The Fight Against Corruption In Ghana: Martin Amidu’s Resignation a Degrade to Public Service!

Issah Musah Aziba¹ and Frank Afful²

The fight against corruption in every state always prove thick-skinned. However, it is not an event but a process. This, therefore, suggest that institutions or Persons involve in the fight against corruption must gain public trust and show resilience. We can’t conquer corruption or problems with mere words, rhetoric, and propaganda. This, hence, requires that the Anti-corruption agencies be emancipated to work freely. If there is no pure independence of institutions, we should renounce fighting fraud. Time cannot be wasted on what seems unconquerable. This article evaluates Martin Amidu’s decision to resign as Ghana first Special Prosecutor and charge whether or not such decision is a good image for the country, especially public service.

Each passing day, the realities on the ground and the evidence proves that the corruption fight in Ghana is a hoax. We acknowledge people who previously called for the uselessness in the creation of the office of the Special prosecutor and irrespective of the intended purpose for creating such an office, the execution has been nothing to write home about. In Ghana, what is troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics. We are easily distracted by unimportant and trivial grievances, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, and our apparent inability to build a working consensus to tackle any problem. A system that exposes us to chronic insecurity and possible destitution in this case Martin Amidu ‘’the scape-goat’’ and some party sycophants defending the indefensible status quo. Corruption roils the landscape and instead of resolving these excesses our politics rather fans them. What we hear are deflections of criticisms and assignments of blame. Yet publicly, it’s difficult to find much soul searching or introspection on either side of the divide or even the slightest admission of responsibility for the gridlock or any form of conspicuous consumption. Corruption is no longer simply a pocketbook issue but a moral issue as well, subject to moral imperatives and moral absolutes. It should be reiterated that the fight against corruption in Ghana is suffering from an arrested development; that is, for every one step forward, there is two steps backwards.

One of the mind-set behind the creation of the Office of the Special Prosecutor was to resolve problems like becoming a poodle to the government, as well as a conflict of interest in the delegation of its functions and a host of others. Nonetheless, the mechanisms put in place may not have completely mitigated this canker upon the inception of this office. Since, the Attorney General who happens to be his superior is suffering from this same insurmountable menace. However, it is disappointing that Martin Amidu, the Special Prosecutor resorted to the line of least resistance by resigning from his post. He should have stayed on to fight as a man with principles, conscience and clothed with some security and protection from the laws. The resignation suggests that, he was either not committed to fighting corruption or completely ill-informed about what it takes to fight corruption in a transitional democracy like Ghana. Let us presuppose that all things being constant, the pejorative issues he raised in the resignation letter are sacred and reliable; and everything said in the response from the Presidency is a lounge. It still position that the challenges outlined by Amidu should not have merited a resignation as Special Prosecutor, in whom many level-headed people including civil society, are well pleased. Given his experience, what did he fear about threats of death and intimidation? If armed robbers do not fear to die during robbery attacks even at very fortified places, how can Amidu, doing the right thing for society, give up, simply because of threats on his life? Didn’t Amidu know that in our part of the world, corruption is the rule, rather the rule, than the exception and it will fight anyone who fights it? Didn’t he know that transitional democracies are always quick to create institutions just to render them toothless by open or hush-hush executive interference and by denying them the needed resources to function? Didn’t he know that in developing democracies, some people are untouchable, and that if you touch them, there will be consequences? Didn’t he know that it is normal in a developing democracy for people in power to react the way they may have reacted about his report that exposes some wrongdoing? Didn’t he know that he was only a mere Special Prosecutor and not an Independent Public Prosecutor? The two are completely different.

Related the Special Prosecutor cannot be practically independent, as it operates in the shadows of the Attorney-General, who is a partisan appointee and can actually stop the Special Prosecutor from carrying out certain investigations. Amidu had an excellent opportunity to make his mark, regardless of the challenges. It isn’t the best but it is normal to be frustrated in any developing democracy, in one’s attempt to help fight corruption. Amidu should have known this and shouldn’t have let Ghanaians down by pandering to the challenges and quitting. He is one of a kind in the human species in Ghana. Not many people have his kind of persona and principles. If he couldn’t stay, who else may stay? Regardless of the challenges, he should have held on to fight a little more to institutionalize his office and its mandate. We clamor for the culture of resignation, particularly when officers do not do what is expected of them, not resignations at a time when institutions are being built. Meanwhile, resignation does not, in itself a fight to corruption. With the resignation, he has absolutely shut the door to future cross-party appointments in a manner that could perpetuate Winner-Takes-All politics. Given the confusion, there is no any future for the Office of the Special Prosecutor. It may either possibly not outlive this regime, or in any future regime, it will exist like the NCCE, that exists but doesn’t exist. Given the weak countervailing authority in our body politic and challenges of constitutionalism in Ghana, there were optimisms and self-confidences in Amidu as someone who could help check executive excesses and assist the fight against corruption. Any anti-corruption crusader who crumbles before challenges in his quest to deal with corruption, must forever remain mute on matters of corruption.

This form of cheap politicking has outlived its expiry date and it’s a highly obnoxious act to still hold unto it. Going forward, corruption has now become a cultural issue and every concerned citizen must be reengaged in the project of national renewal and see their own self-interest as inextricably linked to the interest of others. There is no conviction that the task of building such a working majority will be trouble-free. But it is what we must do, it may require tough choices, sacrifices and unless Political leaders are opened to new ideals and not new packaging we won’t affect enough heart to collectively mitigate or tame the deficit. We won’t have the mandate to overhaul Ghana’s broken resolve. However, in Ghana’s political landscape, one of two things always happen; Work with us, or be Gone. If one has a conscience and integrity to protect, the latter is chosen. The reverse is true if one is directed by the stomach. However, it is the system managed to let many Ghanaians humiliate Martin Amidu during his tenure of office. He was genuine and has integrity. The system is to be blamed. He has tried his best, though was paid for 2-years. There are very few people in Ghana who can fight this system, he was not incompetent. Hence, Martin Amidu should still be highly commended for his vigilante role in protecting the wanton dissipation of the public purse. Posterity can raise heads high because we have a persona of his calibre to look up to us hero.

We stand for the interest of Ghanaians!!
Authors;
¹Issah Musah Aziba is an MPhil candidate at the Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research- University of Ghana, Legon.

²Frank Afful is a National Service Person in the Parliament of Ghana and a prospective Foreign Policy Student in the University of Michigan, USA.