Okudzeto's blunder

Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome

Mr. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwah
Whilst flipping through the pages of the Daily Guide newspaper on Monday, I came across this story, which was also attributed to Joy FM, an Accra-based private radio station. According to the paper 'the Chief State Attorney, Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh, who handled the Woyome case and has equally been indicted in the gargantuan fraud, was arrested at the Kotoka International Airport on Saturday, on his way out of the country.'

I do not have any evidence that Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh was running away from the country, as reported by Joy FM and culled by the Daily Guide. But, if it is established that the intent of Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh was to indeed, run away from prosecution, I will doff off my hat to him, because he has demonstrated that he is really an intelligent man.

Dear reader, I will soon explain why I think the man is very intelligent, but permit to revisit some antecedents before coming back to the subject. Quite recently, I took on the former Minister for Information, Mr. John Tia Akologo, for the way he handled the ministry during his tenure of office, and concluded that as a journalist, he should have done better. Throughout his tenure as a government spokesperson, Mr. Tia Akologo, who was trained as a journalist in the late 1970s, never went on air to discuss any serious matters concerning developments in the government.

In the nutshell, he became a dumb minister, who was apparently sitting in his office reading files. The former Information Minister is my senior colleague, but I criticised him because I thought he could have done better to justify the appointment of journalists to head the sector by future presidents. For instance, the way he allowed Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa to take over the lead role was not the best, since the young man was understudying him. He was also too enthusiastic to comment on national issues, sometimes using the wrong approach.

I also raised several information management issues in the said article, thinking that Mr. Okudzeto Ablakwa would, at least, pick a point from it, since knowledge is not the repository of one person, but the young man would not learn. After the exposé of the controversial GH¢51 million paid to Mr. Alfred Woyome, and the accompanying public outcry against the payment, President Mills directed  the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) to conduct investigations into the controversy surrounding the payment.

It took the investigative body a little over a month to compile its report, which was submitted to the President on Thursday, February 2, 2012.  A number of government officials were implicated in the report, which is already in the public domain. Among those implicated were the Chief State Attorney, Mr. Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh, Mr. Paul Asimenu, Legal Advisor at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Woyome himself, and the wife of Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh.

After the release of this report by the EOCO, President Mills reportedly, ordered the arrest of Mr. Woyome to face criminal prosecution. Commenting on the development on the various radio stations that I monitored, Mr. Okudzeto Ablakwa told Ghanaians that the arrest of Mr. Woyome was one of a series of arrests the President had ordered in connection with the EOCO report.

To me, this was a serious communication defect that should have compelled the President to sack the Deputy Information Minister. I do not know whether President Mills himself told Mr. Ablakwa to tell the whole world that the Woyome arrest was part of a series he had ordered, in connection with the EOCO report. But, granted that the President did tell the Deputy Minister to put such information in the public domain, he should have told him in a polite way that it had negative implications, and suggest a better way to communicate the issue.

In my earlier submission, I said I will doff off my hat to Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh, if he was indeed, running away from prosecution. My position is based on the fact that it is only a fool, or unintelligent person, who has been implicated in the EOCO report, will sit down for him to be arrested, after hearing from the Deputy Minister of Information that the arrest of Woyome was one of a series the President had ordered.

In one of the interviews he granted the radio stations, one of the journalists asked Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa whether the information he had put in the public domain would not compel those implicated in the report to run away from the jurisdiction, and his answer was that it would not happen. Now, I want Mr. Ablakwa to come back and tell Ghanaians that he still stands by his position that those implicated in the report would not make any attempt to run away.

The appointment of a minister for information or deputy should not be based on one's ability to construct perfect English sentences, but the person's ability to properly manage information that would come to him. It is bad information management to give a tip-off to people who are going to be arrested in connection with a crime they have allegedly committed. Sometimes, I wonder whether there are people in the Atta Mills government who sit back to do a critical analysis of the way Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa goes about his work.

In any other jurisdiction, Mr. Ablakwa would have been called to the seat of government, and seriously reprimanded about the way he communicated this particular issue to the public. I have no ulterior motive against the young Deputy Minister, but I can assure him that I will continue to criticise him about the way he goes about his work, if it would not serve the interest of Ghanaians, including myself.

After receiving briefing about the action the President intends to take, Mr. Ablakwa should have sat down and done a content analysis, or at best, consulted his other senior colleagues to see how the information could be communicated. The Vice President is the head of the Police Council, and therefore, by extension, the person who has direct control over the Police Service. I do not, therefore, think that the President can order the police to effect such arrests, I stand to be corrected though.

It would have, therefore, been proper for Ablakwa to tell Ghanaians that Woyome had been arrested by the police, in connection with the GH¢51 million scandal, and that they would be the right people to comment on the issue. If he had done this, he would have saved himself and the government the embarrassment he has caused. The fact that one is a Deputy Information Minister does not mean that the person must comment on all issues from archeology to zoology, as I indicated in my previous article on Mr. John Tia Akologo.

I submit that should any of the people implicated in the EOCO interim report run away from jurisdiction, Mr. Okudzeto Ablakwa must be called to answer for that, because he prepared the grounds for them to escape through the reckless comment he made that the arrest of Woyome 'was part of a series of arrests the President has ordered.'

I think that if Okudzeto-Ablakwa had allowed the newly-reappointed Deputy Minister for Information, Mr. James Agyenim Boateng, to comment on the issue, he would have probably done a better job, because he has done several interviews when working as a journalist, and therefore, knows the implication of certain information put in the public domain.  I rest my case for now.

My position is based on the fact that it is only a fool, or unintelligent person, who has been implicated in the EOCO report, will sit down for him to be arrested, after hearing from the Deputy Minister of Information that the arrest of Woyome was one of a series the President had ordered.