In Malaysia a former Prime Minister is jailed for the second time while in prison: Any lessons for Ghana?
On Boxing Day December 26, 2025 in the South-Eastern Asian country of Malaysia, a former Prime Minister who was already in prison serving a 12-year jail time for corruption related to the country’s sovereign wealth fund was jailed again. The 12-year-jail term was later reduced to six. He was convicted and sentenced together with his wife.
Najib Razak was jailed for another 15 years this December for abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering, after a second major trial for a multi-billion-dollar state funds scandal related to the same 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) which he established to spur economic development.
“The contention by the accused that the charges against him were a witch hunt and politically motivated were debunked by the cold, hard and incontrovertible evidence against him that pointed towards the accused having abused his own powerful position in 1MDB, coupled with the extensive powers conferred upon him,” the judge, Collin Lawrence Sequerah said in his verdict.
Najib, is the first Prime Minister in Malaysian history to be jailed.
Investigators said even though he set up the 1MDB for development, it was instead plundered to buy a superyacht, high-end properties, and finance the production of the film, The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
They indicated that $4.5 billion was stolen, with hundreds of millions ending up in accounts linked to Najib.
The 72-year-old Najib was accused of misappropriating nearly 2.3 billion Malaysian ringgit. Approximately $569 million from the 1MDB, which he created in 2009. The verdict on Boxing Day was after seven years of legal proceedings, which saw 76 witnesses called to the stand.
Among many other charges, he was charged with illicitly obtaining 2.28 billion ringgit, about $550m from 1MDB between 2011 and 2014.
Najib has consistently denied all the allegations, and while still in office was cleared by the country’s authorities.
However, his time in office will likely be remembered as a period in Malaysian governance history that was drowned in scandal and a consolidation of power at the center.
He insists he is innocent, says he would appeal, and his lawyers are seeking a delay to his sentencing.
Najib was no ordinary Malaysian politician. He comes from a bloodline of heavyweight Malaysian politicians. He is the eldest son of Abdul Razak, Malaysia’s second Prime Minister and the nephew of Hussein Onn, the third Prime Minister of Malaysia.
He studied for an industrial economics degree from the University of Nottingham in the UK and returned to Malaysia in 1974. He worked for the state oil firm Petronas. He later entered politics, and held numerous cabinet posts. He was minister for energy, telecommunications, education, finance and defence – before becoming deputy prime minister to Abdullah Badawi in 2004. When Mr Abdullah stepped down in 2009, he handed power to Najib.
The case against Najib is familiar around the world including Ghana. But the difference is, for the first time, Malaysia acted to sanction the former Prime Minister, who is a political heavyweight in his own right, with deep family roots in the politics of his country.
But in Ghana, no political heavyweight has yet been arrested, and none is on trial. Most of those arrested and are on trial are small fishes.
The arrest and trial of Ken Ofori-Atta, the fugitive former Minister of Finance would have set the tone for sanctioning politically powerful people when there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing. But we missed it. The excuse for allowing Ofori-Atta to slip through the net was that he was given security clearance by the Chief of Staff to travel out of the country for medical treatment. He could still have been arrested if there were reasonable and just reason to do so, that notwithstanding, but he wasn’t; and the only reason he wasn’t arrested was his political and filial affiliation – he is the cousin of the sitting President – now former President.
Corruption and illicit financial flows, largely perpetrated by politicians and politically exposed persons have debilitating effect on the poor, security, democracy and widens the inequality gap.
Malaysia in all its foibles, in this case has raised the bar for other countries, including Ghana, to follow.
By Emmanuel K Dogbevi
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