Whatever Happened to the “Anas Principle”?

When criminal scofflaws like the North-Tongu National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament bitterly call the credibility and the professional integrity of what he claims to be the “21 top management” staff members of Ghana’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) into question, one begins to wonder about whatever happened to the much-touted “Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ Principle” that the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), led by their dynastic Presidential Candidate, Mr. John “European Airbus Payola” Dramani Mahama, have been holding up over and above the heads of the personnel of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) and the Ghanaian electorate at large, for nearly a decade now, as “The Gold Standard” for the evaluation of the integrity of all civil and public servants in the country (See “21 Top EC Management [Staff] Have Evaded Police Background Checks – Ablakwa” Modernghana.com 7/11/22).

Under the “Anas Aremeyaw Anas” or simply the “Anas Principle,” as we vividly recall, the only background checks that could be aptly deemed to have mustered scrutiny was one that was conducted by the Mahama-sponsored operatives of the Anas Aremeyaw Anas-owned private detective agency called the Tiger-Eye PI Company. You see, under the aforesaid almighty Anas Principle, personnel of the Ghana Police Service, irrespective of specialty, expertise or institutional division, would not have qualified to conduct any genuine and/or credible background checks on those 21 top management staff appointees of the IEC who, according to Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, have been working at this most politically powerful and sensitive institutional establishment in the country for at least a couple years because, in the infamously cynical words of former President Mahama, the credibility and integrity of the entire establishment of the Ghana Police Service woefully left much to be desired.

In the self-righteous, peremptory, imperious and morally unimpeachable imagination and opinion of Yagbonwura Kwame Gonja, as the former President is also popularly known and called, the entire establishment of the Ghana Police Service completely lost its credibility ages ago. For this reason, throughout his tenure at the Presidency, the Bole-Bamboi, Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region, native never bothered to use the institutional establishment of the Ghana Police Service, or even the Special Branch Unit of the Ghana Police Service, presently known as the late Capt. Kojo Tsikata-founded or reformed Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), for any worthwhile national security exercise. So, why is Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa now calling for these so-called 21 top management staff members of the IEC to be thoroughly investigated or critically examined by personnel of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service, instead of calling on the Akufo-Addo Administration to use the far more credible services of the Tiger-Eye PI agency or company?

In other words, since when did the members of the Mahama Posse arrive at the admittedly very refreshing, albeit politically opportunistic, conclusion that it is presently perfectly kosher for the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service to conduct background checks on these 21 top managerial staff members and operatives of the IEC? Well, according to Mr. Ablakwa, who roundly and flatly rejected a Wood Supreme Court Decision to promptly return the legitimately acquired real-estate and landed properties belonging to the late Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey to the latter rightful owner, with the equally heinously criminal complicity and patronage of the late President John Evans “Tarkwa-Atta Woyome” Mills, it significant to add, the aforesaid alleged evasion of professional background checks by the 21 top managerial staff of the IEC is contained in the latest Auditor-General’s Report.

Now, this is all well and good, except that like Ananse, the spider-protagonist of Akan folklore, the North-Tongu National Democratic Congress-sponsored Member of Parliament has conveniently ignored to inform his Twitter audience and the members of the Global Ghanaian Community, precisely how many of the country’s 275 Members of Parliament have, so far, declared their assets and liabilities or submitted themselves for background checks by personnel of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service. Indeed, it was not for absolutely no good reason that that globally famous anonymous sage of yore counseled against reckless stone-throwing by those who live in glass houses. Somebody with far more credibility and moral integrity had better inform the North-Tongu NDC-MP that we cannot have one law for the managerial staff of the Independent Electoral Commission and a totally different law for members and representatives of our National Assembly.

We are also in on the patently bogus case that Mr. Ablakwa is deviously and scandalously attempting to make, by way of strategically and deliberately prejudicing the credibility and integrity of the Jean Adukwei Mensa-chaired Independent Electoral Commission in the runup to the 2024 General Election. Mr. Ablakwa and his criminally scheming associates of the National Democratic Congress are fully aware of the fact that going into the 2024 General Election, IMF intervention in the economic affairs of Ghana or not, there is absolutely no way that the kleptocratic and social-intervention bereft Mahama-headed National Democratic Congress will have any fighting chance against a Bawumia-led New Patriotic Party. The proverbial and metaphorical die has already been cast, and the insuperable outcome is one that incontestably sees the most progressive political establishment of the land readily breaking the jinxy 8 and handily retaining democratic power well beyond the watershed 2024 General Election. All progressive and forward-thinking and looking Ghanaian citizens cannot have it any other way, trust me, My Dear Reader.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

July 14, 2022

E-mail: [email protected]