SP Vetting: Amidu’s confrontational attitude worrying - Segbefia

Kwaku Segbefia, a member of pressure group, OccupyGhana has said Martin Amidu’s confrontational posture during his vetting as the Special Prosecutor nominee was unfortunate.

According to him, the sensitivity of the office requires a “level headed” individual and that Mr. Amidu’s warring demeanour Tuesday when he appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament worrying.

“Sometimes when it comes to this position you need a level headed person. It does exude confident when a person is very level headed and not prone to too much passion,” noted Segbefia on Morning Starr Friday.

He added: “Clearly he was ready for war when he went to the Appointments Committee of Parliament…and I felt that he went there with a sledge hammer.”

Specifically citing Mr. Amidu’s outburst in response to what certainly was supposed to be a joke by the Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, Segbefia said: “I thought that these took quite a little away from the idea that you needed somebody [with a level head]. Because of course, if you are going to be fighting corruption, you are going to be making serious allegations against people, you are going to be damaging their reputation and so on and so forth.

“So we needed that confident that, yes, whereas you are an agitator, you are somebody in there to war against it [corruption] we need to know that in some moment you would be level headed, you would be straight, you would know what it is you are about without being impassioned.”

Mr. Amidu was unanimously approved by the Appointments Committee of Parliament after almost nine hours of questioning. He is expected to be approved by the plenary of the House and then subsequently sworn in by the President for the important position of Special Prosecutor.

But it is feared that a suit challenging his eligibility as Special Prosecutor nominee due to his age could scuttle his appointment, despite receiving unanimous approval from the Committee.

Approval to counter public perception

A Minority member of the Appointments Committee Mahama Ayariga said that their decision to approve the nomination of Mr. Amidu was to counter public perception that the NDC is afraid of him.

“We overwhelmingly, as a minority, had taken a decision that we will pass him any day because people out there perceive that we were afraid of him and we want to show that we are not afraid of nobody,” the Bawku Central MP told Accra-based Citi FM Wednesday.

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