Ghana woke up recently to a deeply troubling revelation: thousands of applicants reportedly failed security recruitment medical examinations due to drug abuse and mental health-related conditions. The statistics shocked many. Yet beneath the public outrage lies a painful national irony: perhaps we are only now confronting a problem we collectively ignored for years.
The conversation should not end at failed medicals. It should begin with a more difficult question: How did so many young people arrive here in the first place?
Mental illness is not a moral failure. Drug addiction is not simply a matter of indiscipline. In many cases, they are symptoms of deeper social neglect, economic frustration, broken homes, political exploitation, and institutional failure.
Across Ghana today, there is a growing generation of young people battling depression, hopelessness, substance dependency, and emotional instability in silence. Some are unemployed graduates. Others are abandoned school dropouts. Many feel invisible until election seasons arrive. Then suddenly, they become politically important.
Every election cycle, political actors descend into communities, ghettos, lorry stations, and inner-city strongholds searching for “energetic youth” willing to defend party interests, fill campaign grounds, intimidate opponents online and offline, and sustain political momentum. In those moments, survival often becomes transactional.
It is impossible to honestly discuss the rise in youth drug abuse without asking whether parts of our political culture have indirectly normalized it. Not necessarily through official policy. Not always through direct instruction. But through an environment where reckless behaviour is tolerated, financed, entertained, or quietly ignored for political convenience.
One cannot help but ask: During campaign seasons, what exactly happens in some of these late-night youth mobilization gatherings? What influences are introduced into vulnerable communities in exchange for political loyalty? How many aspiring leaders genuinely invest in rehabilitation, mentorship, and jobs after elections are won? And how many disappear after the cheering stops? These are uncomfortable questions. But they are necessary.
Nobody is suggesting that political leaders deliberately created addiction among the youth. That would be unfair and simplistic. However, leadership must also acknowledge that repeated political engagement with vulnerable young people without structure, responsibility, or long-term empowerment can unintentionally deepen already dangerous social conditions.
Sometimes, support is offered without guidance. Sometimes, money is distributed without accountability. Sometimes, harmful lifestyles are tolerated because they produce political excitement and crowd energy. And sometimes, young people are celebrated for aggression rather than discipline.
Over time, such environments can normalize substance abuse, emotional instability, and dependency.
The frightening part is that the same young people who are loudly celebrated during campaigns often become liabilities afterwards, rejected during formal recruitment processes because they no longer meet the standards required to serve the nation.
That is the real tragedy. The disciplined youth who stayed away from drugs, focused on education, protected their mental wellbeing, and patiently waited for opportunity must not become strangers in their own country while politically connected recklessness is rewarded.
Security services, public institutions, and national agencies must never become extensions of partisan settlements. Recruitment into sensitive institutions should reflect competence, psychological stability, discipline, and patriotism not political proximity.
Yet many ordinary Ghanaians quietly suspect that political affiliation increasingly influences access to opportunity, especially when one party occupies power. Whether perception or reality, that belief alone damages public trust.
And trust, once damaged, is difficult to rebuild.
The issue of mental health itself also deserves maturity and compassion. Ghana still treats psychological struggles as taboo. Many young men especially suffer silently because society teaches them that seeking help is weakness. We joke about depression. We mock emotional instability. We spiritualize every psychological condition.
Meanwhile, the crisis deepens quietly beneath the surface. If thousands are failing medical examinations due to mental health concerns, then the nation should not only be alarmed; it should also be reflective.
What does this say about unemployment? About economic pressure? About social media pressure? About family breakdown? About the emotional condition of Ghanaian youth?
The solution cannot simply be disqualification and public embarrassment.
We need reforms.
Depoliticize public recruitment. Independent recruitment oversight mechanisms should be strengthened to reduce perceptions of partisan influence in security and public sector recruitment.
Establish a national youth rehabilitation programme. Government, faith-based organizations, and private institutions should collaborate to establish accessible rehabilitation and psychological support centres across all regions.
Mandatory mental health support in schools should become standard in secondary and tertiary institutions.
Political parties should adopt ethical campaign engagement standards that discourage exploitative mobilization practices targeting vulnerable youth.
Young people should not only become visible during campaign seasons. Sustainable jobs and skills development must replace temporary political dependence. District assemblies and local leaders should partner with health professionals and security agencies to intensify anti-drug education and early intervention programmes.
Ultimately, this conversation is bigger than politics. It is about the kind of country Ghana is becoming.
A nation cannot continuously feed its youth with hopelessness, manipulation, unemployment, and social neglect and then act surprised when many collapse under the weight of addiction and psychological distress.
Perhaps the most painful reality is this: Some of the same young people now failing these medical examinations once stood under scorching suns defending political causes they believed would change their lives.
Today, many of them are being told they are unfit to serve the nation.
That should disturb every political leader, every parent, every institution, and every citizen.
Because when politics uses young people without rebuilding them, society eventually inherits the damage.
And by then, everybody pays the price.
About the Author
Samuel Kofi Yeboah is a Governance and Communications Professional, Governance Researcher, and Public Affairs Analyst with interests in political communication, corporate governance, institutional leadership, and national development. He holds an MBA in Corporate Governance, an MA in Strategic Public Relations Management, a BA in Strategic Communications, and is currently pursuing an LL.B.
