You Are the Personification of Free-for-All Corruption, Haruna Iddrisu

It may be far from perfect, as, indeed, no government constituted by humans, especially Ghanaian humans, may be expected to be. But there is something wickedly ironic and downright annoying about the call by the National Democratic Congress’ Parliamentary Minority Leader, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, for President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to drastically reduce his 111-member cabinet and “immediately present [the nation with] new policies that will alleviate the hardships Ghanaians have been subjected to since Nana Akufo-Addo assumed the presidency” (See “End the Free-for-All Corruption that Has Engulfed Your Gov’t – Minority to Akufo-Addo” Modernghana.com 1/2/19).

The fact of the matter is that the putatively grossly incompetent John Dramani Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in which Mr. Iddrisu served as the Labor and Employment Minister, fielded a cabinet whose membership was nearly twice the size of the Akufo-Addo cabinet, when one takes serious account of the fact that nearly each and every one of the Mahama cabinet appointees drew home a double salary. In sum, the NDC’s MP for Tamale-South, in the Northern Region, has absolutely no moral or legal authority to presume to lecture President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on what constitutes fiscal responsibility and discipline and the imperative need to drastically curtail bribery and corruption in government.

It is also interesting and significant to highlight the fact that Mr. Iddrisu was one of the Mahama cabinet appointees caught, pants down, drawing a double salary. Indeed, if he had any remarkable sense of moral responsibility, the infamous University of Ghana plagiarist – who had his Master of Sociology Degree summarily withdrawn by UG’s Academic Council – would have since long resigned his post as the Parliamentary Minority Leader and quietly renounced his Tamale-South parliamentary seat. We must also pointedly observe that in the wake of him being caught for criminally drawing a double salary, rather than boldly and courageously facing the sacred music of justice, Mr. Iddrisu, his tail tucked in-between his legs, resorted to crying hysterically like a baby before a newly elected President Akufo-Addo and, some have even alleged, The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, to save himself and his thieving cronies from being held legally accountable for such flagrant act of criminality. If he doesn’t already know this, this is fundamentally what the sort of corruption he is alluding to is incontrovertibly about. The man simply has absolutely no credibility whatsoever.

Indeed, if the likes of Mr. Iddrisu wanted Ghanaians to be economically comfortable, he would not have colluded with his former boss to thievishly empty out the vaults of several banks in country, by either directly participating in or gaily supervising money-laundering activities in the country. On the latter count, we solemnly call on Mr. Martin Amidu, the Independent Special Public Prosecutor, Attorney-General Gloria Akuffo and President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to swiftly bring down the prosecutorial sledge-hammer to ensure that pathologically unconscionable and self-righteous thieves like the Parliamentary Minority Leader do not literally get away with murder.

Mr. Iddrisu and his partners and collusive robber-barons should also eschew the invidious and lurid politics of familial envy and stop pretending as if the political and cultural history of postcolonial Ghana belongs to any one political party’s group of dogmatic and fanatical ideologues. Yes, we intend to right all the wrongs that have been done to our beloved nation’s history by yesteryear’s Johnnies-just-come-lately who would have the rest of us corrupt our consciences and criminally distort the truth of our history and heritage, and fatuously pretend as if Ghana’s historical struggles and achievements were the bona fide property of just one leader who also had peremptory rights and copyright over how our most eminent and erudite scholars, political and social scientists interpreted the postcolonial history of Ghana.

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

E-mail: [email protected]

Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs