Ghana’s patronage paradox: How ‘connections, links, protocols’ undermine ‘merit, competence, excellence’

Entrepreneurs, professionals, uniformed service aspirants, desperate unemployed and/or underemployed graduates and small business owners often cultivate relationships with politicians, traditional rulers, and religious figures — not always to contribute to public good, but to secure preferential access to cooked favours and opportunities.

This culture, often framed as “strategic networking,” exposes a paradox: success increasingly depends on patronage, not merit. Normalised within the social fabric, it quietly undermines institutional integrity, innovation, and the moral authority of Ghana’s leadership.

Informal logic of patronage

In emerging democracies with fragile institutions, personal networks often compensate for bureaucratic inefficiencies.

For many Ghanaian businesses, ties with influential figures become informal survival strategies in systems perceived as opaque and unpredictable.

Sociologically, this reflects the strength of communitarianism — the belief that social belonging offers protection in uncertain environments.

Yet social reciprocity often devolves into transactional opportunism.

Patronage networks perpetuate inequality by privileging access over ability, forming invisible hierarchies where loyalty to power eclipses professional competence.

Economic, ethical fallout

The consequences are wide-ranging. Economically, patronage distorts competition, discourages innovation, and deters investment.

Ethical entrepreneurs, unwilling to compromise integrity, are often sidelined.

Contracts go to the well-connected, not the capable, normalising mediocrity and penalising merit.

Ethically, it corrodes civic trust. When influence, not effort, determines success, cynicism replaces motivation.

The social contract — shared belief in fairness and reward for hard work — erodes, giving rise to moral fatigue that legitimises corruption under the guise of “connection.”

Spiritualisation of influence

Ghana’s religiosity and traditional leadership further complicate this dynamic.

Many business owners and young aspirants align with clerics, prophets, traditional priests or chiefs — seeking spiritual validation and strategic visibility.

The pulpit and stool have become informal gateways to economic and political endorsement.

However, when moral institutions serve networks of power, their credibility diminishes.

Religious leaders trading blessings for loyalty risk becoming patrons, while traditional authorities prioritising political alliances over community development dilute the sanctity of heritage.

Structural roots, patronage economy

Ghana’s patronage economy is rooted in history and institutional weaknesses.

Colonial legacies, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and the absence of robust merit-based systems have normalised dependency on intermediaries.

Advancement is often seen as contingent on advocacy from someone “above.”

This dependency perpetuates a cycle of disempowerment: citizens distrust institutions, institutions rely on informal influence, and power remains concentrated in elite circles. The result is a paradoxical democracy — celebrating elections but operating through informal hierarchies of favour and access.

Reclaiming merit, institutional trust

Breaking this cycle demands a deliberate institutional, political, religious, cultural and structural recalibration.

Ghana must strengthen merit-based governance, professionalise procurement systems, and expand access to credit and information.

Transparency must replace discretion as the currency of opportunity, advancement and success.

Through the normative theory of social responsibility, civil society and the media are crucial for playing their role and embracing the hazards of oversight and intimidation, respectively.

Investigative journalism, research, and civic advocacy can expose biases that reward proximity over performance.

Politicians, religious and traditional leaders must reclaim moral independence, serving as ethical anchors rather than gatekeepers of privilege.

On the individual level, a generational mindset shift is necessary.

Young graduates, entrepreneurs and professionals must reimagine success as a function of contribution, not connections.

Competence, creativity, and credibility — not patronage — must become the new cultural capital.

Towards meritocratic ethos

Ghana’s progress will be measured not only in GDP or infrastructure but in the moral architecture of its opportunity structures.

A society that prizes loyalty over excellence mortgages its future to mediocrity.

The path forward lies in constructing a meritocratic ethos — one that honours integrity, rewards innovation, and empowers citizens to rise by ability, not alliances.

When that transformation occurs, proximity to power will cease to be the passport to success; merit will finally reclaim its rightful place as the engine of national progress.

The writer is a broadcast journalist.
E-mail: bermerna@gmail.com