Ghana’s democracy is not simply underperforming; it is unravelling exactly as it was designed to fail the people.

That is the assessment of Yaw Nsarkoh, former Executive Vice President of Unilever Ghana and Nigeria.

Speaking on PM Express on JoyNews after delivering a public lecture at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences titled “Iniquities of Iniquity in Our Santa Claus Democracy”, he warned that the country’s political decay is no accident.

It is the product of a carefully maintained system that rewards secrecy, monetisation, and manipulation over accountability, he stated.

“We are in a public auction,” Mr Nsarkoh said bluntly. “This is not democratic participation. It is the electorate being reduced to a transaction—bought and sold every four years.”

His argument is as provocative as it is sobering.

According to him, Ghana’s transition to democracy was not a bold leap of principle but a cautious sidestep.

Citing the late political economist Claude Ake, Nsarkoh described it as a “reluctant transition.”

The democratic space, he argued, was only opened “just a little bit” to give the illusion of freedom while keeping real power unaccountable.

“We opened up space so that we could say the forms of democracy were in place,” Nsarkoh said.

“That’s why the institutional frameworks, for example, to track fund flows in politics, are almost non-existent.”

He believes this deliberate gap in transparency lies at the root of what he called “the iniquities of iniquity”—a cycle of corruption and elite capture that begins with money and ends with broken institutions.

“You are the media guy,” he said to the show’s host. “So let me ask you: how much money did the sitting president spend on his campaign? How much did his main opponent spend? You don’t know. I don’t know. CDD has tried to put out estimates. But how were they calculated? Even that is unclear.”

In other democracies, he noted, political financing is not only tracked but televised, dissected, and debated.

“Even when we sit here, we know the budgets of American presidential candidates. But in our democracy, we don’t know this basic thing.”

That opacity creates the perfect environment for corruption.

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

“We then make demands: put this person here, put that one there. And that’s how the rot starts.”

According to Mr Nsarkoh, this is not just a Ghanaian phenomenon. It is continental.

Countries across Africa that have gone down the same so-called democratic path are seeing the same patterns: a system that allows money to buy power and power to protect money.

“These are systemic defects,” he stressed. “Yes, personalities matter, and they must be held accountable. But when it’s been three and a half decades, and across borders, the same problems persist, then there are design flaws you must confront.”

Yaw Nsarkoh’s central argument is that political decay in Ghana was never the result of an accidental slide. It was baked into the architecture of power from the beginning. A democracy created to serve elites, not citizens.

“In a Santa Claus democracy,” he said, “you cannot track your fund flow. That is the root of all evil.”

He believes the way forward starts with a radical redesign—one that forces transparency into campaign financing, punishes illicit funding sources, and empowers citizens beyond just their votes.

Yaw Nsarkoh paints a grim picture of Ghana: a democracy in name, a market for influence in practice.

“Whether you call it Santa Claus democracy or a public auction,” he said, “it’s not working for the people.”