Beyond Martin Amidu’s premature ejaculation

My late father, obviously, a retired watchman and a Cattle-Rearer, used to advise us not to judge our friends by what they say but what they do. I have, all my life, tried to keep to this advice, not only in choosing my friends but also in deciding whom to relate to. And, I have never been disappointed in my assessment of people.

The admonishment, left to me by him before passing onto the land of the spirits, is now more applicable in the Ghanaian politics today than anything else. Most of our politicians generally have a credibility problem arising from the inclination to make pledges and promises, sometimes fully aware that they cannot honour such promises. The good thing is that once a politician is found to be without credibility, that politician becomes naked before all.

Before I delve the main issue, let me confess that I am not a clairvoyant of doom. And as much as it pains me to be dealing with this subject matter involving a political heavy weight, especially at this auspicious moment politically, I want to state that I am doing it out of necessity and service to mother Ghana.

Let me start by confidently saying that the problem readied to confront the fresh appointee into the New Patriotic Party’s government led by President Akufo-Addo, Mr. Martin Burns Kaiser Alamisi Amidu, the Special Prosecutor will surely be that of credibility. You asked why? Calm your angry veins with a calabash of pito and let’s get to work. Seen?

The renowned Lawyer who unnaturally thinks that when one’s children grow to become adults, they ceased being his children but his ‘adults’, used every occasion as an opportunity for lengthy derogatory articles. All his write-ups were all impugning the credibility of individuals especially former appointees of the past two administrations; both the late president John Evans Atta-Mills’ and former John Dramani Mahama’s governments. He indeed, identified personalities who were swimming in a deep pond of corrupt practices.

The self-acclaimed antic-corruption preacherman, told Ghanaians in many of his articles that the whole past governments’ machinery being propelled by day-light robbers and should be made to face the firing squad. He was the only saint chased out from that past administration. He became the political messiah to rescue Ghanaians from the evils of the past; and in a questionable effort, he then went on to list numerous political actors, as persons who were bleeding the country into an untimely death. In his usual lengthy and contemptuous writings, Mr Amidu would never forget to reel out volumes and volumes of accusations which he said were evidential enough to put such persons in jails. People clapped with smiles for him. He was celebrated and became the new hero of our time. I never tried to envy him.

Quite literally speaking, Mr Amidu dragged his supposed corrupt people to the market square, denuded, and sprayed them with allegations so thick that they would never be washed clean again in their entire lives. As the former Attorney General of same government, he continued rolling out fantastic stories of how he had water-tight evidence against such appointees. Everyone stared in believe. Powered by social and the traditional media outlets, the stories leapt across boundaries within seconds. As the stories were retold and re-circulated, they grew weirder and wilder.

He used the Woyome’s GH¢ 51 million judgement debt as his measuring tool. As his stories about how stinking it was and the deeper involvement of top government officials to suffocate the public pulse grew wilder, public anger against Mr. Woyome and the government grew in a larger proportion. The President Mahama’s government, some senior officials and Mr Woyome were brutally savaged in the social media, ridiculed in the newspapers, cursed in the market places, abused in commercial cars, and mocked by their political enemies. The Woyomegate, the corrupt government officials and the brave Martin Amidu’s stories became the new tales by moonlight! It eventually painted the government unworthy of the people’s votes and it was massively rejected by the electorate. If this was all that the Citizen Vigilante Martin Amidu had set out to achieve; he did a fantastic job.

Then there came the new administration. His usual articles were suddenly put on hold for strange reasons. He saw nothing wrong with the violence, the seizures of vehicles belonging to individuals through illegalities, the court raid during proceedings by hoodlums belonging to the ruling party. The criminals who in broad day-light in a Rambo-style took over the court, freed its members that a judge had remanded, told the judge to go hell and smiled home were all normal democratic practice. As the protector of the constitution of Ghana and a Vigilante, Mr Amidu saw no evil with such heartbreaking happenstances in our country. The bizarre things went on and on but he refused to wake up from his deep sleep. Maybe he was waiting for an offer from the government and didn’t want to risk his chances. Seen? You can call it utter two-facedness!

Now, he is our Special Prosecutor, a position he openly and shamelessly beats his chest that he is the only person so fit for it. But the sad thing is that, where I and the good old lawyer are coming from, we were thought never to heap praises on ourselves but we must allow others do that behind us if we so deserve such. Even people would not praise you in your presence. To borrow his words, only a person whose upstairs is problematic will do that. Imagine, I walk straight to another person and yells at the person ‘I am very intelligent and you know that’. What category of people will I want the person that I am shamelessly boasting to to place me? Ah well! If the person attempts to categorise me, I think we might end up settling it the Kusaasi way! I dare not say the Builsa way for obvious reasons. Some people senses of humour are dead and buried. They only wear mad faces always. Leave him at that perhaps that is his understanding of settling it the Builsa way.

But what Ghanaians took for granted was that Mr Amidu was the Attorney General and Minister of Justice under the Late Prof. Mills’ administration. He vituperated when he had not been added to the list of appointees of the old good professor. He went berserk. Yes! He was on a rampaging mode. Lo and behold, it earned him the position of the government official Chief Prosecutor. Many Ghanaians especially NDC sympathizers including myself believed that Martin Amidu was a different breed from the backward cabal that had held Ghana’s justice delivery hostage.

We thought that because he was with the Rawlings PNDC able leadership with a very strong passion of fighting corruption and criminals in the society he could represent that refreshing change from the past. But, he proved otherwise to Ghanaians. He demonstrated that he had no spine to fight crime. He became a bitter man and suspicions about everybody around his department haunted him. The renowned lawyer and ‘saint’ of a politician as he will want us address him became the worst Attorney General a ruling government had ever foisted on Ghanaians to oversee that justice prevailed in our country.

He did nothing to bring his so-called years of experience as a lawyer to fore. Statements, statements, lengthy articles everyday, but nothing to show. What we wanted was experience that could be transformed into actionable actions and not directed towards writing of immature and self-serving long essays. He became a mini god of some sort! Indeed, it is public knowledge that Mr Amidu loves to write accusations, talk accusations and write them as though such were facts, maybe because he is Mr Know All.

I am not doubtful that, it is his love for writing of allegations without stop that has yet again earned him his current SP position. What is not clear is whether a writer of his kind is also a virtue in such a political appointment. Indeed, there is factual difference between writing articles of perceived wrongs and evidence for prosecutions that our so acclaimed lawyer struggled to differentiate at his recent parliamentary vetting. He was simply awkward and disappointing. He was a man in war tore zone. I only smiled at him. I pitied the NDC minority members who in their prepared way wanted to quiz such a battle-ready man.

For the enlightenment of some people, the difference between embittered accusations and factuality are worth making, whether or not the Vigilante Martin Amidu likes it. In his self-serving accusations against others, the methods, tactics and style are usually crude bagged in a diabolical manner. And for the avoidance of doubt, such are not evidence before any law court as he is now eating a humble pie. Blackmail, intimidation and threats are treated as legitimate weapons of negotiation insofar as they win benefits to the person. What such a person needs is average intelligence and a lot of raw courage, sometimes bordering on foolhardiness. In such situations, the person can still be regarded as accomplished, whether or not he is successful at his mission unless he/she is exposed. He did that to the admiration of millions of Ghanaians. Seen? Call him the man in the mirror now! He deserves it!

Mr Amidu will soon take an oath to serve the people of Ghana yet again in a similar capacity as he was offered him by late Prof. Mills. The evidence he had in the past must come to play. They shouldn’t become what he now termed as perceptions. I am seeing him matching numerous criminals to the law courts per his incredible evidence he alluded to in his previous long essays that made Ghanaians clapped for him. What he needs to note is that unlike that of a so-called Citizen Vigilante raising all sort of weird allegations against people and could comfortably blame others for its failures to act; he is now the man at the centre. Failure to act would be laid squarely at his doorsteps. He must not confuse his current position with the embittered and naked political hatred against persons whom he had parted ways with due to self-serving personal reasons. He must not behavior as though, there are some imaginary enemies that are threatening his position. He should write less, and concentrate his efforts on what he is appointed to do. I know Mr. Woyome whom he tried in the media and convicted, by now should be rehearsing prison songs.

Another important difference between his current position and his empty bravado of a Citizen Vigilante is that the crude methods and style of the former are unacceptable in the latter. A traditional adage has it that it is only a mad man who invites a hive of bees to his house without setting enough smoke to tame them though he may still get some few feeble stings.

Every living soul in Ghana knows and accepts that if we are able to stop our ruinous romance with corrupt practices, the destiny of mother Ghana will automatically witness the kind of prosperity that all of us have being dreaming of. Just imagine the amount of public funds being stolen and squandered daily under various guises by too many public officers and their accomplices, that Mr new SP Martin Amidu knows and will definitely drag them to court and the great transformation that would happen to public infrastructure and the lives of the citizenry if this organised banditry can at least be reduced by 50 percent! It is time to prove his worth! It is time to put his writings to test! It’s time to prove to Ghanaians that his constant barking at particulars individuals was not empty, hatred and out of frustrations.

I shall return!