BETTY MOULD-IDDRISU: GHANA’S WORST ATTORNEY GENERAL EVER.
NPP-USA
All over Africa and the rest of the world people are looking at Ghana as an
exemplary country whose success in democracy is crucial to the manifestation
of what many have termed Africa’s Century. Previous governments have done
enough to set the stage for an economic boom buoyed by the new-found oil.
And if Ghana will meet this challenge, she must excel in the area of rule of
law. Political affiliations notwithstanding, those charged with maintaining
law and order must hold fast to the principles of law, such that citizens
and non-citizens alike can pursue their respective dreams in our collective
effort to take Ghana to the next level.
Unfortunately Ghana is saddled with a top law enforcement officer who simply
does not get it. Not only does Attorney General Betty Mould-Iddrisu redefine
the word ‘inept,’ she infuses such emotions as a principled person while all
the while harboring a background laden with enough guilt and compromises to
make her eligible for jail term herself. NPP-USA is of the opinion that the
current attorney General is stinking up the position she occupies, and the
president must, with immediate effect, ask for her resignation or risk
turning our beloved Ghana into a jungle where the law is all brawn but no
brains. Here are our reasons:
1. ATTORNEY GENERAL MOULD-IDDRISU IS ANYTHING BUT A SAINT: She
currently owns land that was allocated to her by the government yet she is
ready to prosecute others for possessing lands allocated to them by the
government. She concocted what proved to be lies about the manner in which
she left the Ministry of Justice under the Kufuor administration. She is a
chain-smoking husband snatcher who educated her children in private schools
in Switzerland and United States on a meager government salary. The
“friends” who picked up her children’s expensive tuition at those private
schools have never been identified even though there are established links
to some beneficiaries of defense contracts at the time when her stolen
husband was Minister of Defense.
2. ATTORNEY GENERAL MOULD-IDDRISU LACKS PROPER JUDGMENT: No sooner had
she become Attorney General did she tell Law students at Legon that the law
profession was wrong for them, and that as Attorney General she can barely
make ends meet. For a civil servant who educated her children at private
schools in Switzerland and United States, telling these law student that she
is barely getting by was not only a lie, but a display of a lack of proper
judgment.
Although the Attorney General has the latitude to decide which cases to
prosecute, she has displayed a gross deficiency in judgment because of her
selection of cases to prosecute. Accused murderer found under a sitting
minister’s bed is roaming free, but a radio analyst who repeats a published
news report that Rawlings may have set his own house on fire is prosecuted.
A sitting minister who declares “Jihad” on political opponents and an NDC
party official who runs her vehicle through a crowd of people are left
alone, but opposing party officials who called attention to the vehicular
negligence were called to order in a development she was willing to
prosecute if it had come to her desk. Past government officials who have
been proven to have accepted bribes from Mabey and Johnson while in
government are roaming free but others who executed a brilliant Golden
Jubilee Celebration that was a global talk shop are being prosecuted.
Tsatsu Tsikata is roaming free after allegedly collecting bribes to the tune
of $2 million with another $3 million on the way while advising the
president on energy matters, but those who risked their life savings and
careers to help bring oil to our nation are being harassed in spite of the
Attorney General’s own admission that they broke no laws.
An NDC stalwart Yamoah Ponko was not only accused of sexual harassment by
workers he supervised, the accusers played evidence of such harassment on
radio. He was never prosecuted. But Lamptey Mills, an award-winning
educator, was prosecuted for having consensual sex with an 18-year-old who
testified to that effect. The list goes on and on.
3. ATTORNEY GENERAL MOULD-IDDRISU WANTS TO CHEAT THE SYSTEM: She is
attempting to “Suarez” the legal process. She cannot score a goal so her
plan is to move the goal post closer. In Ghana today when the so-called foot
soldiers of the NDC do not have their way, they simply call for the
elimination of those preventing them from having their way. If the judiciary
was corrupt, it did not become so overnight. That means the Attorney
General, upon assuming her position, should have called the nation’s
attention to the corrupt judiciary. She failed to do so. It was not until
she began to lose a string of badly developed bad cases that even first year
law students at Legon knew at the time were bad, that she began to cast the
blame of her prosecutorial failures on an all-of-a-sudden corrupt judiciary.
Now she wants to replace them with her stooges so that she can win some
cases. Ghana cannot afford such a dangerous precedence.
4. ATTORNEY GENERAL MOULD-IDDRISU IS INEPT: Good lawyers are usually
tight-lipped about cases they are working on in court. When they use the
press, it is usually defense attorneys trying to generate public sympathy
for their clients. This Attorney General uses tabloids and paid journalists
to disparage her targets in the media with the childish belief that once the
public’s impression about those targets has been tainted, it would pave the
way for her to win in court. What she fails to realize is that courtroom
procedures, which are clearly foreign to her, set the stage for legal skills
and talents to prevail over emotions and shouting. As long as this Attorney
General continues to prosecute cases drummed up by emotions instead of
carefully researched and developed cases; as long as she embarks upon
political witch hunting instead of applying the law fairly; and as long as
she focuses doing her job rather than saving her job by kowtowing to the
radical wing of the NDC, she will continue to be embarrassed in court.
When was the last time anyone heard of a whole Attorney General making a
trip to another country to interface not with her equal, but with
investigators working on a case that had already been deemed a “wild goose
chase” while professional investigators are sitting idly at home? Although
the Attorney General used that trip to attend her children’s graduation
ceremonies, she still collected her full per diem. Is this the person with
the moral authority to order the arrest of an individual who has been set
free via a court proceeding? Is this the person with the moral authority to
handle the top law enforcement responsibility of a nation as important as
Ghana? You be the judge. No wonder she has no iota of respect in the
international community. At home, her crass incompetence has degenerated
into her being a full time political witch hunter. This makes her the worst
Attorney General in our nation’s history. Why she continues to waste space
at the Ministry of Justice is beyond comprehension.
