Martin Amidu
Let me be quick to give some credit to the President of the Republic of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo,it is not easy to appoint your political opponent to any high position more or less a prosecutorial one.
So let us commend the President for that bravery, but Let’s look at the personality of Martin Amidu and the Special Prosecutor role he is being nominated to occupy if indeed he is fit to occupy that role.
I wont beat about the a bush anymore, straight forward question…
Did Martin Amidu try to attack former President Mills in his office, Physically or verbally?
If there is the remotest possibility that this indeed happened,then his appointment is a total disrespect to Presidency and the people of the Republic of Ghana.
The seat of Presidency is a seat of trust for the of Ghana, anybody occupying that seat today does not represent himself but the entire nation and any person who have occupied the seat before or will occupy it later.
That is not just it,we also saw Martin Amidu in the build to the 2016 elections attacking the NDC,former President Mahama and anyone associated with him.
He also made public declarations on a lot of cases which are now on public records.
Doesn’t that alone put him in a prejudicial position?
Or better still belittle the trust the people of Ghana may have in the office of the Special prosecutor?
Now I have never heard about the competencies of Martin Amidu come into the arguments surrounding the jubilation of his appointment because that is the most important part of this discussion.
Mr. Amidu was the longest serving deputy AG and subsequently substantive AG, how many cases of corruption did he successfully prosecute and how does that attract public confidence in him in his new role?
Technically the Special prosecutor role is a deputy attorney general role *(Deputy Attorney General in charge of Prosecution of Corrupt government appointees)*.
But is the jubilation because Ghanaians are naturally vengeful and vindictive?
Is it the exploitation of the anger of a man against his own people to accomplish a mission that is highly treacherous?
If not why the jubilations?
Who jubilates when an Attorney General is appointed?
So why being overly ecstatic when someone who will derive his powers from an Attorney General is appointed?
Martin Amidu won’t have a court where he will sit in as a judge and pass his own judgement, he will work as a state prosecutor, investigate his cases, takes them to the AG for clearance, goto court to argue against lawyers who are more sterling, intelligent, experienced and well informed than himself and in front of a judge who is not biased and prove his case beyond reasonable doubt.
All this would also be done in the confines of rule of law and the upholdment of the fundamental human rights of every person accused of any wrong doing.
Even after this, the successful prosecution of a person by Mr. Amidu is not the final stage of the entire process, there other legal avenues both locally and internationally available to accused persons where they can still seek redress if they think the laws of the country haven’t dealt with them well or the processes leading to their conviction wasn’t entirely thorough and transparent.
So why do people think people are afraid of Mr. Amidu as a special prosecutor?
This notion exposes the rationale behind the appointment of Mr. Amidu which for me is a wrong premise to start on if indeed the special prosecutor office has come to stay.
We need to devoid the office of the special prosecutor off political sensationalism and focus on how we can improve on our fight against corruption.
Finally,why are we so focused on corruption prosecution as the only way to fight the corruption cancer,when we have a lot of preventive options available to us.
We can strengthen our state institutions, increase proper monitoring and evaluation, strengthen our internal checks and balance mechanisms, increase public education and sensitization,reduce human interface in transactions,clear all the hefty bureaucracies in our public service that has become a premise for corruption and also providing a regulatory framework to check officials in state institutions and track the rate of increase in their private assets whiles in office and after office and a host of other preventive options time would not allow us to talk about.
This backwards approach where we sit down for people to loot the state and then spend resources of the state to recruit a special prosecutor and on a prosecution process, convict the person into custodial sentence all at the expenses of the tax payer is very senseless in my estimation and there is nothing worth celebrating about this unless of course the Special prosecutor is going to work for free and there will be no costs to the state in the process of prosecution and conviction.
If People have an idea the challenges we have as a nation and how much we spend on the entire judicial and public prosecution process within a year maybe they won’t be jumping on the street to celebrate an additional cost to the tax payer.
Maybe our leaders haven’t thought of it this way, maybe it doesn’t favor them to adopt this preventive approach of fighting corruption, maybe they just enjoy playing with the minds of the people or just maybe we haven’t given them enough reason to do otherwise but I think it’s just about time we become very quick to react to these populist approaches of solving critical problems confronting our dear nation and just maybe they will sit up!
As always pleasure to have your audience
Mensah Thompson
Executive Secretary ASEPA