Critique IV: You failed to teach good governance – Amidu blasts Ahwoi

The special prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has said the author of ‘Working with Rawlings’ failed to teach present and future leaders the skills of good governance.

In his latest critique of the book, Mr. Amidu said Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi fabricated data to embellish his book, which goes contrary to scholarly writings.

“The foregoing exposition, and critical analysis of Kwamena Ahwoi’s Working with Rawlings has demonstrated that the author failed woefully in his avowed purpose of writing a scholarly work to teach present and future leaders the skills of good governance and human relation as a leadership trait. I have also demonstrated so far that ethical scholars “….do not fabricate data or falsify results in their publications” (See Publication Manual of the American psychological Association, Fourth Edition, 1998, which is a classic for most scholars of other disciplines as well).

“This critique has further demonstrated that after reading, reviewing and editing such crass betrayal of trust to our motherland Ghana by the author then acting as a public officer, Professor Emerita, (Mrs.) Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, PhD/FGA had the pretense of courage of integrity and honesty of judgment to adjudge Kwamena Ahwoi’s Working with Rawlings publishable to teach present and future leaders in Ghana leadership skills. Well, “birds of identical plumage congregate within the same proximity”, or so the saying goes. God bless our homeland Ghana and keep our nation from such scholars and leaders! Amen, Amen, and Amen! I pray. Stay with me. I will be back. Ghana First!” the former attorney general stated.

Below is the full critique:

Kwamena Ahwoi’s Working with Rawlings – Amidu’s critique IV – The sequel!

I present hereunder the sequel to my fourth critique to Kwamena Ahwoi’s Working with Rawlings. I stated in the post scriptum to that critique that the sequel was ready for publication, within the next few days, dealing with the author’s narrative on “Operation hawk” and “The Soussoudis Affair” to exhaust the theme of the fourth critique. It continues to unearth the author’s narrative demonstrating unethical scholarly conduct, nepotism and cronyism which negate the author’s avowed purpose of writing the book to teach good leadership skills and “the importance of human relationship as a leadership trait.”

“Operation hawk”

The author tells the reader that ‘Operation Hawk” was the name given by his Office to a nation-wide investigation to stamp out economic saboteurs which brought out shocking revelations. The author alleges that nearly 1,800 public officials were ensnared only half-way through the investigation. The author as Coordinator of the investigation decided at that stage to take the findings to Chairman Rawlings and briefed him and the PNDC about what his investigation had discovered, the threat it posed to the entire public service and his recommendations in respect of what his Office had found. The reader is never told what those recommendations were but is suddenly informed that Chairman Rawlings listened and queried the author whether his brief meant that “we risk destroying the entire public service?” The author answered in the positive leading Chairman Rawlings to say: “In that case we have to end it.” Chairman Rawlings is said to have told the author to use “the information you have gathered together with the recommendations (which the PNDC approved)…naming and shaming the culprits and let us see the effect it will have.”

The author purports to quote verbatim the words of Chairman Rawlings without telling the reader whether he spoke those words in a face to face interaction with Chairman Rawlings alone or at the PNDC meeting to present the findings and recommendations of the investigation. Were the words recorded or written down while Chairman Rawlings was speaking? Are they part of contemporaneous notes made by the author immediately after the meeting as part of the official records? Did the PNDC approve the recommendations of the investigation before the author held the quoted conversation with Chairman Rawlings? The words in brackets in the response of Chairman Rawlings “(which the PNDC approved)” suggests that the author’s reported verbatim quotation implied that he met Chairman Rawlings after the PNDC had approved the unrevealed recommendations. If Chairman Rawlings did not say the words “(which the PNDC approved)” but were inserted by the author, then the author has misrepresented the discussions. It is absurd, is it not, for a speaker to bracket some phrases in his speech.

I have belaboured this verbal conversation quoted by the author because a content analysis of his narrative shows that the author’s investigation and the recommendations were either deliberated upon and approved at a PNDC meeting or the outcome was a unilateral decision and approval of Chairman Rawlings and the author alone after a PNDC meeting. Unfortunately, the narrative of the author strains to saddle Chairman Rawlings alone with responsibility for the outcome not to continue with the PNDC’s own revolutionary policy of dealing with and rooting out corruption and economic crime.

I have stated already that I had the privilege of sitting in PNDC meetings as Chairman of the Public Agreements Board and to have at most times combined that with representing the Attorney-General at such meetings. Chairman Rawlings has never overruled decisions of the PNDC meeting at which he was present after the meeting. I have witnessed him asking for a matter to be deferred for the supply of further and better particulars before a final decision. The Elkon-SIC agreement I have already dealt with previously, was one such notorious issue he asked to be re-tabled for thorough discussion before a decision was made.

Clearly, if there was a decision to stop the investigation, it must have arisen from the report and strong recommendations of the author’s investigation to stop it. The case of the execution of Boham by firing squad where the author admits he marshalled support to speak to Chairman Rawlings shows a modus operandi of the author to get his way with Chairman Rawlings who depended on him for what the Chairman believed was “professional legal advice” anytime the author felt strongly about a point.

The author’s narrative is not in consonance with Chairman Rawlings’ indisputable character to fight corruption and economic crimes since his appearance on the Ghanaian political scene and particularly during the PNDC. I was yanked from my position as PNDC Deputy Secretary for Volta Region to head investigations into graft and other misconduct and know how passionate Chairman Rawlings was and is about fighting graft. But Chairman Rawlings is known to accept majority decisions which he uses to explain his point of view when the majority decision proves to have been made in error in the implementation. Chairman Rawlings is not known to act unilaterally as narrated by the author on such important matters underpinning the justification for the existence of the PNDC itself.

We moved from the PNDC to constitutional rule for more than twenty-five years now and adult readers who lived that period know the persons from the PNDC era who because of possible skeletons in their cupboards feared and still fear the investigation and prosecutions of white collar crime and corruption and corruption-related offences. Chairman Rawlings has never wavered from the anti-corruption and economic crime struggle in spite of unprovable allegations by his detractors. Be that as it may, the ambiguous narrative by the author who has always sought to redeem his guilt by victimizing Chairman Rawlings vengefully was intended to feed into the unfounded allegations of his detractors. The author has fortunately by his own confessions in his book admitted to now being one of the detractors. The most grievous unethical sin of any scholar is to fabricate data to achieve self-serving results in any qualitative work.

Ghana versus the USA in International Espionage: “The Soussoudis Affair”

This narrative deals with public international law and international relations between the United States of America and Ghana. It is written by someone who prides himself in having served the PNDC as Coordinator of CORCIT, and later as Minister of Local Government, acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, and held other positions involving keeping confidentialities and official secrets under President Rawlings Governments. In the author’s own preface to his book under his signature as “Professor Kwamena Ahwoi” he states that: “But there are many other experiences which I have not documented either because they belong to the realm of confidentiality or the privacy…” This is an author, as demonstrated several times in previous critiques of this book, who says one thing and immediately contradicting himself by doing precisely the opposite as I will soon show again in his narrative on “The Soussoudis Affair” which was strictly a Government to Government confidential affair.

The subject of the author’s narrative touches on matters of international relationship based on trust, confidentiality and secrecy between states. The exchanges between the two nations were held based on mutual trust and confidence and specifically included in the author’s own words (I do not know whether he was quoting them) the following: “The agreement was to be kept confidential and could only be disclosed by either party with the consent of the other.” The author himself states that he never had the consent of the United States Government or the Ghana Government to disclose the content of the negotiations and confidential agreement in his book. The author who holds himself out as a Professor of law and a former acting Minister of Foreign Affairs knew that his request for a waiver should have been directed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ghana to seek the consent of the United States Government through the State Department of the USA. A Press Attache of the US Embassy who was not part of the negotiations (or even if he part took in it) had no authority to give a waiver to the author. The National Reconciliation Commission also gave the author permission to request for an in-camera hearing, meaning those proceedings were not be made public. The author opted for the in-camera hearing and the details of proceedings have never been made public by the Commission. That should have ended the matter and for the maintenance of the confidentiality of the agreement by any scholar with integrity and ethics.

The narrative about “The Soussoudis Affair” confirms the conclusions and assertions contained in my previous critique in which I asserted that Kwamena Ahwoi, the author, has no respect for confidential affairs of state or the privacy of anybody as long as breaching those ethical standards would net him what he longs for in life – selling his Working with Rawlings for profit no matter who he dehumanizes, victimizes and reaps vindictive revenge upon as his perceived opponent. President Kufuor had his share, Chairman/President Rawlings had his share on “Stop the Executions” and Autrefois. I had my share in excitedly swallowing an imaginary bait thrown at me by his friend Kofi Totobi-Quakye and him.

The most learned Professor and Sir Cecil John Rhodes scholar, and former acting Minister of Foreign Affairs breaches confidential international agreements with impunity. In his own words he had been looking for an opening to do so and “Mr. Queen’s intervention and the Embassy’s silence provided the opening I had been looking for. I considered the confidential clause in the agreement to have been rendered null and void.” I can imagine the poor, not too fat, but learned Oxford Cleric in “The Prologue” to Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” wishing to protest against such a banal level of logical reasoning in a book written by an Oxford Rhodes scholar intended for public consumption.

It must be amazing for any averagely educated person with common sense not to know that the content of the confidential agreement the author was disclosing was between the two Governments and not the individuals who were acting on behalf of their Governments. The author failed to tell his reader when he became the Government of Ghana to declare a confidential clause in the agreement between Ghana and the United States null and void. No person properly enrolled on the roll of lawyers anywhere in the world would have made such childlike assumptions about how such a binding agreement could have been rendered null and void.

A critical analysis of the author’s modus operandi in asserting his importance in his relationship with and in the Rawlings Governments will disclose that the author knowingly and deliberately breached the confidentiality of the Government to Government agreement to let Ghanaians know the supposedly critical and indispensable role the most intelligent Kwamena Ahwoi as usual played in the negotiations without which the whole enterprise would have failed. As my previous critiques have endaevoured to highlight Kwamena Ahwoi’s infected figment of his imagination leads him to think that the PNDC would have ceased to exist and the 1992 Constitution would not have been promulgated without him or upon his demise. I can only say along with the doctor in Macbeth that: “God,….Look after her. Remove from her the means of all annoyance. And still keep eyes upon her…I think, but dare not speak.”

A critical content analysis of the author’s narrative and the story about Abel Edusei, a very good friend of the author’s brother, Ato Ahwoi, and the author’s own friend who flatly denied that he was a CIA “asset” and that of Major John Kwaku Awuakye (Rtd.) discloses how unfit the author was as a public officer representing the interest of the Government of Ghana under the PNDC Government in the negotiations with the Americans. The author, an accredited representative of the PNDC Government on an official assignment engaged in a conversation with Abel Edusei who happened to be the author’s friend and his elder brother’s friend who denied being a CIA “asset” but sought advice from the author on whether or not the innocent suspect should accept the USA offer because he thought the author’s principal, Chairman Rawlings did not like him. The author believed the denial by Abel Edusei that he was not a CIA “asset” but instead of performing his duty to the state by initiating the official process of removing his friend, Mr. Edusei’s name from the list of CIA ‘assets’ our ethical public officer and now ethical scholar and author advised Mr. Edusei to discuss the matter with his lawyer. The next day Mr. Abel Edusei, the suspect, told the author that he had decided to accept the offer as the surest way to regain his freedom. What offer was there for Mr. Edusei to accept when the author as a Ghana Government official had established beyond every doubt that Mr. Edusei was not a CIA ‘asset’ and in similar circumstances he had officially declined others the chance of being classified as CIA ‘assets’?

The enterprise between the USA Government and the Government of Ghana was to exchange “assets” not innocent people. The author was entrusted with agency by the Government of Ghana to ensure that only assets were exchanged. The author allowed his personal friendship and that of his brother Ato Ahwoi with Abel Edusei to influence his judgment and to cause an innocent Ghanaian to be de-nationalized as a CIA “asset”. Mr. Abel Edusei would not have been treated as a CIA “asset” which he was not, had the author performed his duty based on his loyalty as a public officer to the PNDC and the Government of Ghana. The matter of the unconstitutionality of the deprivation of Mr. Abel Edusei and others of their fundamental rights by being de-nationalized by their own Government came up for adjudication before the Supreme Court in Edusei v Attorney General [1996-1997] SCGLR 1 while the author was still a Minister of Local Government and Rural Development. The author refused or failed to share with the Attorney General’s Office his disgraceful complicity in de-nationalizing Mr. Abel Edusei the first plaintiff in the case which he now narrates in his book as a hallmark of ethical scholarship and integrity. The financial loss caused to Ghana in defending that case would have been conserved in the public purse.

The author’s narrative on how he connived at Mr. Abel Edusei being treated as a CIA ‘asset’ when he knew that Mr. Edusei was not one, throws every doubt on the author’s denial of the allegations leveled against him by Major John Kwaku Awuakye (Rtd.) that the author de-nationalized him in abuse of power. The author admits that when the author told Major Awuakye about the USA offer and the circumstances of the offer, Major Awuakye was ecstatic, especially when he learnt of the possibility of his wife and children joining him later. The author tells the reader that Major Awuakye told him that he had not made any post retirement plans and that the offer presented him an excellent opportunity for him to re-start and re-build his life. Commonsense would have told any loyal official of the Government that Major Awuakye was not a CIA “asset: but a desperate retiree who was looking for a better future abroad because he had not made any plans for his retirement. The author does not appear to have reported to his principals Major Awuakye’s confession that he was not a CIA “asset’ but a person excited about an opportunity to re-start and re-build his life. The author in failing or refusing to report his assessment of Major Awuakye’s motives for accepting to be a CIA ‘asset” facilitated his “denationalization” and the author cannot be heard complaining about Major Awuakye’s understanding of the role he played in his departure when his sojourn abroad did not yield the anticipated results.

I have already disclosed to the reader that I am a professional donkey legal practitioner enrolled on roll of lawyers in Ghana on 17th November 1978 with number 1373. (I had accidentally slipped and written 11th November 1978 in my second critique of the book). I am not an academic, intellectual or scholar of any hue. I was elevated in rank of enrolment by warrant of appointment to Deputy Attorney General in October 1988. I determined to prove by my usual donkey exertion beyond every reasonable doubt that the Rhodes Scholar, Professor Kwamena Ahwoi, Chief Justice of the judicial and quasi-judicial organs of the revolution, PNDC Secretary for Local Government and Rural Development, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and what have you, fabricated the data and/or falsified the results of his qualitative data collection in his narrative on “The Soussoudis Affair” to wantonly breach a confidential and secret international agreement between the Government of the USA and the Government of Ghana.

Kwamena Ahwoi gave me the clue by mentioning his in-camera appearance before the National Reconciliation Commission. I went researching for the report of the Commission. The report of the National Reconciliation Commission, Volume 2 Chapter 7, October, 2004, Review of Petitions at page 117, paragraphs 7.10.16 to 7.10.16.2 demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that the confidential and secret agreement between the USA and Ghana was not an issue for public disclosure and was not a subject of the report against the author personally. Professor Kwamena Ahwoi must have had this report at his disposal when he wrote his “Working with Rawlings, (2020)” since he gave an in-camera evidence on this matter. I quote in full hereunder

the relevant portion of the Commission’s review at page 117 for even the most biased reader of this critique to judge for himself whether I am being offensive in calling Kwamena Ahwoi’s narratives in the book the greatest irredeemable lies of all time:

“7.10.16 John Kwaku Awuakye, a Major in the Ghana Army, was honourably released from the Armed Forces with effect from 29th October, 1985. On 21st November, 1985, he was summoned to the Police Headquarters where Kwamena Ahwoi, an official of the PNDC, told him that he and others were to be exchanged for Michael Soussoudis, a Ghanaian government agent who had been arrested on espionage charges in the United States. Awuakye’s passport was seized and he was deported to the United States two days later.

7.10.16.1 On 25th November, 1985 Awuakye’s honourable release was replaced with a release for ‘misconduct’ by letter No. MOD/18045/MS and ‘CIA agent’ written across the face of his personal file. Since he filed this petition the Ministry of Defence have rectified the records by restoring Awuakye’s honourable release and awarding him pension. As to the deprivation of his nationality, this was an illegal act which goes against international conventions. It is a nullity and Awuakye may safely apply to the authorities for a new Ghanaian passport.

7.10.16.2 Kwamena Ahwoi appeared before the Commission to state the PNDC’s position on the matter.” (The underlined words are mine to emphasis the point that Major Awuakye was invited and de-nationalized almost one month after he retired from the Ghana Army).

A critical analysis of “The Soussoudis Affair” reveals that the only reason the author breached the confidentiality and state secrecy of this affair was to redeem the image of Ato Ahwoi’s friend and his own friend Mr. Abel Edusei as a CIA “asset” and to victimize Major Awuakye who had petitioned the Commission against being classified as a CIA “asset” because of the author’s disloyalty to his motherland in de-nationalizing Awuakye without making a full disclosure to the PNDC. How does one classify a professor of law, a self-acclaimed distinguished public officer, and a Rhodes scholar whose whole public service career is characterized in the book by confessions and admissions of nepotism and cronyism par excellence? And another crony of the author, Professor (Mrs.) Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman, PhD/FGA, Minister of Education under President John Dramani Mahama and Ghana’s first female Vice President of a public university wrote the foreword, reviewed and edited the author’s “Working with Rawlings” and adjudged it publishable as excellent for teaching leadership and good governance skills. This must indeed be an irredeemable unethical blot on any acceptable notion of being a scholar and a leader.

Conclusions

The foregoing exposition, and critical analysis of Kwamena Ahwoi’s Working with Rawlings has demonstrated that the author failed woefully in his avowed purpose of writing a scholarly work to teach present and future leaders the skills of good governance and human relation as a leadership trait. I have also demonstrated so far that ethical scholars “….do not fabricate data or falsify results in their publications” (See Publication Manual of the American psychological Association, Fourth Edition, 1998, which is a classic for most scholars of other disciplines as well). This critique has further demonstrated that after reading, reviewing and editing such crass betrayal of trust to our motherland Ghana by the author then acting as a public officer, Professor Emerita, (Mrs.) Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, PhD/FGA had the pretense of courage of integrity and honesty of judgment to adjudge Kwamena Ahwoi’s Working with Rawlings publishable to teach present and future leaders in Ghana leadership skills. Well, “birds of identical plumage congregate within the same proximity”, or so the saying goes. God bless our homeland Ghana and keep our nation from such scholars and leaders! Amen, Amen, and Amen! I pray. Stay with me. I will be back. Ghana First!

By Martin A.B.K. Amidu