AMIDU TO GET STATE PROTECTION
The government of Ghana has given assurance of the safety and protection of a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Mr. Martin Amidu.
Mr. Mahama Ayariga, Information and Media Relations Minister, who gave the assurance last Friday, said neither the government nor the governing party had hatched any plans of harming Mr. Amidu.
“It is clearly not the case that the government will, in any way, and I believe also the NDC, take any step that will endanger the life of anyone. Government has a responsibility to protect every citizen.
“The security agencies will take steps to ensure that he gets the right kind of protection that is needed,” Mr. Ayariga gave the assurance.
Mr. Amidu has also confirmed that National Security had contacted him on the issues concerning his safety.
” …the National Security Coordinator phoned to say he had just returned from abroad and read the concerns about my security, and wanted us to talk,” Mr. Amidu stated.
Mr. Amidu, last Friday, made public threats on his life by elements within the ruling National Democratic Congress government, who seem unhappy with his recent crusade to retrieve all wrongfully paid judgment debts by the state.
Mr. Amidu had acused the government and elements within the NDC of hatching a plot to endanger his life, but adds that he remained resolute in this fight against corruption.
“…I have to say that the government and those sub-groups in the NDC, who are against the results of the two Supreme Court judgments, have persistently endangered my life and personal security since I commenced my action in the Supreme Court in June 2012.
'By continuing to vilify me, even after the Supreme Court has spoken, the government and its aggrieved party friends are literally informing the foreign companies and other aggrieved Ghanaians that they are at liberty to endanger my life and personal security.”
'Whatever happens, I, Martin Alamisi Amidu, will not regret dying for defending the Constitution and people of Ghana; Ghana is a naturally rich country, in which the vast majority of the youth, even with university degrees, are unemployed, and poverty is avoidably daily extinguishing the lives of my fellow citizens. Fear is the enemy of change!” Mr. Amidu charged.
This was contained in Mr. Amidu's response to criticism against his person by a member of the NDC legal team, Mr. Victor Kojoga Adawudu, to the effect that he, Martin Amidu, took away important documents while leaving office, resulting in the government's inability to pursue claims against Waterville and Woyome. But, Mr. Amidu says the accusations are 'baseless, false, malicious and libelous.'
According to him, “The use of a political party's legal team to vilify a senior member of that political party without any sanction from the political party sends a wrong signal, when the Constitution of that party mandates a defence of probity, and accountability.”
He averred that 'the founder of the NDC has shown NDC and the government what the NDC stands for, but alas, those now in control cannot hear or see the way to probity and accountability?”
Mr. Amidu was sacked from office as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice under very mysterious circumstances by the late President John Evans Atta Mills.
A letter signed by the then Chief of Staff at the office of the President, John Martey Newman, said the President's decision was arrived at “as a result of Mr. Amidu's misconduct at a meeting last Friday, January 13 th , 2012, presided over by His Excellency,” an allegation Mr. Amidu has vehemently contested, and dared the government to make public details of his alleged misconduct.
Almost a year since he dared the government, it seems to be giving a new reason why Mr. Amidu was sacked from office.
According to the Information Ministry, Mr. Amidu was sacked because he failed to prove to then President Mills the names of the corrupt individuals within his government, who Mr. Amidu had accused of milking the state dry, through the award of questionable judgment debts to individuals and entities.
Mr. Amidu, in a response, has challenged the government to publish a letter he wrote to the President, in which he claimed to have mentioned all the names of all officials involved in the conspiracy to milk the state dry.
But, the government has since declined to take up the challenge, thus further deepening the mystery behind Mr. Amidu's dismissal from office.