When police must step in to protect ballot boxes during a governing party's own internal election, democracy is not merely embarrassed. Democracy is in danger.

What happened at Odododiodioo during the National Democratic Congress, NDC, constituency executive elections deserves plain language. Violence disrupted sorting and counting. Security officers had to intervene, and ballot boxes had to be secured while order was restored. Even if counting later resumed, the stain remains. An internal contest should not become a battlefield.

Let us also be fair. Reports from several constituencies described peaceful voting. That matters. But peaceful elections elsewhere cannot excuse chaos in one constituency, and calm surroundings cannot cleanse inducement where it appears. A party is judged by the standard it enforces when its own interests are at stake.

In Ho Central, some delegates openly said they would accept money offered to them and still vote for the candidate they considered competent. That statement reveals how deeply the poison has entered our politics. Money at an election ground is not generosity. It is pressure dressed as kindness.

There are also circulating reports and images alleging that delegates in some places received cash, standing fans, refrigerators, blenders, phones, irons, rice cookers, food items and other gifts. Those specific claims must not be repeated as established fact until they are independently verified. But they are serious enough to demand an immediate investigation. The NDC must identify the constituencies involved, trace the purchases, question the candidates and delegates, and publish its findings.

Shame on the NDC if it chooses denial over truth.

This is the party in power. It cannot preach accountability to Ghana while treating its own elections as a private family matter. Power increases responsibility. It does not reduce it.

We saw the warning during the Ayawaso East parliamentary primary in February 2026. The NDC's own committee found widespread inducement and vote buying involving material gifts and money across the contest, and recommended that the primary be annulled. Alhaji Baba Jamal denied personally buying votes. Yet the party retained the result, citing its constitution, the Electoral Commission deadline and legal constraints.

The Office of the Special Prosecutor then opened an investigation into vote buying, vote selling, funding sources and related conduct.

That history makes every fresh allegation more serious. A party that has already received a warning cannot behave as though the next alarm is background noise.

This is the Highest Bidder Leadership Syndrome.

When a candidate must buy the road to office, public service begins as a debt. The winner must recover campaign spending, reward financiers and preserve the network that delivered the votes. That is how corruption becomes a bottomless pit. Public money is treated as reimbursement. Contracts become repayment. Appointments become settlement. The citizen receives whatever is left.

In July 2026, the Supreme Court ruled by five to two that political parties must move away from restricted delegate voting in presidential and parliamentary primaries and allow all members in good standing to vote

within one year. That ruling does not directly govern these constituency executive elections. Let us be exact about that. But its warning is relevant. A small electoral market is easier to target, easier to purchase and easier to control.

The NDC welcomed the judgment and said it was ready to comply. Its National Chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has himself described delegate elections as an auction for the highest bidder. Those words must now become action. The party cannot condemn the auction in public and tolerate the auctioneer at home.

I am therefore calling on the NDC to investigate every credible allegation, preserve video and payment evidence, publish the findings, sanction offenders and annul any result materially corrupted by violence or inducement. If police investigations disclose crimes, the law must take its course. No candidate should be protected by friendship, office, wealth or faction.

And to the delegate who takes a fan, a phone, a bag of rice or an envelope in exchange for political judgment, remember this. The gift will soon wear out. The bad leader may remain for years.

When leadership goes to the highest bidder, the people eventually receive the highest bill.

This is why silence is the enemy. Silence protects the buyer. Silence abandons the honest candidate. Silence teaches the next generation that public office is merchandise.

Shame on the NDC for every act of violence it fails to punish, every inducement it refuses to investigate, and every tainted result it chooses to defend. Ghana deserves political parties that can govern themselves before asking to govern the nation.

I am Ekow Shalders, Broadcast Journalist, Evangelist, Clinical Chaplain, End of Life Doula, and Licensed Independent Minister. This has been a WBSM Bold Statement Media political monologue.