News reports concerning the dismissal of Francis Poku from office have come at a time that not many people were expecting. Had it happened in the immediate period after the motor accident involving Kufuor, it would have been seen as kairotic and as the direct action by a President who knew the value of personal and national security. The unprofessional manner in which that issue was handled would have long fallen into oblivion but for the on-going trial of the driver who had caused that accident.
For whatever he considered himself to be, Francis Poku did not deem the failure of his security network to secure the personal safety and security of a whole President of Ghana as enough grounds for an honourable resignation from office. And Kufuor himself appeared not to have grasped the full import of that accident within the gamut of national security. He is still bemused, I suppose. Or, probably, the scales have now fallen off his glassy eyes for him to see somehow what others have seen all these years about the cleavages in the security apparatus. I often ask myself whether these NPP braggarts really know what it takes to secure national security. However, who am I to “cry their cry” for them? Don’t they claim to be the crop of Ghana’s “interrectuals” who are the only ones endowed with the acumen to solve Ghana’s problems? The dismissal of Francis Poku from office as the Minister of National Security by Kufuor in itself is nothing surprising to me. I will be the last person on earth to regard what happened under his tenure as worthy of my praise. Poku’s dismissal was the culmination of all the haphazardness that had characterized the activities of the umbrella under which he had been operating ever since he returned into national service at the inception of the NPP government. Careful observers of the political scene, especially happenings within the apparatus of national security and the intelligence wing, will not raise eyebrows because the writing has long been on the wall that things had fallen apart and the center could not hold for Poku’s continued stay in office. How about the unconscionable manner in which Ghanaians have been alarmed with constant rumour-mongering about coups d’etat from the very seat of government as a result of Poku’s manipulation of Kufuor himself and the docile pro-government press?
What is surprising about Poku’s dismissal is the inability of Kufuor and his NPP government to realize long ago that the house they have built on sand all these years is gradually sinking and that it will soon expose the façade of stability on which they have been priding themselves. What is also surprising is the manner in which the dismissal was made. A number of factors explain my claim:
i. Kufuor appeared to have acted on-the-spur-of-the-moment like someone who did not know the implications of all that had been happening ever since he created that amorphous Ministry of National Security.
ii. The utterances attributed to Kufuor, which indicated that he had asked Poku to leave his residence if he would not listen to him are, at least , childish and, at most, indicative of a weak leader who did not command the kind of aura that would make his appointees recognize his authority over them. I am saying so because the first news report said that Poku brazenly defied Kufuor’s order to resign and indicated instead that he was going “to the press” over the matter. We are waiting to hear what Poku has to reveal about Kufuor.
iii. The venue for the discussion of the issues pertaining to Poku’s status at the time was inappropriate. One would expect the meeting to have been conducted in a serious business-like manner at the seat of government. Why would Kufuor choose to have that meeting at his residence as if he was a village chief summoning his subject to his palace to be browbeaten?
Unashamedly, however, Kufuor couldn’t give any particular reason for his impulsive action against Poku. Now, we are being told from the grapevine that one of Poku’s “crimes” that warranted his dismissal was his manipulation of the press and machinations to publish unpalatable stories about Kufuor and his family. How incredible! Such chicanery, trickery, and treachery could only come from embittered characters who will not hesitate to “bite” each other to score all manner of personal scores. What else does Poku have to tell the world about Kufuor and his NPP government?
As one would have it, Poku was reported as defying Kufuor’s orders with the kind of impunity that makes me want to puke. From all indications, Poku is only one of the thousands of square-pegs that Kufuor has put into the round holes that the Ghanaian electorate dug when they voted the NPP into office. Gradually, these square-pegs will reach the end of the road.
Those of us who have been close to the national security network since the June 4, 1979 Event know that the group of people with whom Kufuor has entrusted Ghana’s security matters are not fit to be where they are. Almost every one of them is embittered. That negative spirit of embitterment appears to be the only substance that has glued them together. These are all people whose main preoccupation is to get at JJ Rawlings, for personal reasons that have nothing beneficial for the country.
They are mostly people who were afraid of their own shadows and ran away from Ghana when the bell of justice and accountability tolled in the country between June 4, 1979, and the coming into office of the NPP government. Their main concentration since Fate placed them where they have been all this while is on JJ Rawlings and all that he stands for. Thus, they have spent all their energies and national resources fighting against and among themselves in the mad rush to win Kufuor’s heart as the “destroyers” of the JJ Rawlings legacy. We all know that they have achieved nothing in that bid nor can they turn the table against the MAN. They’ve only succeeded in riding the crest of sentimental waves created by the kind of vindictive and unproductive tribal politics that is one of Kufuor’s major legacies for Ghana. The other major legacy is the massive corruption that is exemplified by Kufuor’s own theft of Ghana’s 41 million Cedis in January 2001 to rehabilitate his own private residence, his acquisition of Hotel Waaa-Waa, immoral conduct among the NPP bigwigs in terms of wife-snatching and uncontrollable sexual promiscuity (Richard Anane, Thomas Broni, etc.), visa racketeering at the seat of government (Alhaji Moctar Bamba, etc.), narcotic drug trafficking, and many more. I will not go into this matter at length since it is already in the public domain.
A number of questions agitate my mind on this Poku saga:
i. If Kufuor had already caused an investigation to be conducted into the allegations of Poku’s self-acquisitiveness and the problems that Poku was creating for the security network, why would he not act on the findings of the various investigative bodies in the appropriate manner of government business rather than act the way he did at his residence?
ii. For how long had Kufuor known that all was not well between Poku and the Chief of Defence Staff, the Director of the BNI, and the IGP, among others, without taking any action to bring order into the upper echelons of the national security apparatus until Poku treated him with the kind of contempt that prompted his impulsive dismissal from office?
iii. Can we trust Kufuor and his appointees to ensure and sustain Ghana’s security?
If he had had his ears to the ground, he would have heard loud protestations against the creation of that Ministry, which was seen as nothing but a parallel institution being placed on a collision course with the traditional security apparatuses. Informed Ghanaians knew at the time that the National Security Coordinator was the pivot around which the traditional security apparatuses revolved to give Ghana a National Security Council. These traditional security apparatuses were represented by the Ministry of Defence, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Inspector-General of Police, the Director of the Ghana Prison Service, the Director of the Ghana Immigration Service, the Director of the Bureau of National Investigation, and the Commissioner of Customs, Excise and Preventive Service. The Ministry of the Interior had oversight responsibility over these institutions. Apart from these institutions, there were regional, metropolitan, municipal, and district security committees that handled security matters at very tiers.
In spite of these institutions, Kufuor went ahead to create a Ministry of National Security for Poku to head even though Poku had already had a clear purview carved for him as the National Security Coordinator. At the end of the day, one couldn’t see any clear-cut difference between the role of a Minister of national Security and that of the Security Coordinator. After all, under the previous regime (the JJ Rawlings’ era), the National Security Coordinator was directly answerable to the Head of State and performed his functions without being saddled with what Kufuor had done in the case of the Ministry of National Security. I don’t want to delve too much into the intricacies of such an impulsive act but let me say that the controversies that have dogged this Ministry since its creation will not vanish at the mere dismissal of Poku from office. There is more than meets our eyes, which time will reveal sooner than later.
For now, Kufuor has acted and Francis Poku is no more in office; but the implications of what necessitated his exit from office will have to be considered beyond the flippant show of power by Kufuor in his characteristic Twi proficiency: “Fri mi fie….” as reported. There is need to act quickly to undo the harm that Poku has done and to scrap the Ministry created to massage the passions of the JJ Rawlings haters. Ghanaians deserve peace and tranquility under a stability political dispensation. If for nothing at all, that was what the JJ Rawlings administration bequeathed to Kufuor. As for Francis Poku, he appears to have become a victim of the political tradition that has aroused his passion for mischief. I shed no tear for him nor will I leave him alone in peace “to enjoy his retirement,” as he puts it. Good riddance.
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
News reports concerning the dismissal of Francis Poku from office have come at a time that not many people were expecting. Had it happened in the immediate period after the motor accident involving Kufuor, it would have been seen as kairotic and as the direct action by a President who knew the value of personal and national security. The unprofessional manner in which that issue was handled would have long fallen into oblivion but for the on-going trial of the driver who had caused that accident.
For whatever he considered himself to be, Francis Poku did not deem the failure of his security network to secure the personal safety and security of a whole President of Ghana as enough grounds for an honourable resignation from office. And Kufuor himself appeared not to have grasped the full import of that accident within the gamut of national security. He is still bemused, I suppose. Or, probably, the scales have now fallen off his glassy eyes for him to see somehow what others have seen all these years about the cleavages in the security apparatus. I often ask myself whether these NPP braggarts really know what it takes to secure national security. However, who am I to “cry their cry” for them? Don’t they claim to be the crop of Ghana’s “interrectuals” who are the only ones endowed with the acumen to solve Ghana’s problems? The dismissal of Francis Poku from office as the Minister of National Security by Kufuor in itself is nothing surprising to me. I will be the last person on earth to regard what happened under his tenure as worthy of my praise. Poku’s dismissal was the culmination of all the haphazardness that had characterized the activities of the umbrella under which he had been operating ever since he returned into national service at the inception of the NPP government. Careful observers of the political scene, especially happenings within the apparatus of national security and the intelligence wing, will not raise eyebrows because the writing has long been on the wall that things had fallen apart and the center could not hold for Poku’s continued stay in office. How about the unconscionable manner in which Ghanaians have been alarmed with constant rumour-mongering about coups d’etat from the very seat of government as a result of Poku’s manipulation of Kufuor himself and the docile pro-government press?
What is surprising about Poku’s dismissal is the inability of Kufuor and his NPP government to realize long ago that the house they have built on sand all these years is gradually sinking and that it will soon expose the façade of stability on which they have been priding themselves. What is also surprising is the manner in which the dismissal was made. A number of factors explain my claim:
i. Kufuor appeared to have acted on-the-spur-of-the-moment like someone who did not know the implications of all that had been happening ever since he created that amorphous Ministry of National Security.
ii. The utterances attributed to Kufuor, which indicated that he had asked Poku to leave his residence if he would not listen to him are, at least , childish and, at most, indicative of a weak leader who did not command the kind of aura that would make his appointees recognize his authority over them. I am saying so because the first news report said that Poku brazenly defied Kufuor’s order to resign and indicated instead that he was going “to the press” over the matter. We are waiting to hear what Poku has to reveal about Kufuor.
iii. The venue for the discussion of the issues pertaining to Poku’s status at the time was inappropriate. One would expect the meeting to have been conducted in a serious business-like manner at the seat of government. Why would Kufuor choose to have that meeting at his residence as if he was a village chief summoning his subject to his palace to be browbeaten?
Unashamedly, however, Kufuor couldn’t give any particular reason for his impulsive action against Poku. Now, we are being told from the grapevine that one of Poku’s “crimes” that warranted his dismissal was his manipulation of the press and machinations to publish unpalatable stories about Kufuor and his family. How incredible! Such chicanery, trickery, and treachery could only come from embittered characters who will not hesitate to “bite” each other to score all manner of personal scores. What else does Poku have to tell the world about Kufuor and his NPP government?
As one would have it, Poku was reported as defying Kufuor’s orders with the kind of impunity that makes me want to puke. From all indications, Poku is only one of the thousands of square-pegs that Kufuor has put into the round holes that the Ghanaian electorate dug when they voted the NPP into office. Gradually, these square-pegs will reach the end of the road.
Those of us who have been close to the national security network since the June 4, 1979 Event know that the group of people with whom Kufuor has entrusted Ghana’s security matters are not fit to be where they are. Almost every one of them is embittered. That negative spirit of embitterment appears to be the only substance that has glued them together. These are all people whose main preoccupation is to get at JJ Rawlings, for personal reasons that have nothing beneficial for the country.
They are mostly people who were afraid of their own shadows and ran away from Ghana when the bell of justice and accountability tolled in the country between June 4, 1979, and the coming into office of the NPP government. Their main concentration since Fate placed them where they have been all this while is on JJ Rawlings and all that he stands for. Thus, they have spent all their energies and national resources fighting against and among themselves in the mad rush to win Kufuor’s heart as the “destroyers” of the JJ Rawlings legacy. We all know that they have achieved nothing in that bid nor can they turn the table against the MAN. They’ve only succeeded in riding the crest of sentimental waves created by the kind of vindictive and unproductive tribal politics that is one of Kufuor’s major legacies for Ghana. The other major legacy is the massive corruption that is exemplified by Kufuor’s own theft of Ghana’s 41 million Cedis in January 2001 to rehabilitate his own private residence, his acquisition of Hotel Waaa-Waa, immoral conduct among the NPP bigwigs in terms of wife-snatching and uncontrollable sexual promiscuity (Richard Anane, Thomas Broni, etc.), visa racketeering at the seat of government (Alhaji Moctar Bamba, etc.), narcotic drug trafficking, and many more. I will not go into this matter at length since it is already in the public domain.
A number of questions agitate my mind on this Poku saga:
i. If Kufuor had already caused an investigation to be conducted into the allegations of Poku’s self-acquisitiveness and the problems that Poku was creating for the security network, why would he not act on the findings of the various investigative bodies in the appropriate manner of government business rather than act the way he did at his residence?
ii. For how long had Kufuor known that all was not well between Poku and the Chief of Defence Staff, the Director of the BNI, and the IGP, among others, without taking any action to bring order into the upper echelons of the national security apparatus until Poku treated him with the kind of contempt that prompted his impulsive dismissal from office?
iii. Can we trust Kufuor and his appointees to ensure and sustain Ghana’s security?
If he had had his ears to the ground, he would have heard loud protestations against the creation of that Ministry, which was seen as nothing but a parallel institution being placed on a collision course with the traditional security apparatuses. Informed Ghanaians knew at the time that the National Security Coordinator was the pivot around which the traditional security apparatuses revolved to give Ghana a National Security Council. These traditional security apparatuses were represented by the Ministry of Defence, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Inspector-General of Police, the Director of the Ghana Prison Service, the Director of the Ghana Immigration Service, the Director of the Bureau of National Investigation, and the Commissioner of Customs, Excise and Preventive Service. The Ministry of the Interior had oversight responsibility over these institutions. Apart from these institutions, there were regional, metropolitan, municipal, and district security committees that handled security matters at very tiers.
In spite of these institutions, Kufuor went ahead to create a Ministry of National Security for Poku to head even though Poku had already had a clear purview carved for him as the National Security Coordinator. At the end of the day, one couldn’t see any clear-cut difference between the role of a Minister of national Security and that of the Security Coordinator. After all, under the previous regime (the JJ Rawlings’ era), the National Security Coordinator was directly answerable to the Head of State and performed his functions without being saddled with what Kufuor had done in the case of the Ministry of National Security. I don’t want to delve too much into the intricacies of such an impulsive act but let me say that the controversies that have dogged this Ministry since its creation will not vanish at the mere dismissal of Poku from office. There is more than meets our eyes, which time will reveal sooner than later.
For now, Kufuor has acted and Francis Poku is no more in office; but the implications of what necessitated his exit from office will have to be considered beyond the flippant show of power by Kufuor in his characteristic Twi proficiency: “Fri mi fie….” as reported. There is need to act quickly to undo the harm that Poku has done and to scrap the Ministry created to massage the passions of the JJ Rawlings haters. Ghanaians deserve peace and tranquility under a stability political dispensation. If for nothing at all, that was what the JJ Rawlings administration bequeathed to Kufuor. As for Francis Poku, he appears to have become a victim of the political tradition that has aroused his passion for mischief. I shed no tear for him nor will I leave him alone in peace “to enjoy his retirement,” as he puts it. Good riddance.
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
