'Purge the Judiciary;' 'Purge the Media;' I say Purge the (NDC) Executive!

Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremeh

My compatriots, first, it was purger Chairman Kwabena Adjei threatening to purge the judiciary. Vice-President John Dramani Mahama has his purging sights on the media. Now, I, Okokyrekro Kwasi say categorically that the purge-hunting NDC Executive arm of government must be the purgee. It should lead the way to purgatory and all others shall follow.

Purging the third and fourth estates of the realm will do nothing to safeguard our democracy if the first estate, the purgeable NDC executive arm of government, remains infested with coup makers or sympathizers and propagandist liars who are always threatening the destruction of other institutions of state.

In the bosom of the vice-presidency lies the architect of media abuse. If you want the most dangerous perpetrators and inciters of pogrom in this our dear motherland, you will find it in the Radio Gold controller who directed attempts to subvert our democracy. The evidence was clear during the 2008 elections. Some of the actors are deputizing in the Ministry of Information. And to me, it is more than enough reason for a purgeable executive arm of government.

Our foreign affairs are run by a minister who is yet to be cleared of an Auditor-General report which suggests grounds of his indictment for causing financial loss to the state hanging over his head. We all know an audit report sparked the doused Presidential Commission upon whose findings my Senior and Tarzan are being hounded and persecuted. That same commission report is what has created the pre-emptable disaster of NDC lawyers having no idea about the contents of our Constitution and so support Kwabena Adjei's crusade to purge the judiciary.

Another minister is a convict of plagiarism, a capital crime in the organization from which the one at the helm of the presidency emerged.

From AFRC through PNDC to NDC, the founder of the party that produced a president was the appointing authority to our public institutions. Thus, I can vouch that the majority of our judges, public servants, parastatal personnel, and virtually all permanent employees who are paid from the consolidated fund, and who were appointed under any of these regimes have been, and are NDC believers, supporters, secret admirers, and so on.

Together, the three regimes, virtually, aggregate into twenty years of our existence as a nation. To be precise, if one was appointed outside the period January seven 2001 to December six 2009, that person would most likely be a beneficiary of one of the three regimes. If you doubt me, let us do a head count of all who subsist by the consolidated fund.

Professionals in their ranks, lawyers for example who write laws to legitimize coups, who are afflicted with foot soldier mentality, use their professional know-how to promote a coup mentality of purge, purge and purge everything that is democratic.

Anytime a president's philosophy of government is that the leader should appoint ONLY people who share his ideology, it is a reminder that it is what has guided all of AFR, PND and ND with the 'C' suffix.

In the bowels of the NDC presidency are purgeable elements of all types. So they should remove the mote in their eyes and in their glass house first before they begin to throw purging stones at others.

That is the right thing to do; it is what is required of anti-corruption crusading and it is what builds and develops nations. None of the parochial foot soldier chairman agitations fit into that model of development.

The NDC presidency is riddled with contradiction and mediocrity. It is a fount of 'dishonour.' It's like people have been planted there to pursue agendas inconsistent with a president's belief in working only with people who share his ideology; or, probably, the ideology is less clear.

The veiled powers of the executive over the other arms of governance place it in the unique position of influence. It appoints the leadership of the judiciary in cooperation with the legislature. And only recently, we saw its crucial role in the appointment of the leadership of the legislature. Virtually, it is the head of all the arms of government; largely determining the remuneration of the other two arms.

Effectively, then, the executive is not just head but exercises reasonable levels of control over the two other arms. As for the fourth estate, the media, it is also clear that perks such as presidential trips can affect a journalist's professional compromise in exercising his watchdog role over the executive.

By the NDC's own wise counsel, fish rots from the head. If the executive is directly or indirectly head of all the other estates of the realm, then I will like to propose that meaningful and purposeful purging of all the estates of the realm must begin with the executive arm of government. After all, it is the first estate of the realm.

It is the self-appointed NDC purger which should be the purgee. If it is oblivious of purgeable aspects of the executive, it could begin with all those who have benefitted directly all indirectly from coups. All my compatriots agree our failure to develop at the pace of our independence peers is attributable to one coup or another coup.

Let the NDC then begin purging its executive. It could begin with secret coup admirers, coup planners and executors, liars, cheats, rabble rousers, con men and women, plagiarists, the anti-rule of law and wilful causers of financial loss to the state. At the end of the purge there will be none left to constitute a party, let alone an executive arm of government.

My compatriots and I will rather purge them in 2012 by the dictates of the Constitution. They should also know there can be no judicial or media purge outside the parameters set by the Constitution.

By Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremeh