For decades, Ghana has lived inside a constitutional hesitation. Like the anxious traveller in Ama Ata Aidoo’s famous question, our democracy keeps asking itself a tired riddle: should I go to Parliament or should I go to the Castle? Should I legislate or should I govern? Should I represent the people or hover near the President’s courtyard, hoping to be noticed? We have pretended for far too long that this confusion is sophistication.
We call it a “hybrid system” and dress it up in borrowed language about efficiency, stability, and judicial economy. We say it saves time. We say it reduces friction. We say it suits our context. Yet the truth is simpler and more uncomfortable. It is not a system born of wisdom but one born of convenience. A short patch applied repeatedly to a perennial problem we refuse to confront honestly.
The Constitution Review Committee has now recommended what many citizens have long felt in their bones: Members of Parliament should not be appointed as ministers. This is not radical. It is corrective. It is an attempt to end the confusion that has outlived its excuses.
The job of an MP is clear. To make laws. To scrutinise the executive. To represent constituents. Yet today, more than a third of those who contest parliamentary seats do not do so because they burn with legislative ideas or constituency dreams. They enter Parliament because they hope to catch a glimpse of the President. Because they imagine that lawmaking is merely a corridor leading to ministerial appointment.
That intention alone defeats the purpose of Parliament. A legislator who arrives with one eye on Cabinet is already compromised. His loyalty is divided before his first oath. He is torn, like Aidoo’s traveller, between two destinations that demand different allegiances. Parliament asks for courage. The executive rewards obedience. You cannot serve both faithfully.
This is why constituents feel abandoned. This is why Parliament often feels timid. This is why debates lack teeth. Representation becomes rehearsal. Oversight becomes performance. And lawmaking becomes a waiting room.
We justify this confusion with the language of economy, but there is nothing economic about dysfunction. The so-called hybrid arrangement has not reduced corruption. It has not strengthened accountability. It has not deepened democracy. Instead, it has normalised ambition masquerading as service.
The constitutional provision that allows MPs to become ministers must therefore be repealed, not amended, not reinterpreted, but removed. Ghana must finally decide where it is going.
This reform becomes even more urgent when we consider the question of the diaspora. Millions of Ghanaians abroad contribute daily to this country through remittances, skills transfer, networks, and ideas. Many of them would gladly return to serve, not because they seek political careers, but because they want to solve problems. They are not motivated by ex gratia. They do not require political apparatchiks. They are not desperate for loans from party financiers or Ghanaian banks to bankroll expensive campaigns. They are resourceful. They are independent. They see parliamentary service not as a ladder but as an assignment.
This is precisely why the local political establishment fears them. A politics that depends on godfathers, party lords, bankers, and private lenders cannot coexist comfortably with candidates who owe no one. Many sitting MPs are financially entangled long before they are sworn in. Their campaigns are funded by interests that expect returns. Their independence is mortgaged in advance. Development then arrives not at the doorsteps of constituents, but at the doorsteps of creditors.
This is the real threat that diaspora participation poses, not disloyalty, but freedom. It is no surprise that resistance to dual citizenship is loudest where political indebtedness runs deepest. A system built on financial dependence cannot tolerate actors who arrive debt-free and idea-rich.
I once watched this logic unfold in real time. A friend of mine was nominated as a Municipal Chief Executive. He had integrity, competence, and vision. What he did not have was cash. Assembly members demanded money for confirmation. He refused. Within days, large party donors came to his rescue, offering loans in the name of support.
The question answers itself. Whose interests will he serve? Politics is expensive, yes. But we must resist the temptation to keep it expensive in ways that turn public office into private enterprise. Cost is not accidental in our system. It is structural. And the MP Minister hybrid is one of the structures that sustains it.
If MPs knew that Parliament was the destination and not a bus stop to Cabinet, the kind of people who contest would change. If lawmaking were no longer a pathway to executive power, those driven solely by proximity to authority would lose interest. And those driven by ideas, service, and reform would finally have space.
Ghana must stop hovering between Cape Coast and Elmina. Between Parliament and the Castle. Between representation and ambition. We have been confused for too long. It is time to choose.
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