Frustration with delivering ORAL mandate has turned some into making OSP a scapegoat — Franklin Cudjoe

Founding President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe

The Founding President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has reacted to recent calls for the abolition of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).

Calls for the abolition of the OSP have been mounting, with critics arguing that the office has become counterproductive.

Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga and Majority Chief Whip Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor have jointly introduced a private member’s bill seeking to repeal the law that established the OSP.

The proposed legislation, titled the Office of the Special Prosecutor (Repeal) Bill, 2025, aims to scrap Act 959 entirely, reassigning all regulations, guidelines, and administrative instructions of the OSP to the Attorney-General.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Justice Srem Sai, announced in a social media post on Wednesday, December 10, that a private citizen had filed a lawsuit challenging the OSP’s prosecutorial powers.

Reacting on Thursday, December 11, Cudjoe stated that the move is an attempt to divert attention from the Attorney General’s apparent failure to deliver on the Operation Recover All Loots (ORAL) anti-corruption initiative.

“It seems to me that frustration with delivering the self-imposed ORAL mandate has turned some into making the OSP a scapegoat. I don’t recall the OSP selling a sharing formula for the return of mismanaged funds on the blindside of the republic,” he said.

“This attempt to ridicule the OSP and hang it is a shameful self-destruct button, and with it would go the only true independent institution that politicians and their ruinous private sector cronies have come to fear,” Cudjoe added.

According to him, President Mahama’s second-term reset agenda is being tested by overzealous purveyors of a flawed doctrine that confuses haste with delivery, ambition with selfless service, and power with modesty.

“They would have forged the President’s respect for divergent views into a crucible of meekness—and with that, allowed power to trick him and damage his quest for legacy. The OSP trial is fabricated; it must fail!” he stressed.