Whenever the issue of corruption by public office holders comes under discussion at any fora, what plays back in the minds of most Ghanaians is the fallout of the 1979 Uprising/Revolt, led by Flt Lt Jerry Rawlings, against injustice and corrupt practices by those in public office.
Most people who were around during that period were witnesses to the ruthless manner the young military officers who spearheaded the tumultuous event dealt with perceived corrupt officials.
The punishment for being corrupt or suspected to have been corrupted was so drastic and immediate. As a result of that high-handedness, hardly did any Ghanaian well-grounded in the events of the post-1979 Uprising ever presume that corruption would resurface after 35 years; this time in a well-designed and branded version.
Even though a lot of Ghanaians have their own reservations about what happened during that three-month reign of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, there is another school of thought which believes that there were a lot of lessons to be learnt from that upheaval.
In the first place, the period created some political consciousness and awareness among the ordinary Ghanaian of some of the ungodly things perpetrated against them by the affluent in society, as well as those who occupied public office and were purported to be working in their interest to make life better.
Apart from the awareness creation, the event also instilled the spirit of communalism and self-help initiative in the people such that voluntarism became the order of the day.
It was during this period that people, on their own volition, engaged in clean-up exercises and maintained very clean environments which to a larger extent prevented the outbreak of diseases such as malaria, cholera as well as others that can be attributed to poor sanitary conditions.
This new-found spirit became the order of the day while it remained with the people until its pillars were reinforced by the launch of the December 31 Revolution in 1981, which trumpeted the key watchwords of probity, accountability and integrity.
The house-cleaning exercise and the tendency of being incorruptible caught on well with the people, who for once felt some sense of responsible leadership as well as the unattractiveness to indulging in corrupt practices, until the apostles of the revolution themselves got consumed by their own actions.
In every society there are some benchmarks that the people, especially the governed, use in measuring success, as well as determine whether things are moving in the right direction or not.
In Ghana today, apart from the challenges the people face with the economy which has seriously devalued the purchasing power of consumers, one other serious challenge confronting the country which has put some stress on the economy is the pervasive corruption, misapplication of funds and the embezzlement of the resources of the country.
Corruption has become widespread to the extent that it is now the norm which has compelled a number of anti-corruption and anti-graft organisations to almost always raise concern about the social canker that is eating deep into the moral fibre of society.
Lessons from the June 4 Uprising were supposed to guide us in our public discourse and dissuade public office holders from engaging in acts that led to the execution of some privileged personalities and the incarceration and forfeiture of properties (both movable and immoveable) from public office holders perceived to have engaged in corruption.
The tendency to get rich quick through whatever means and its attendant glorification of ill-gotten wealth have driven a lot of office holders to lower the standards and steal in broad daylight to the detriment of the state.
Things are not going the way they should be because a lot of those personalities fingered in this illegal acquisition of wealth at the expense of the taxpayer have often been left off the hook.
This trend is very demoralising and it is having a negative toll on the national purse and damaging the international image of the country.
It is the wish of majority of the people of this country to once again do a self-assessment test to find out where we have failed and prescribe solution on how best we can strengthen our resolve to consign corruption to its proper place and save this nation some honour.
