‘Mahama is right to call Martin Amidu a coward’ – Adom-Otchere

Paul Adom-Otchere, the host of Good Evening Ghana (GEG) on Metro Television, has agreed with former President John Dramani Mahama that Martin Amidu, the Special Prosecutor is “a coward”.

On his GEG show on Thursday, Adom-Otchere stated: “Honourable Martin Amidu, your mandate is to proceed with further investigation, invite whoever it is. You can’t come and say in an official report that I found that President Mahama is Government Official One but I don’t want to prosecute him because he is running for office as NDC flagbearer. What does that mean?”

Martin Amidu, in presenting his “Corruption Risk Assessment” on the Agyapa Royalties fraudulent agreement, which is now to be re-submitted to Parliament, named John Mahama as the “Government Official 1” in the Airbus Scandal.

“The only reason the former President [Mahama] has not been invited for interrogation (in spite of all threats from some of his followers and lawyers) is the fact that he got himself an insurance as the Presidential candidate of the other largest political party in Ghana," Amidu wrote to President Akufo-Addo in October.

Amidu argued that "prudence dictated that the interrogation be held in abeyance during this election season.”

Many pundits have said that matter was unrelated to Agyapa and should not have been in the “Corruption Risk Assessment” on the Agyapa Royalties.

Former president John Mahama, has since described Amidu’s purported prudence as “stupidity”.

Mahama said on Wednesday November 4, at a party event at Legon: “Amidu goes and presents Agyapa investigations and I thought he was a man enough. They say, investigate Agyapa, so present a report on Agyapa…...But because he is a coward and they knew Agyapa was going to be discussed today, he put a paragraph on Airbus to equalize the discussion. What stupidity is this?”

Paul Adom-Otchere agrees with Mahama.

On Thursday’s GEG show, Paul Adom-Otchere explained that when the Special Prosecutor is conducting an investigation into a scandal, he cannot claim that he is the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), which is a fact-finding body or the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO): the SP should be “looking for a prosecutable offense”.

Adom-Otchere indicated that when Martin Amidu comes to tell Ghanaians that he has found out that former President Mahama is “Government Official One” but because he is a leader of a political party and going into a major election, he Mahama cannot be prosecuted, “we don’t understand it”.

Adom-Otchere explained, “…if you have found something, you have to prosecute. What is Martin Amidu talking about…He doesn’t have the mandate of his own…...How then does he say that I have conducted an investigation, I have found that President Mahama is Government Official One, but because he is a leader of a political party, I’ll not prosecute him. Martin Amidu should not be able to say that. In fact, in saying so, he is risking the continuation of his own office.”