Is Asiedu-Nketia Clinically Sane?

In the wake of his nomination by President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo as Independent Special Prosecutor, the General-Secretary of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, said that the key operatives of the NDC, the party of which Mr. Martin Amidu, the nominee, is a founding member, cannot extend any gesture of felicitations because the Flagstaff House had not consulted with the leaders of the National Democratic Congress before naming Mr. Amidu to the post of Special Prosecutor.

Well, if he is not worthy of being congratulated for having creditably acquitted himself respectably enough to be recognized and acclaimed by Ghanaian citizens across the ideological and political spectrum, and for being nominated as a Special Prosecutor, then why should it matter whether Mr. Amidu retains his membership of the National Democratic Congress or not? (See “Martin Amidu Is Still NDC Member – Asiedu-Nketia Discloses” GhanaCrusader.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/18/18).

It may be recalled that several days in the wake of his nomination as Independent Special Prosecutor, it was widely reported, including a banner headline on Ghanaweb.com, that the fired Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in the Atta-Mills government had resigned his membership of the National Democratic Congress. Now, Mr. Asiedu-Nketia insists that Mr. Amidu has not resigned from the NDC because party headquarters has not received any official notification in the form of a resignation letter from the nominee.

That may very well be the case. But what is even more absurd is to hear the man popularly called General Mosquito analogically, albeit paradoxically, argue that since Attorney-General Gloria Akuffo had not had to resign her membership of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the wake of her nomination to her present post, it stands to reason for Mr. Amidu to also retain his card-carrying membership of the National Democratic Congress. What is patently remiss and absurd with such trend of thinking is that no executive operative of the NPP had flatly refused to congratulate Ms. Akuffo on grounds that her appointment had been deliberately orchestrated to witch-hunt elements of the tandem Mills-Mahama regime with whom a dismissed Attorney-General Amidu may have had an axe to grind.

You see, the likes of Messrs. Asiedu-Nketia and Kofi Adams cannot have their proverbial cake and eat it as well. Denying Mr. Amidu the mere gestural formality of a congratulatory note or message, clearly means that the validity of the membership of the Special Prosecutor-Designate is not recognized by the leadership of the National Democratic Congress. At best, Mr. Amidu’s membership of the NDC is moot or disputable. It also clearly implies that unbeknownst to the nominee, Mr. Amidu has long ceased to be recognized as a bona fide member of the NDC. Consequently, whether the former Atta-Mills running-mate officially decides to write and dispatch a letter of resignation from the Rawlings-founded faux-revolutionary party will not matter one way or another.

There is also no evidence that the party or the erstwhile Mahama regime ever reached out to Mr. Amidu in any substantive shape or form. Indeed, attempting to preempt the professional credibility of the Special Prosecutor-Designate, shortly after his nomination by President Akufo-Addo, as Messrs. Asiedu-Nketia and Adams tried to do, immediately and effectively put the nominee on hostile notice and in hostile territory. And so attempting to backtrack after the fact only exposes these NDC machine operatives for the self-serving cynics that they clearly are. And so, in reality, whether, indeed, Mr. Amidu is still a member of the NDC or not is highly unlikely to influence the work of the Special Prosecutor-Designate one way or another.

One only hopes that the man will acquit himself creditably at his new post in a way that he never got the chance to do under the late President John Evans Atta-Mills.

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