It has been a spectacular week in Ghana’s theatre of politics — a stage where every actor seems determined to outdo the other in performance rather than purpose. At one end stands the Minister for Communications, Sam George, trading blows with a private satellite television company over subscription prices, as though the survival of the republic depended on premium football access. At the other end sits the President, head bent, dutifully scribbling notes as he “listens” to experts on the galamsey crisis — the same crisis he has been constitutionally empowered to end for years.
Between the two, one sees the full range of Ghana’s political dysfunction: loud, misplaced populism on one hand, and quiet, calculated inaction on the other.
The DSTV Minister
Sam George’s latest performance — a furious crusade against DSTV’s pricing policy — would have been amusing if it weren’t so tragic. Here is a Communications Minister confusing regulation with entertainment commentary, threatening private enterprise for adjusting prices in a free market. His indignation plays well to the gallery, of course; the everyday Ghanaian angered by rising costs finds in him a noisy champion. But leadership is not about echoing frustration. It is about channeling it into coherent, lawful, and strategic outcomes.
A serious Communications Minister would be strengthening regulatory frameworks for consumer protection, not chasing optics over sports channels. He would be outlining the government’s digital strategy, not shadow-boxing private service providers to court applause. But Sam George prefers the spotlight. His communication is not governance; it is performance. And in that performance, the country loses both dignity and direction.
The Note-Taking President
If the Minister’s problem is his volume, the President’s is his silence. His carefully staged appearance this week at a public forum on galamsey — complete with pen, notepad, and expressions of concern — was pure theatre. For a moment, he seemed the picture of humility: the leader willing to listen, to learn, to reflect. But the performance was betrayed by its context. The President does not need to take notes on the galamsey crisis. The data exists. The laws exist. The victims exist. What is missing is courage — not information.
To posture as an attentive listener at this stage, after years of empty pledges and task forces that achieved little beyond photo opportunities, is an insult to the intelligence of Ghanaians. It is the political equivalent of a student who copies notes during the final exam. The President’s competence in other areas makes this act of feigned helplessness all the more jarring. He knows how to act decisively when it matters to him. But on galamsey, his pen remains mightier than his will.
The Common Thread
Both men reveal, in different registers, the same crisis of leadership: a preference for the optics of concern over the substance of responsibility. The Minister’s bluster feeds on cheap populism; the President’s restraint hides behind technocratic politeness. Both are evasions of accountability, tailored to different audiences.
Politics in Ghana is indeed a slippery road, and the President knows the terrain well enough. He must also know that continued reliance on performance — the minister’s noisy distraction and his own quiet deflection — will not save him from the moral reckoning that comes when leadership fails.
If he continues to “listen” while the rivers die, he will not be remembered as a thoughtful President but as a weak one. And when ministers like Sam George turn national issues into hashtags, they reduce governance to spectacle. Together, they make a mockery of a nation desperate for seriousness.
The Curtain Call
We do not need ministers who confuse bluster with policy, nor presidents who mistake note-taking for leadership. Ghana does not lack intelligence; it lacks intention. If this government continues to trade real reform for symbolic gestures, it will be remembered not for what it built, but for how elegantly it performed while the country sank.
Mind the GAP 
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