Freelance investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has faulted middle class and enlightened Ghanaians for failure of the country to effectively fight corruption.
In his assertion, some groups of Ghanaians who are better positioned to check corruption by the ruling class have over time disappeared following change of governments.
Addressing participants at the 2020 Baah-Wiredu Memorial Lecture in Accra on Thursday October 29, 2020, Mr. Azure called out popular pressure group Occupy Ghana over their inability to continue to advocate against corruption since the New Patriotic Party government came to power.
According to him, some key persons who were leading the group and calling for the right things to be done have been absorbed into government and literally occupying the flagstaff house.
“The middle class in Ghana, which is generally enlightened and should fight for the poor has not helped much. Go back and look at photographs of those who took part in the Occupy Flagstaff House march in July 2014. Many of them have literally occupied the Flag Staff House and its adjoining offices, with assigned positions and doing worse things than those against which they marched,” he said.
He therefore admonished the media to step up and not give up on the fight against corruption when other state institutions and organizations have failed.
“I believe the media remains our main hope in the fight against corruption. State institutions that are mandated to fight corruption have generally failed us. When Barack Obama visited Ghana in 2009, he told us Africa needed strong institutions and not strong men. His wisdom has been widely hailed and quoted but is not entirely accurate in my view,” he added.
