Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
Folks, you must have noticed by now that despite all the buzz about Kwasi Nyantakyi’s fall from grace to grass and his incriminating claims involving Team Akufo-Addo, I have been taciturn, not because I am not interested in happenings but because I have chosen to monitor them till now. I have gathered enough and pulled meaning out of discussions to [ads1]know what is what.
It is now time to pool all together to make my voice heard.
Nyantakyi has set the ball rolling for us to know how dishonest those in power are, especially when it comes to what they say they will do and what they actually do in the effort to solve Ghana’s problems of underdevelopment.
Although his example isn’t the only one to have entered public discourse, it stands out as monumental because of the political era in which it has occurred and been exposed. It’s all happening under the watch of Akufo-Addo, a self-acclaimed incorruptible politician who claims to be in a hurry to solve Ghana’s problems. Huh!!
Nyantakyi has proved him wrong and re-set the clock. How this matter is handled will go a long way to prove to Ghanaians what Akufo-Addo’s search for political power over the past 40 years entails. So far, his government hasn’t introduced anything drastically new or far removed from what has happened in Ghana without moving the country out of the woods. What is new under Akufo-Addo remains a big question, to which Nyantakyi has added more.
Akufo-Addo shouldn’t attempt cutting corners in dealing with this problem because of the dire implications. He has, however, already set things up to go that way, which raises eyebrows all the more. By rushing to set the CID on Nyantakyi just after being privileged to watch a clip of the Anas video, he might have felt justified that he had set things in motion to confirm his resolve to fight corruption.
The indecent haste with which the CID charged Nyantakyi with the crime of “defrauding by false pretences,” even when they had completed their investigation into the lot that the Anas recording captured, made me wonder why Akufo-Addo would be leaping before stopping to look and listen. Why the haste?
To dissociate himself and his henchmen cited in the recording from Nyantakyi’s incriminating claims? To insulate himself and his team? Or to create the impression that Nyantakyi was lying and that he (Akufo-Addo) was still incorruptible? Too many nagging questions!
Beyond it all comes the father of all the niggles. It is no secret that Nyantakyi has been in the good books of Akufo-Addo all these years as a staunch supporter and financier of his (Akufo-Addo’s) quest for political power. All the interactions with Nyantakyi before and after Election 2016 are available in documents. In truth, both have been “palls” all these years. When Akufo-Addo won the elections, Nyantakyi was among the first group of well-wishers and able financiers that he interacted with.
Now that Nyantakyi is in the throes, a number of questions arise:
1. When Nyantakyi was financing his quest, did Akufo-Addo ever pause to wonder or to question the source of the funds he was dishing out? (And Nyantakyi donated sums of money far above his annual salary).
2. Did Akufo-Addo not know that Nyantakyi was a public servant on fixed salary who couldn’t have earned so much from which to take the quantum that he doled out to support his electioneering campaign efforts?
3. Did Akufo-Addo pause to wonder how Nyantakyi could have come by that money, knowing very well that he didn’t gather it from any fund-raising programme to that effect?
4. Did Akufo-Addo question Nyantakyi about the source of the donations? If he didn’t, why not? Because he had no doubt about how he came by the funds?
If he didn’t doubt the source of the funds at that time, now has come the big mind-blowing revelation. Nyantakyi raised the funds from corrupt deeds!!
Rushing to push him into the tight corner and wash his hands off the matter won’t solve the credibility problem for Akufo-Addo. Neither will it help salve his conscience. This Nyantakyi episode is the real beginning of the end that will torment Akufo-Addo out of reckoning. He shouldn’t deceive himself that the matter will “die” soon or that manipulating the situation and tickling Nyantakyi to take full responsibility for it will dim the light. It won’t.
Now, to Nyantakyi himself, who is everyday emerging as an unrepentant but foolish NPP buff who failed to read between the lines before putting all his eggs in one basket. Whether he was driven by some senseless over-zealousness to see the NPP in power or not, he over-reached himself and should be ready for the nasty consequences. Now that he has been left to his fate by those he had helped put in power, he must be the first to begin counting his loss.
From the way he has begun blurting out, I am tempted to see him as so doomed as not to have any hope of recovery or redemption. He has lost everything as far as sports administration and his status worldwide are concerned. No more room for him in the GFA, the CAF, and FIFA. So, back to the bottomless pit as far as his career is concerned.
I hear he is a lawyer (that is, if he is in good standing on the list of lawyers recognized by the Ghana Bar Association). Here too, doom looms for him. Will the GBA accept him as blackened by his own greed and indiscretion?
Even, granted that he is a lawyer, the manner in which he is talking all over the place, apologizing for wrong-doing yet seeing himself as not guilty—and everything else that he has said so far about his deep involvement in the sordidness captured by the Anas recording—casts serious doubts on his integrity. He is already stuck in a hole that he is further digging to push himself all the more into the abyss. Which lawyer of essence will do things this way to leave traces to be used against him during trial?
Here is what I foresee. This matter won’t end today or tomorrow for as long as the deep public interest in it remains. It is so because apart from all the scandals on corruption bedeviling this Akufo-Addo government, it is the most eye-popping, which has spread across the globe (especially with the active broadcast/telecasting done by the BBC). For all that it entails, it has quickly overshadowed its predecessors and will remain topical long after Election 2020.
In addition, it is the most far-reaching scandal verging on corruption that features Akufo-Addo and his Vice, not to mention other government functionaries. And from the way Nyantakyi presented issues, it is difficult not to conclude that he knew what he was up to. He spoke with so much confidence to suggest that he has been in the good books of all those he mentioned as targets to corrupt. And the deals that he cited aren’t imaginary.
Everything points to the fact that Nyantakyi really has his grips on the pecking order in government and how to manipulate the situation. He knows the contours of the corridors of power and how to navigate them in doing the deals. No doubt about that.
But Nyantakyi will be the most stupid person on earth not to know how he has been cornered now to be presented to the world as Akufo-Addo’s sacrificial lamb in his so-called anti-corruption bunkum. So much has emerged at this early stage in the cornering of Nyantakyi to prove that he has already been denied by Akufo-Addo and Co. In effect, he will die alone.
Given this frightening picture, why would Nyantakyi deceive himself that he could salvage his image and emerge from the gallows unscathed? Granted that the weaknesses in our legal system can be manipulated to “save” him, it is impossible for him to regain his lost glory.
Thus, he must be the first to know how to play his cards unless he is willing to go down the drain alone. So beleaguered, he had better plan how to open up to bare everything so those equally soiled will bear the brunt too. Only if he wants to go it alone will he do otherwise.
No matter what happens, the writing is clear on the wall that Akufo-Addo is in real crisis as far as his public image is concerned just because Nyantakyi has put him on the spot. Ghanaians went for him on the basis of his stentorian boast to eradicate corruption from Ghana. What has emerged thus far paints a different picture. That is why Akufo-Addo has an uphill task to do. The nightmare for him is daunting. Nyantakyi must have woken him up, but it is a terrible wake-up call so early in his tenure.
I shall return…
