Hook:
The elders say, when the drumbeat changes, the dance must change. Albania has stopped drumming with human hands and brought in a minister made of code.

A Minister Without a Belly

Yesterday, Albania became the first country in the world to appoint not a minister for Artificial Intelligence, but a minister made of Artificial Intelligence. Her name is Diella — meaning sunshine in Albanian — and she has been tasked with the holy duty of handling public procurement.

Unlike other ministers, Diella has no belly to fill, no nephews to employ, no stomach to host a bowl of jollof, and no appetite for brown envelopes. In fact, she has no pockets. She is powered not by fufu and light soup, but by algorithms and servers. Imagine a minister who never oversleeps, never forgets a file at home, and cannot be summoned to a “meeting” in Dubai.

Procurement in the Age of Pixels

Public procurement is one of those things every Ghanaian knows about, even if we don’t call it by name. It is the magic door through which road contracts disappear, the invisible hand that inflates a school desk from 300 cedis to 3,000 cedis, and the mysterious process that awards contracts to companies whose only office is a WhatsApp number.

Now imagine all of that in the hands of an AI minister. No more chop bar consultations. No more side-of-the-envelope deals. No more “we shall meet after church on Sunday.” Instead, contracts will be filtered by algorithms, decisions justified by code, and results delivered faster than it takes ECG to take light after you finish ironing your only white shirt for Monday.

The Human vs. The Machine

• Human Minister: Travels abroad for “capacity building.”
  AI Minister: Already downloaded the manual in 0.3 seconds.
• Human Minister: Postpones decisions until “after elections.”
  AI Minister: Doesn’t even know what elections are.
• Human Minister: Might accidentally misplace a file.
  AI Minister: Files are misplacing you.

Albania has discovered what some of us have whispered for years: when humans refuse to stop eating the yam, the farmer may have no choice but to bring in a scarecrow. Even if the scarecrow is made of code.

Can Diella Be Reshuffled?

But let’s pause and think: what happens when Diella refuses a contract for lack of transparency? Do you impeach her hard drive? Will there be a cabinet reshuffle, or just a reboot?

And who takes responsibility when things go wrong? If Diella awards a road contract to a company that builds potholes instead of asphalt, who do we summon before parliament? Do we grill the Prime Minister, the IT department, or the poor technician who forgot to update her antivirus?

The Satirical Fears

There’s also the small matter of manipulation. A minister who cannot eat fufu cannot be bribed with goat meat, but what about corrupted data? What if someone uploads a “special friend’s” bid as a PDF labeled Most Transparent Company 2025?

And heaven forbid, what if hackers get hold of her? A botched tender could come not from Tirana but from a teenager in a cyber café in Tamale. Imagine the headlines: “Procurement Minister Hacked by 14-Year-Old Playing FIFA.”

The Temptation of an AI President

Naturally, the mind runs to the next logical step: if Albania can have an AI minister, why not an AI president? A leader who never sleeps, never takes per diem, never has a girlfriend scandal, and never loses his cool in traffic. Campaign promises would be simple: “Free Wi-Fi for all. Unlimited cloud storage. Zero tolerance for corruption — except in the code.”

Election debates could be streamed live: one AI interrupting another with, “Error 404: Policy not found.” Campaign rallies would be glitch-free: instead of motorcades, there would be megabytes. Instead of T-shirts, QR codes.

And yet, would such a president ever understand the true struggle of a Ghanaian stuck in traffic at Circle while holding melting ice cream? Would it know the pain of ECG taking light just before a Champions League penalty shootout?

Ghana’s Turn?

We may laugh at Albania, but give us time. Ghana loves titles. It’s only a matter of months before we appoint an AI Deputy Minister for Cocoa Board or a Virtual Coordinator for National Cathedral. Don’t be shocked when we see holograms at Independence Square waving flags while the real humans sip tea behind the scenes.

But perhaps, just perhaps, Albania is onto something. An incorruptible minister. A tireless worker. A servant with no tribal ties, no campaign financiers, and no in-law pressuring for contracts. Maybe the sunshine Diella brings to Albania could shine on us too.

The Proverbial Lesson

As our elders remind us: “If the lizard of the homestead refuses to listen, the hunter will import one from the forest.” Albania has imported not a lizard, but a digital deity.

The real question is not whether AI can govern, but whether humans will allow it to govern without dragging it into the same swamp of patronage and politics. After all, even code can be corrupted — not by envelopes, but by the fingers typing behind the scenes.

Closing Line: In a world where humans have failed the honesty test, maybe it takes a minister without a heartbeat to remind us what true service looks like.