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Open Your Eyes, Mister!

Feature Article Open Your Eyes, Mister!
SEP 2, 2019 LISTEN

Had he been studiously following events on the Ghanaian political terrain over the past 28 years, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, of the IMANI-Africa think-tank, would have since long noticed that of all the five Presidents who have occupied Mr. Kofi Antubam’s State Chair, it is Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who has made the sincerest effort to seriously fight official crime and corruption in the country. Indeed, any former Mahama executive operative, including Mr. Abuga Pele and his scam-artist crony, who was ever prosecuted and jailed was so punished by law-enforcement operatives of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and not by operatives of the John Dramani Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress.

So, it is not the least bit accurate for Mr. Cudjoe to cynically claim that the level of corruption in the country under the watch of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is worse than it had been under the free-fall regime of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (See “Public Theft Far Worse under Akufo-Addo than under Mahama – Franklin Cudjoe” AbcNewsGh.com / Ghanaweb.com 9/1/19). You see, the difference in official or presidential attitude towards official theft or corruption in the country is that under the previous Mahama regime, official theft and corruption were the acceptable norm. Thus, Ghanaians were kept in the dark about the double-salary drawing by the overwhelming majority of the members of the Mahama cabinet, until the auspicious and progressive accession of Ghana’s former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, nearly two years into Nana Akufo-Addo’s first term in office, as accurately predicted by Mr. Martin ABK Amidu, the current Independent Special Public Prosecutor, before the Mahama robber-barons could be officially exposed.

There is, of course, the erroneous public perception that the spate of crime in the country has gone sharply higher up under the watch of Nana Akufo-Addo than under the do-nothing, see-nothing regime of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress. It is an erroneous perception because it is primarily based on the fact that more corrupt executive operatives are being exposed at a lightning pace of rapidity than it ever occurred under the watch of any Fourth-Republican leader, including former President Jerry John Rawlings, the NDC’s acclaimed Founding-Father who, by the way, has incessantly and publicly and adamantly insisted that former President John Dramani Mahama is the most corrupt leader in postcolonial Ghanaian history.

By all indicators, there can be absolutely no gainsaying that under the watch of President Akufo-Addo, Ghanaians are literally enjoying what may be aptly called the Golden Age of the country’s postcolonial history. Under the Presidency of the New Patriotic Party’s leadership, beginning with the former President John Agyekum-Kufuor, Ghana’s economy has exponentially expanded, more industries have sprung up across the length and breadth of the country; there is more foreign investment and the establishment of automobile assembling and manufacturing plants. The forced resignation of the Chief Executive Officer of the National Youth Authority by the Presidency is definitely a sure sign of the crime-fighting vigilance of the Akufo-Addo Presidency.

As well, the recent swift suspension of the CEO of the Public Procurement Authority is an optimistic sign that, finally, there is an adult-somebody in charge of the public wallet and the affairs of the country.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
September 1, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]

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