Manasseh Azure’s message to Kissi Agyebeng over appointment as Special Prosecutor

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Senior journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni, has taken to his Facebook platform to congratulate Kissi Agyebeng on his appointment as Special Prosecutor.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Thursday swore into office the second occupant of the Office of Special Prosecutor, Mr Agyebeng, at a brief event at Jubilee House, the seat of the nation’s presidency.

Citing the new Special Prosecutor’s extensive educational and professional legal background, President Akufo-Addo stated that “it is clear that Mr Kissi Agyebeng is eminently qualified to occupy the Office of Special Prosecutor.

“He has the capacity, the experience, the requisite values and intellectual strength to succeed in this vital position.”

But Mr Azure, reacting to the appointment, had this to tell Mr Agyebeng:

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Dear Kissi Agyebeng,

Congratulations on your appointment as the Special Prosecutor.

For those of us who know you, your competence is not in doubt.

Some people are obsessed with your youthfulness. But Ghana has been through in the last five years rubbishes the claim that competence must be associated with grey hairs or “sakora” heads.

One of the greatest requirements of your office is integrity and impartiality. Soft skills and character are as good as the intelligence and knowledge one needs.

Here again, age is not a determinant of good character. You, like all of us, have your own weaknesses.

We cannot get an angel to occupy any office. But whoever gets into a public office of trust, can decide to act right or swim with the immoral, greedy and selfish tide that has washed our nation to the miserable shores of poverty, deprivation and hopelessness.

Manasseh Azure Awuni

So you have a choice, sir.

You have a choice to succeed or fail. You have a choice to serve the interest of the president, the government and the governing party that appointed you or serve the people of the Republic of Ghana.

You have a choice to be like Domelevo and risk being hounded out of office or to sit and complain and give excuses.

You have a choice to use this position to prove those who doubt you wrong or give the we-told-you-so naysayers an opportunity to gloat.

You have a choice to write Kissi Agyebeng in the glorious chapters of Ghana’s history or have that name consigned to the ignoble footnotes of a failing state.

Your advantage is that there isn’t as much expectation of you and the office as we witnessed in the case of your predecessor.

And there’s no better way to show your mettle than when you’re generally underrated.

It will be difficult. It will be dangerous. You will be targeted and persecuted. Maligned and attacked, if you want to do this work well.

But it will be worth your while to give it a try.

Our nation cannot continue to be milked dry.

In your hands, some of the solutions lie.

And, as we say here, do something before you die.

I wish you well and pray you succeed. If you succeed, Ghana succeeds. If you fail, Ghana fails.

My name is Manasseh Azure Awuni.

In the interest of Mother Ghana, I pledge my support to you and your office.

May God be with you.