tools. And this one functions in at least three self-protective ways:

It recasts a governance controversy as a personal hardship story.
Instead of a straightforward explanation of transition arrangements and housing entitlements, the story becomes: “Look what I went through.” That is a classic move in reputation repair—turn policy scrutiny into personal testimony.

It invites empathy in place of accountability.
Sympathy is powerful. But a leader’s job is not to audition for empathy; it is to lead with clarity and results. A nation cannot be managed through vibes and backstories.

It blurs class reality.
There is a difference between “I did not immediately secure the residence arrangement I wanted” and “I had nowhere safe to sleep.” When elites borrow the language of the vulnerable, it can feel like narrative appropriation—especially in an economy where citizens are expected to “manage” far worse circumstances without microphones or platforms.

The Bigger Problem: Ghana’s Housing Crisis Isn’t a Soundbite
If the President wants to speak about housing, Ghana needs a policy conversation, not a personal one.

A serious housing discussion would focus on:

affordability and rent pressures,

housing supply and land administration bottlenecks,

urban planning enforcement,

mortgage access and the cost of credit,

the gap between public promises and delivery.

Those are the realities that shape citizens’ lives—not whether a former president’s post-office accommodation process was emotionally inconvenient.

And yes, personal stories can sometimes help leaders communicate urgency. But only when the story points outward—toward citizens—rather than inward, toward self-image. The moment the narrative becomes centered on the leader’s discomfort, it stops being civic education and becomes political branding.

Leadership Is Knowing What Not to Center

A president is not just a politician with power; a president is a custodian of national attention. What the president chooses to emphasize inevitably crowds out something else.

So the question is simple: What is the value added by reviving this “homelessness” framing?

Does it advance housing reform?
Does it clarify a policy direction?
Does it help the average Ghanaian understand what will change in their rent, their community, their ability to buy a home?

Or does it mainly serve the political purpose of polishing the leader’s image—portraying him as relatable, misunderstood, or unfairly treated?

If the answer is the latter, then the criticism stands: it is unnecessary.

A Better Standard for Public Speech

Ghana’s politics has become too comfortable with storytelling that substitutes for governance. We are drowning in speeches, testimonies, and moral performances—while institutions struggle and citizens carry the weight.

If Mahama truly wants to speak about his post-2016 experience, the most useful approach would be institutional, not emotional: explain how transition housing should be structured, what transparency should look like, and how future presidents and ex-presidents can avoid public controversies that weaken trust. The 2017 reporting already shows how quickly such matters become public and politically charged. (Graphic Online)

Because in the end, the presidency is not a stage for personal validation. It is an office for national problem-solving.

25/12/2025

African Politics Needs Leadership, Not Permanent Politicians

Across many African countries, citizens are not suffering from a lack of speeches. We are suffering from a lack of leadership. Too often, politics has become a struggle to hold power, not a commitment to serve people. And when power becomes the goal, everything else becomes negotiable — institutions, public trust, national unity, and the future of the youth.

One pattern is hard to ignore: the obsession with staying in office. Whether it’s through constitutional changes, weakened checks and balances, intimidation of opponents, or manipulation of institutions, we keep seeing leaders act as though the nation cannot survive without them. But history shows the opposite: countries become stronger when leadership is accountable, transitions are normal, and institutions outlive individuals.

Another painful reality is the failure to mentor and prepare the next generation. In a healthy democracy, leaders build systems and empower new leaders to rise. In unhealthy politics, leaders surround themselves with loyalists and “godfather” networks — people selected for obedience, not competence. That is how mediocrity is recycled, corruption becomes protected, and public service is reduced to private reward.

The cost of this system is not abstract. It shows up in unemployment, poor education, collapsing health systems, insecurity, and migration — not because Africans lack talent, but because many political environments suffocate potential. Young people are told to be patient while the same faces return with the same promises. We are mobilized during elections and ignored afterward. We are praised as “the future” while being denied a present.

But anger alone is not a strategy. If we want change, youth engagement must be organized and disciplined.

Here is what real pressure looks like:

Register and vote — and refuse to sell that vote.

Ask for evidence in where you live: budgets, policies, timelines, and results — not slogans.

Demand term limits and stronger institutions, not strongmen.

Support credible local leaders: assembly members, MPs, mayors — where accountability is closest.

Track promises publicly and reward performance, not party colors.

Join civic movements that monitor procurement, public projects, and service delivery.

Build leadership pipelines through mentorship, policy clubs, community service, and youth-led initiatives.

We don’t need perfect leaders. We need accountable ones. We need leaders who see power as responsibility, not entitlement. We need a politics that builds legacy — in functioning systems, empowered citizens, and genuine opportunity — not in billboards, convoys, and propaganda.

This is not a call to hate politicians. It is a call to stop worshipping them. The youth must stop being spectators to history and become authors of it. Africa cannot be rebuilt by people who fear succession, hate accountability, and confuse power with purpose.

Enough speeches. It’s time for results

25/12/2025

Ghana Doesn’t Need a 5-Year Presidential Term — No Term Extension, Period

The idea of changing Ghana’s presidential term from four years to five is being discussed as “reform.” Some say it will reduce constant campaigning and give governments more time to implement policies.

But Ghana is not failing because four years is too short.

Ghana is failing because too many politicians behave like power is a personal possession—not a public duty. And in that environment, extending a presidential term is not reform. It is simply rewarding a broken political culture with more time.

Let’s be honest: when leadership is serious, four years is enough to set a clear agenda, pass key reforms, and show measurable direction. When leadership is unserious, five years becomes an extra year of excuses, patronage, waste, and political games.

That is why a five-year term is not only unnecessary—it is dangerous.

The real crisis is leadership, not the calendar
Across Africa, and too often in Ghana too, we see the same patterns:

politicians don’t mentor successors—they protect loyalists;

they don’t build institutions—they build networks;

they don’t compete by performance—they compete by propaganda, money, and “godfather” alliances;

they treat citizens like voters during elections and like noise afterward.

So the question is simple:
Why should citizens give any politician more time in power when the system already struggles to hold them accountable within four years?

Term extensions normalize entitlement
Once a country starts treating term length as something leaders can adjust, it changes the relationship between citizens and government. It tells politicians: “If you can’t deliver within the agreed time, change the time.” That is not leadership. That is entitlement.

And history across many places shows a hard truth: term-extension debates rarely stay small. They become gateways to bigger demands—more power, weaker checks, and political dominance disguised as “stability.”

Democracy needs discipline: rules must be firm
Four years is the contract. Elections are the citizens’ audit. If a government needs more time, the correct path is not to rewrite the term; it is to present its record to the people and earn another mandate—within the existing constitutional framework.

If politicians want to prove they are leaders, they should do it without changing the clock. Build trust. Deliver within the term. Respect the rules. Prepare successors. Strengthen institutions.

Ghana should not extend presidential terms. Not now. Not later. Not under any packaging.

No term extension. Period.

25/12/2025

The Sahel and the New Argument About Sovereignty

Sovereignty is one of those words the world loves to repeat—until a nation tries to practice it in ways that challenge established global power structures. In that moment, sovereignty becomes “controversial,” and self-determination becomes “noncompliance.”

This is why the Sahel has become so central to global debate in 2025.

For many Africans, the Sahel’s current leadership represents something beyond personalities: it represents resistance to a long-standing pattern where external actors heavily influence what is considered acceptable governance, acceptable policy, and acceptable alliances. When countries move outside those expectations, the language quickly changes—from partnership to pressure, from diplomacy to punishment, from support to narrative warfare.

But sovereignty cannot mean “you are free—as long as you choose what we prefer.”
That isn’t sovereignty. That’s supervision.

True sovereignty is the right to define national priorities, select partnerships, and pursue development strategies rooted in local needs and national interest. It also means being free to make mistakes, correct course, and learn—without being treated as incapable of agency.

The Sahel, for many people, has become a symbol of that demand for agency. Leaders such as Assimi Goïta, Ibrahim Traoré, and Abdourahamane Tchiani are viewed by supporters as figures who are pushing back against dependency and external dominance—insisting that African states must be taken seriously as decision-makers, not merely as territories of influence.

People will debate outcomes, methods, and consequences—and they should. But one principle is difficult to deny: Africans have the right to chart their own destiny. Development cannot be imported as a script, and dignity cannot be outsourced.

In that sense, the Sahel has become a blueprint—not because every action is perfect, but because the underlying argument is clear:
Respect our sovereignty. Respect our choices. Respect our right to build our future.

Accra Main Daily

12/01/2026

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