Asiedu-Nketia Is Himself a Seasoned Criminal

On the face of it, he is smack on point, or target, when Mr. Johnson Kwadwo Asiedu-Nketia, the General-Secretary of Ghana’s main opposition political party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), says that it is not the responsibility of hardened and unconscionable Nigerian-born rapists, kidnappers and murderers, for a handful of examples, who are swarming Ghana and increasingly making life ungovernable for Ghanaian citizens and other peaceful and law-abiding non-Ghanaian residents, to guarantee Ghana’s peace and security (See “Nigerians Not Responsible for Your Woes – Asiedu-Nketia” Adomonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 6/20/19).

Rather, according to the former Rawlings-appointed Deputy Defense Minister, it is the absolute responsibility of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) and the other allied Ghanaian security agencies to ensure a drastic reduction in the high spate of criminal activities in the country. Well, actually, the real responsibility for drastic crime reduction in the country lies with all the traditional three branches of democratic governance, namely, the Executive, Judiciary and the Legislature. You see, it is squarely the responsibility of government operatives, such as cabinet appointees, to ensure that our security agencies and our national defense operatives are well-equipped with the necessary logistics to perform efficiently. And the latter, of course, includes being paid livable wages and salaries.

Then also, our magistrates and judges need to show a critical sense of patriotism in the performance of their law-enforcement duties. The legal and judicial climate of the country, in particular vis-à-vis how both native-born Ghanaians and their non-Ghanaian guests conduct and comport themselves, is squarely dependent on the efficiency and professional competence and integrity of our lawyers and judges, as well as our prosecutors and police officers. The members of the parliamentary committees on the Judiciary, National Defense and National Security ought to be up and running. So far, the response of the members of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee to the recent unusually high spate of criminality, with the disturbingly heavy involvement of some Nigerian nationals was, at best, scandalously lame and, at the worst, simply outrageous, to speak much less about the downright daft and criminally preposterous.

But such lame and blasé response as that which recently came from Mr. Asiedu-Nketia, was all to be expected, especially when viewed strictly within the context of the NDC’s General-Secretary’s own criminal record. And on the latter count, of course, I am referring to how Mr. Asiedu-Nketia (aka General Mosquito) came by his sobriquet, or nickname, of “Bui Dam Woyome,” which essentially entailed the criminal backdoor racket between the former Wenchi-West’s National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament and the extant Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Bui Dam Authority, namely, Mr. Jabesh Amissah-Arthur, the immediate younger brother of then Vice-President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, late, to exclusively overprice cement blocks supplied to the Bui Dam Authority for some partial/minor construction work on Ghana’s second-largest Hydro-Electric Power Plant, while other suppliers of the same product were offered significantly lower prices.

There was also a glaring case of a conflict-of-interest, pertaining to the fact that Mr. Asiedu-Nketia was also a member of the Board-of-Directors of the Bui Dam Authority. If he is not already on the list of criminal suspects being investigated and indicted by the Office of the Independent Special Public Prosecutor, then, it goes without saying that Mr. Martin ABK Amidu may very well, and promptly so, consider doing just that. We must also highlight the fact that the deteriorating national security situation owes much of its inception or origin to the depraved and unconstitutional decision by then-Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills to have some Nigerian business moguls, literally, underwrite the National Democratic Congress’ Mills-Mahama Presidential Campaign in the leadup to 2008 Presidential Election.

Most Ghanaian citizens and voters came to public knowledge of this treasonable racket, when then-Candidate Atta-Mills publicly announced that some Nigerian business-mogul friends who were visiting him in the heat of the 2008 electioneering campaign, and were actually, illegally and unconstitutionally actively participating in the same, had been robbed of hundreds of thousands of dollars and other assortment of foreign currencies. Of course, it also did not help that about exactly 10 years earlier, Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, the acclaimed Founding-father of the National Democratic Congress had, in fact, demanded and had been equally illegally and criminally offered $ 5 Million (USD), of the Nigerian taxpayer’s money, from junta strongman Gen. Sani Abacha, late.

In short, what I am unmistakably suggesting here is that it was the leaders of the National Democratic Congress who clearly sold off Ghanaians down the proverbial pike/creek for a mess of pottage or pittance and must squarely take the blame for the lion’s share of our present dismal national security headache. We also don’t know the amount of money for which the Mahama/Amissah-Arthur regime negotiated with the Nigerians behind closed doors to make staunch Mahama lickspittles like Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa so pontifically and spiritedly defend heinous crimes committed by Nigerian-born goons and thugs on grounds of a critical mass of Ghanaian-born citizens being resident in Nigeria. Maybe what the gung-ho likes of Nigeria’s Prof. Augustine/Austin Uzoma Nwagbara ought to be doing with their sabbatical leave would be to do a comprehensive analysis of criminal activities perpetrated by Ghanaians resident in Nigeria and vice-versa, percentagewise, and also in terms of populational representation.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
June 22, 2019
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net