Kwabena Agyei Agyepong says Ghana’s democracy and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are in urgent need of renewal, warning that growing materialism and loss of values among political leaders are eroding public trust.
The former presidential press secretary, speaking on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Friday (23 January), said politics had drifted away from its founding ideals of service, sacrifice and selflessness — principles he said once defined the Danquah–Busia–Dombo tradition.
“Politics was a noble calling,” Agyepong said. “Today, everybody wants to extract something from it.”
Drawing on his experiences as a young activist in the early 1990s, he recalled a time when party members voluntarily contributed their own resources to sustain the NPP, rather than viewing political office as a route to personal enrichment.
He said the public’s declining respect for politicians, reflected in surveys such as Afrobarometer, stemmed from visible displays of sudden wealth by public officials, which he argued contradicted the ideals of public service.
Agyepong also warned younger Ghanaians not to take democratic freedoms for granted, recounting the excesses of military rule under the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), including loss of lives, economic collapse and forced exile.
“It took sweat, toil and sacrifice to get here,” he said. “It is our sacred duty to protect this democracy and make sure Ghanaians do not lose faith in it.”
He said the NPP must lead by example if it hopes to restore public confidence and govern again.
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