Away from Accra she has flown into the dreary and miserable weather of London. As unpredictable as the weather of England is her mission, given ostensibly as a follow up of The President’s directive for evidence to be gathered upon which he might just crack the damn whip. Hers is not an enviable position at all in these times of uncertainty, political suspicions and a certain juggernaut called Spio Garbrah, who like Sampson, seems to be asking God for one last favour to bring himself and his “enemies” down with him. Firmly ensconced around St James’ Court is the self-same Spio Garbrah, alias Team A class prefect, directing a new orchestra made up of quasi-sulking apparatchiks that trace their political lineage to the godfather of probity and accountability and who since June 4 2009, have found out rather late that their services were good only for mobilizing people to push the great elephant into the bush; as for the spoils of victory, well you must have amply demonstrated that you resigned a bank job or was never employed fully since high school to be a ready willing, able and approved partaker. If you happen to have been a Chief Executive Officer of any international organization after the elephant strode into the corridors of power, yours can only be an opportunity to stand outside and piss inside. O! How interesting Ghana is in the year of our Lord 2009.
Betty is a sweet person. She is a wonderful person by all standards, coming from a very noble family and married into another political grouping that has some clout in the Land of Our Death, at least within the present dispensation. Jointly and severally, members of her political family have described her as the “weakest link”. Not many people have ever heard of or read about Louis Althusser, the patriarch of weakest link theory. For those uninitiated, Louis Althusser posited that a chain is as strong as its weakest link. If further understanding is needed, a certain Ansah Koi can help; these days, lecturers are interpreting political statements better than the General Secretaries of recognized political parties. So if members of the National Democratic Congress describe Betty as the weakest link, my balding pate starts to glitter for what they have conveniently done is to tell the Asumdwehene “to hell with your 40% women in public office mantra”. Have they not told us that Zita the quitter must be sacked whether or not she is increasingly becoming ‘mumu’? Have they also not shown how arrogant the Cuban trained Louisa the water-talker is becoming since she found herself running the water show the same way that some “twins” are making Zita look redundant? And then some “skin pain” newspaper publishes that my sugar mummy, Aunty Ama is raising her edifice faster than the tower of Babel, further giving Asumdwehene an opportunity to clear the women from his team. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all, even if Angela Dwamena Aboagye or better still Nana Oye Lithur who has developed vocal constipation have lost their tongue and their spirit. Nobody is speaking for the few women. Maybe they are waiting for Elizabeth Ohene to do “from 40% to zero” on BBC before they are jerked into reality.
Has Betty been sent on a suicide mission? I doubt that. Has she been sent to ferret for information? More likely. But what are the personnel of the Ghana High Commission doing that is so important that they cannot be relied upon to gather that information? Perhaps, Betty is being given a last chance to ‘redeem’ herself. You see, in furtherance of the weakest link theory, some of her party members hold that she has been so slow in prosecuting friends of her good friends, like the friends she shares with Phyllis, the one who lives not so far away from the yet-to-be-built $35 million security complex adjacent the National Poultry Farm Complex opposite Christ the King Church. I still think it is unfair to criticize her as such for Betty is no fool. Clearly, Betty does not want to go to court for some upstart just graduated braggadocio lawyer to rub her face in the mud. This for me explains why she is treading very cautiously in matters of prosecution, especially when the just ended Bar Association Conference revealed revelations about the inclinations of lawyers today. Betty would not make such avoidable mistakes, like the one a certain Osa Mills did by rallying to Sunyani people who have never attended a Bar Conference since Hilla Liman took the Presidential Oath to vote for him. So now the question to ask is this: if Betty gets all the evidence and rightly so, what can she do with it?
Can she look the hard working Sipa Ogbodo in the face and say “Massa, you must go back into the cooler”? Would she redeem herself and write her name in the annals of Ghana’s political history in indelible letters for being not only the first female Attorney-General but the one who sent her colleagues to jail as a warning that the “Better Ghana” agenda spelt out in her party’s manifesto was not a politico-electoral gimmick? Would her party machinery allow her to act professionally even if it would leave a treacle trace of wall gecko sputum on their political fortunes? What about her own political carrier? Has she read the political barometer so well that she can take the risk and etch her name on the hearts and minds of Ghanaians? Betty could very well be a president of this country one day, if she uses this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to eject herself from the ranks of Team B players into the foremost star of Team A, thereby displacing the self-same Spio Garbrah as the chief priest of the Team A dream team. Yet, there are people within the Ghanaian establishment who also believe that Betty’s unannounced mission is to get the information and with that, prepare the grounds for a rubbishing spree that would leave the Mabey Mabeylettes laughing their way back to their portfolios and more, the same way that a certain CHRAJ report on serving ministers was once upon a time, whitewashed whiter than the snow of Antarctica. The Serious Fraud Office of England has very intriguing information about what monies and especially accounts have done Ghana in during the decade after the one that stopped the decay. Now that Betty is there, I hope her beautiful face is not pulled long at what she would meet for it is not funny.
So here we are with an Attorney-General, determined to serve her nation to the best of her ability and yet, caught up in the web of a Scylla and Charybdis as far as the political image of her party is concerned. Would she navigate the turbulent waters of conflict of interest and come out unscathed with high marks in the minds of the general public? Would the entire world community use her as a reference point in these times of (un)official complicity in efforts to cover that which is being unmasked across the globe? What would be Ghana’s ranking in the anti-corruption index if Betty’s burden is unburdened by herself to achieve a rare rarity as far as Africa and the anti-corruption war is concerned? Certainly, while Betty’s trip is crucial in unraveling some of the hidden issues in the Mabey and Johnson saga, she should be left in no doubt, that those whose interests are served by having the full facts have long gone ahead of her and acquired the very information she is gathering for further action. This is why it is absolutely crucial for her to act expeditiously and without fear or favour for nothing would be more tragic for her than to pander to the whims of those who preach expose and yet want to practice cover up.
Far more significant in her mission would be the moral and political legitimacy a thorough addressing of the issue would grant her in addition to her constitutional powers: there is absolutely no doubt that a successful prosecution of those who have sold Ghana for a mess of pottage would pave the way for the whip to be cracked even harder on those whose grandfather is the gargantuan elephant. Nobody in his or her right senses can or would ever cry “political vendetta”, “witch-hunting” or victimization after the Aegean stables of the apostles of accountability, probity and transparency have been thoroughly cleaned. However, if many a Ghanaian has forgotten, herein lies Betty’s Burdensome Burden: In commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the June 4 Uprising, Betty acting in her capacity as the newly appointed Attorney General of Ghana said inter alia that “If anybody is found to be corrupt, we shall prosecute them…if any of our people are also found to be corrupt, we shall prosecute them”. Perhaps, Betty might have thought we don’t have the tapes of her comments posted above, the very ones that elicited thunderous applause and a standing ovation by the now disappointed members of a certain United Cadres Front. Now is the time for pretty Betty to walk her talk. True it is that she is in a fix, for when ‘conflict of interest’ is intoned regarding Ataa Mabey and Adjorkor Johnson, it is to indicate that a record is about to be set: an Attorney General, who by constitutional mandate is specifically designated to advice government on legal matters has been issued with a Presidential “edict” to investigate a matter that she would be required to give advice on. Now who can beat that? May all Ghana pray for Betty as she carries her “make or break” burden. May Jehovah Tsidkenu make her yoke light and her burden easy to bear.
