Trust Me, Mr. Bagbin, Akufo-Addo Is Fighting Corruption Big Time!

Mr. Alban SK Bagbin

I don’t know precisely what he means when 2^nd-Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Mr. Alban SK Bagbin says that his longstanding friendship with President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo fully and reliably informs the Nadowli-Kaleo National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament that the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice cannot remarkably dent the level of corruption in the country (See “My Good Friend Nana Addo Cannot Fight Corruption – Bagbin” RainbowRadioOnline.com / Modernghana.com 6/9/17). The longest-serving Ghanaian parliamentarian reminds me of that Judeo-Christian maxim that perspicuously observes that “Some people have eyes but cannot see.”

The fact of the matter is that in barely five months after assuming the democratic reins of governance, Nana Akufo-Addo has more than amply demonstrated that he and his ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) have what it takes to make a significant dent in the insufferably high spate of corruption in the country. The most striking example of such capability is, obviously, the NPP’s epic battle against Galamsey, or the illegal mining industry, which has exposed the seamy underbelly of the erstwhile Mahama-led government of the National Democratic for being a major collaborator with both local and foreign operatives in the wanton destruction of the country’s potable water bodies and pristine forestry resources.

That the battle against Galamsey will be very difficult, is evinced by the recent savage, but veritably Ghanaian, mauling to death of Capt. Maxwell Adam Mahama, a nephew of former President John Dramani Mahama, one of the key architects and vanguard promoters of the Galamsey industry, at Denkyira-Obuasi, in the Central Region, on May 29, 2017. This yeomanly fight, and the very first serious attempt at the reclamation of our heavily polluted water bodies and forestry resources, has uncovered an extensive network of wanton environmental destruction of the country in which the Mahama Flagstaff House and the Military High Command of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) evidently used our otherwise patriotic men and women in uniform to staunchly back the Galamsey activities of resident Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian operatives.

Indeed, it is how we, as a nation, got mired in this ugly situation over at least the past 8 years, that seasoned career politicians like the presidentially ambitious Upper-West native ought to be discussing and trying to help his “good friend” Nana Akufo-Addo devise the most effective solution for. But that Mr. Bagbin made such a patently absurd and morally untenable proposition at the headquarters of the main opposition National Democratic Congress, on the Silver Jubilee Anniversary Celebration of the party, is all the more suspicious. Yes, it is all the more suspicious because corruption scandals healthily uncovered at the National Communications Authority (NCA) and the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), involving the embezzlement of millions of dollars and cedis by Mahama government operatives, clearly point to the fact of the great promise of President Akufo-Addo’s Armageddonian Battle against official corruption in the country.

It is also pathetic and inescapably clear that the battle against rank corruption in government has become virtually synonymous with the epic battle between the ruling New Patriotic Party and the main opposition National Democratic Congress for the soul and integrity of the Democratic Republic of Ghana. And it is a battle that the New Patriotic Party, with Divine Providence on its side, cannot afford to lose.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
June 9, 2017
E-mail: [email protected]