We Want “Heat” with Facts, Not Empty Rhetoric

Information Minister, Mr. Mustapha Hamid

He is outspoken and articulate on national politics, in the revered and time-honored tradition of the immortalized African-American Civil Rights spearhead Rev.-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This is not surprising because the former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana is partly American trained. He received his doctorate in Divinity from the world-famous Columbia University Theological Seminary. But the Very Reverend Emmanuel Martey can sometimes fly off the handle, as it were, in ways that may not be necessarily helpful to the cause of even the most progressive administration in the country.

This is what Nana Akufo-Addo’s Information Minister, Mr. Mustapha Hamid, sought to imply when, in the wake of a lecture in which Prof. Martey was widely reported to have said that the key operatives of the Akufo-Addo government had “already begun exhibiting signs of corruption,” Mr. Hamid poignantly called on the retired prelate and elder statesman to substantiate his observation and/or allegation with specific facts that could be promptly followed up by the Flagstaff House, if the perennial and seemingly intractable bane of corruption was to be drastically reduced under the watch of Ghana’s former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice (See “Name Corrupt Officials – Government Urges Prof. Martey” Citifmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 10/17/17).

Prof. Martey, as of this writing, was yet to provide any specific instances of corruption among highly placed members of the Akufo-Addo government to back up his observation. The irony here, though, is that the renowned and well-respected social critic, at least among supporters and sympathizers of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP), may not have to look far or strain himself to be able to point to specific examples, as the latter have already been provided by ruling party stalwarts like Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, the longtime New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Assin-Central, in the Central Region, who, together with the Hiplife musician nicknamed A-Plus, or Mr. Kwame Asare Obeng, has virulently accused some Flagstaff House operatives of engaging in contractual scam-artistry.

In one instance, Mr. Agyapong, who is also a business mogul, at least by Ghanaian standards, was widely reported to have publicly accused some Akufo-Addo staffers of demanding kickbacks in order to provide access to the President to potential foreign investors. In what clearly appeared to be a narcissistic attempt to be awarded more than his fair share of government contracts, Mr. Agyapong accused Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia and his staffers of making it extremely difficult to secure some of the most lucrative contracts, implicitly, as a reward for his considerable financial investment in the electoral fortunes of the then-opposition New Patriotic Party.

And in an even more specific tenor, A-Plus, the Hiplife musician and sometime NPP electioneering campaign propagandist, accused two Presidential Deputy Chiefs of Staff of being neck-deep mired in corrupt activities. A-Plus would also release a secretly recorded audiotape in which the Head of the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) and Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, was clearly heard corroborating the allegation by A-Plus, though the CID Chief appeared to be more interested in facilitating a climate of peace and amity among the ruling party’s operatives.

So far, and not any particularly surprisingly, the NPP is largely having to battle an internally generated perception of corruption, rather than any concrete evidence pointing towards a culture of rank corruption either within the party or at the party’s headquarters and the Akufo-Addo government at large. This is where President Akufo-Addo needs to promptly and firmly exert his control and oversight.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
October 29, 2017
E-mail: [email protected]