‘Martin Amidu must apologize to northerners’

The Kumasi based Concerned Youth for the North has taken a serious exception to what it describes as unrestrained comments by the former Attorney General, Martin Amidu, against northerners.

The group feels severely insulted and cursed by such pronouncements, which have the potency to create a long lasting hatred for northerners by people from other ethnic backgrounds. As result, the group has given Martin Larmesi Amidu a one week ultimatum to retract the said utterances and render an unqualified apology to all people of the northern extraction.

In a statement jointly signed by Mr. Clement C. Kegeri and Tolbert Atoya, President and Secretary respectively indicated that: “It is rather strange that the former Attorney General, who is expected by all standards to motivate and encourage his fellow northerners to strive for greater heights would rather resort to negative attacks and prediction of doom for the future of the northern youth, in his desperate attempt to shift the goal post, when Anas Amereyaw Anas challenged him to substantiate his frivolous allegations against the investigative journalist and his Tiger Eye firm”, the group noted.

According to the group, the position of the former minister explains his quest to demonstrate his deep bitterness and hatred for President John Dramani Mahama, who also comes from the northern part of Ghana.

Martin Amidu said on Saturday November 14, 2015, on Joy FM, to the effect that President Mahama does not listen to him and presides over a corrupt government. He said by the president’s performance, the country will not vote for a northerner as a president by the next 20 to 30 years.

The concerned youth of the North said this statement is not only a clear case of personal hatred against president Mahama by the former Attorney General, but also speaks volumes of a frustrated and vindictive man who consciously planned to curse the incoming generation of the north, probably due to the fact that somebody else from the north, apart from him, has climbed to the status of a president of the land.

“It is a clear case of a traitor wishing doom for his fellow northerners due to what could be termed as sheer envy and jealousy emanating from a self- seeking personality like Martin Amidu”, they noted.

The group further reminded Mr. Amidu that people from the north are not only perceived as incorruptible, honest and hardworking, as he put it, but also not traitors, envious, vindictive and jealous of others, as exhibited by Martin Amidu.

“If Martin Amidu has failed to inspire hope amongst the youth of the north, he should not curse the fruit of the northern land”, the group warned, saying his assertion that he advises the president and the president does not take such advice can only come from a childish mind.

“In any case, what makes Martin Amidu think that his advice represents the position of all northerners and that the president is bound to accept same”, they queried.

The group said it found it difficult for members to believe that as a lawyer of his stature, Martin Amidu still appears not to be aware that John Dramani Mahama is the president for Ghana and not for northerners only, and wondered how Martin Amidu could be thinking that people of Ghana voted for John Dramani Mahama because he is a northerner, and urged him to rise up above this kind of mind-set.

The group, therefore, asked the renowned and respected legal practitioner to be honest enough and eat the humble pie and apologize, because he got it wrong this time round.