On the Run: Since When Did President Mahama Become an Advocate for Martin Amidu?

To hear former President John Dramani Mahama bitterly complain about Mr. Martin ABK Amidu’s not being adequately funded to carry out his job of Independent Special Public Prosecutor, by the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), to the conferees at the 9^th Delegates’ Congress of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Accra last Saturday, November 17, was nothing short of the superbly farcical (See “Akufo-Addo Has Refused to Fight Corruption Despite the Swelling [sic] Stench Around His Administration” 3News.com / Ghanaweb.com 11/17/18). The fact of the matter is that right from the get-go, several former key operatives of the Mahama Administration, led by former Deputy Attorney-General and Deputy Minister of Justice Dr. Dominic Ayine, have fiercely resisted the much celebrated and universally lauded appointment of Mr. Martin Amidu, himself a bona fide member of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress and fired former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice under the irreparably corruption-wracked regime of the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, of which Mr. Mahama was the Vice-President.

The main grievance of his NDC ideological detractors is that the man who is popularly known as “The Citizen Vigilante” would prosecute any of these key Mahama operatives who may be brought before the Independent Special Public Prosecutor. Interestingly, when Dr. Ayine, whose rather gratuitous attempt to have Mr. Amidu, a fellow Upper-East regional Frafra tribesman, preemptively disqualified realized that his patently ill-conceived strategy did not seem to fly in the face of judicial scrutiny, the plaintiff decided to have Mr. Amidu’s appointment summarily withdrawn on grounds that the Special Prosecutor-Designate was at least some two years past the official retirement age of 65 years for the average Ghanaian civil servant. The problem here, though, was that the appointee was not an average Ghanaian civil servant. It would not be until Mr. Amidu publicly pledged that he would be more sedulously and meticulously focused on retrieving stolen monies and properties belonging to the State, rather than vindictively having culprits put in the slammer, that the virulent protestations of the NDC operatives simmered down somewhat.

It is also ironic because had he been any remarkably interested in the integrity, image, reputation and professional fortunes of Mr. Amidu, immediately after he had been confirmed as the substantive President of the Democratic Republic of Ghana, in the wake of the “mysterious” death of President Mills, the then-Interim President Mahama would have promptly invited the fired and publicly humiliated former Attorney-General and sometime presidential-election running-mate of then-Candidate Mills into his cabinet. And on the latter score ought to be promptly recalled the fact that Mr. Amidu was summarily expelled from the Atta-Mills cabinet for adamantly refusing to back down on his dogged attempt to have Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, the globally infamous National Democratic Congress’ foremost financial underwriter or primary party sponsor, return the GHȻ 51.2 Million that he allegedly used false pretenses, albeit with the unreserved criminal complicity of some of the most highly placed NDC officials, to fleece the Ghanaian taxpayer of.

Indeed, as of this writing, only a diddly 8-percent, or so, of the aforesaid pelf had been retrieved from Mr. Woyome by the Akufo-Addo-appointed Attorney-General Gloria Akuffo. It is also rather scandalous to recall the fact that shortly after he was named to replace his late boss, among the first items on his agenda or order of business, was for the then-Interim President Mahama to suavely and deviously attempt to use the coercive powers and apparatuses of the State to systematically harass and intimidate Mr. Amidu who, predictably, also wasted absolutely no time at all in promptly assuring the Mahama Posse that he was not the least bit agitated or afraid or jittery about dying for staunchly adhering to his moral and legal principles. And so it is rather insufferably obscene for Mr. Mahama to be pretending to have always been on the side of the Akufo-Addo-appointed Independent Special Public Prosecutor.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York
November 17, 2018
E-mail: [email protected]