...the so-called anti-corruption campaigner
Folks, you must be alarmed---truly alarmed---that corruption in Ghana cannot be tackled for as long as the stance and mindset of those purporting to be fighting against it and pontificating all over the place against it yet running away from efforts to tackle it are concerned.
No one needs any explanation on the massive campaign of calumny by the NPP and its allies in the mass media and analogous quasi-political institutions disguised as civil society groupings to know how the scourge of corruption is now a political weapon being used against President Mahama and his team.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge all these years. The campaign of calumny against President Mahama that is spearheaded by the holier-than-thou NPP politicians has taken us to the point where everything being done by the incumbent fits into their damaging political rhetoric about corruption.
And from the way they have jumped on President Mahama for telling the journalist querying him on whether he has ever taken any bribe, one might think that they would the first to join the fight against corruption. We have hard a lot from the cast of their "Concert Party", led BY Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie. Aren't our ears stopped to their flat comedy?
Interestingly, though, they haven't told us that President Mahama has truthfully reached out to them to help him fight corruption in Ghana. After toeing ex-President Kufuor's line of thinking and action that corruption is an endemic human quality that began with Adam and will end only with the death of the last human being on God's earth (if not to be brought back at the resurrection of life), they have surreptitiously kept the ball game to themselves, creating the negative impression that President Mahama is the chief architect of corruption in contemporary Ghana.
But truth doesn't hide. It surfaces. Indeed, it has done so. As we now know, it is true that President Mahama has a genuine desire to fight corruption in Ghana, making efforts to cross political divides as such.
Mr. P.C. Appiah-Ofori, the NPP's so-called "Anti-corruption Apostle" has put everything in perspective, saying that even though President Mahama sought after him to become a Minister in his administration to fight against corruption, he declined the charge. Why? Because he feared the repercussions from nowhere but his own NPP quarters.
Read it all here: Anti-corruption Campaigner and former NPP Member of Parliament for Asikuma/Odebeng/Brakwa, PC Appiah Ofori, has revealed that President John Mahama wanted to appoint him as a minister in his government after winning the 2012 election.
He said President Mahama told him his motive for wanting to include him in the current ruling NDC government was to enable him (Appiah Ofori) check corruption and malfeasance by any of his appointees.
The controversial and eccentric politician, who is known to have fought his own New Patriotic Party (NPP) on matters of corruption while the party was in power between 2001-2008, made the revelation while speaking to Kwaku Owusu Adjei on Si Me So on Kasapa 102.5 FM Tuesday.
He narrated that as soon as the President Mahama told him of his intentions, he responded saying his inclusion in government would not mean that he was going to keep mute on the wrongs in that administration.
“He invited me home and told me his intention. I shouted eii John! You want to make me a minister in your government? If I become part of your government and there’s any corruption I will not spare you, and he said that is why I need you so that you will scrutinise any such matters that arise. I respected him for wanting to make such a move but I turned down his offer but told him that if I get information on anything that borders on corruption, I’ll draw his attention to it.
“This gave me the impression that Mahama will not tolerate corruption in his government but sadly the corrupt practices in his government are amazing. When his appointees are found guilty of corruption per the Auditor General Report, no prosecution is made and that is the only way fear will be put in corrupt officials and thereby reduce the high rate of corruption. This is my problem with President Mahama.”
How long ago wasn't that reaching out to get him into the fold done? And he ran away from the responsibility for nothing else but the fear that his own NPP camp would see him as an NDC ally. Oh, Ghana!!!
So, if these same NPP people turn round to blast President Mahama for not fighting corruption or for superintending over it, should we believe them? Why is it that they aren't joining the fight against corruption?
No more from me. Folks, think about it all and let's put everything where it belongs.
