Good morning distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the media. It is my singular honour to welcome you on behalf of the National Democratic Congress to today’s press conference.
We thank you for honoring our invitation at such short notice and we are grateful for our continuous collaboration towards upholding probity and accountability on the part of duty bearers, values which the Founding father of the Great NDC and Ghana’s 4th Republic stood for.
In furtherance of the above ideals, we continue to remember and honour the memory of our late Founder and an illustrious son of Ghana who was also the first President and founder of the Fourth Republic, His Excellency Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings.
Friends from the media, as the entire nation was united in grief over the passing of a man who was noted for being an avowed anti-corruption campaigner and an unrepentant bastion of justice, probity and accountability, the fight against corruption under President Akufo-Addo received its final nail in the coffin on Monday, 16th November, 2020, following the sudden resignation of the Special Prosecutor, Mr. Martin Amidu.
The Ghanaian people were later to be treated to the very chilling and confounding details of why the Special Prosecutor decided to call it quit, and how President Akufo-Addo has been frustrating his work through various actions and inactions that have conspired to make the sacred functions of that anti-corruption institution untenable.
Indeed, we have also taken notice of the lame and pathetic rationalization of President Akufo-Addo’s actions, proffered through a wishy-washy statement signed by his cousin and Executive Secretary, in a desperate attempt to save face.
We, and the vast majority of the Ghanaian people, choose to treat President Akufo-Addo’s desperate post-facto rationalizations with the contempt they deserve.
Many were those, including some of us, who saw this day coming. Given the fact that the OSP was supposed to fight corruption, which has become arguably the greatest achievement of President Akufo-Addo, it was only a matter of time before the subject of corruption set the Special Prosecutor and President Akufo-Addo on a collision cause.
Lo and behold, this is exactly what has happened, and unsurprisingly, corruption has prevailed over the Special Prosecutor, forcing him to abandon his office.
We are saddened to observe, that under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo, corruption has become such a monstrous force, devouring every force which dares to stand in its way.
When we speak of corruption in Ghana today, we are talking about a canker supervised by the President himself, with the active participation of his family, friends, cronies and appointees, all of whom are scrambling and jostling for their share of the national booty.
Distinguished friends, when in 2016 President Akufo-Addo was being presented to the Ghanaian electorate as “incorruptible”, we knew that was a well-packaged fraud.
Today, Ghanaians have come to know our President for who he is – a walking contradiction, pretending to be fighting corruption, whilst at the same time, fighting and frustrating anyone who dares to expose or question the stinking corruption he is superintending over.
The fact of the matter is that, the Office of the Special Prosecutor was never set up by President Akufo-Addo out of a genuine will to fight corruption.
This position that we in the NDC have always espoused is grounded on the fact that, from the very outset, President Akufo-Addo conceived this office as one to be used to spite his political opponents, while protecting his own who are busy plundering the resources of our beloved country.
This view is buttressed by the very opening paragraph of Mr. Martin Amidu’s letter of resignation in which he reveals that his letter of appointment as the Special Prosecutor was issued on 30th January, 2020 and only delivered to him, on 5th February, 2020, two clear years after his appointment.
Ladies and Gentlemen, that President Akufo-Addo would issue a letter of appointment to the Special Prosecutor in January 2020, two clear years after the pomp and pageantry that greeted the supposed outdooring of the Special Prosecutor on 10th January, 2018, speaks volumes of President Akufo-Addo’s lip service to the fight against corruption.
Akin to taking off a bird’s feathers and asking for it to be identified, President Akufo-Addo out-doored a Special Prosecutor in January 2018, confined him to a three bedroom office in Labone after denying him office accommodation for close to two years, with a few seconded staff and tasked him to fight corruption.
What is even sad is the fact that President Akufo Addo has refused to pay the Special Prosecutor and his deputy for over two years, that is, since their appointments.
Clearly, to all intents and purposes, President Akufo-Addo set-up the Special Prosecutor’s Office to score cheap political capital and nothing more.
As Mr. Martin Amidu himself has made us aware in his letter of resignation, President Akufo-Addo has frustrated and interfered in the discharge of his mandate, until he could no longer take kindly to the President’s interference in his investigations into the ‘Agyapa’ Royalties Transaction.
Indeed, as the now former Special Prosecutor observed, President Akufo-Akufo had been under the delusion that the Special Prosecutor would act as his poodle. Unbeknownst to Mr. Martin Amidu, we have always known that President Akufo-Addo’s avowed fight against corruption was a charade.
And if there was anyone out there who still believed or hoped that President Akufo-Addo sought to fight corruption by setting up the OSP, we are quite sure that person would have given up by now.
Only last week, friends from the media, we addressed you on our observations relative to the risk of corruption assessment conducted by the Special Prosecutor on the ‘Agyapa’ Royalties scam.
At that press briefing, we stated categorically that President Akufo-Addo is refusing to give up on the stinking Agyapa scam, hence his insistence that all discussions on this subject should be deferred until after the upcoming election.
True to our word, and as corroborated by the OSP in his letter of resignation, President Akufo-Addo had asked the SP, Mr. Martin Amidu to shelve his corruption risk assessment report.
As has become the nature of President Akufo-Addo, this so-called review was to afford him and his cousin the Finance Minister, the opportunity to whitewash their crimes in the ‘Agyapa’ deal which had been badly exposed by the Special Prosecutor.
As if the above interference in the ‘Agyapa’ Royalties investigation was not enough, the Special Prosecutor tells the whole world how President Akufo-Addo once again invited him to his office on 1st November, 2020, and ordered him to accept and incorporate into his risk of corruption assessment report, comments from his cousin and Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta who was himself the subject of investigation in the ‘Agyapa’ heist.
Even more scandalous was the fact that President Akufo-Addo is said to have requested the Special Prosecutor to be allowed to as it were ‘handle’ the Agyapa matter.
We just learnt from a leaked tape of an interview between Martin Amidu and Citi FM’s Umara Sanda, that President Akufo Addo’s cousin and finance minister, Ken Ofori Atta, actually went to the house of the Special Prosecutor at the time he was conducting the corruption risk assessment on the Agyapa matter to influence his work.
Distinguished friends from the media, that President Akufo-Addo has cemented his dubious reputation as the “Corruption Clearing Agent” is no longer in doubt.
Since assuming office as President, Akufo-Addo’s only way of fighting corruption is to sweep serious crimes under the carpet and declare his appointees innocent even before they are investigated.
Mr. Martin Amidu has stated in black and white in his resignation letter, how President Akufo-Addo assumed the role of a judge in his own cause in a matter he himself has been indicted relative to the excessive executive approval he gave the stinky Agyapa deal on 24th March 2020 and his assent of the Minerals Income Investment (Amendment) Act, 2020 (Act 1024), with the aim of giving retroactive effect to the Parliamentary approval of same.
Why has the President been this desperate in the ‘Agyapa’ matter? How could President Akufo-Addo, a man who swore to defend the cause of right, be this corrupt?
Friends from the media, to say that President Akufo-Addo’s so-called fight against corruption has been lost, is an understatement.
Today, every critical voice of dissent that dares to talk about the unprecedented corruption under this government has been suppressed.
The NPP/Akufo-Addo government to have gone to the extent of threatening Mr. Martin Amidu with death for undertaking the Agyapa anti-corruption risk assessment. This speaks volumes about President Akufo Addo’s determination to fight anyone who dares to fight corruption in his government.
The NDC has been alarmed and appalled by revelations by Martin Amidu about threats of robbery, arson and death on his life following the release of his corruption risk assessment report on the Agyapa scam.
Martin Amidu at this point needs our collective prayer and protection against the vile threats directed at his life, since according to him, the sudden demise of Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings has removed the only protection enjoyed from such threats and wicked plans
Ladies and Gentlemen, It is quite sad, that President Akufo-Addo the self-acclaimed ‘incorruptible’ President who rode on the back of anti-corruption campaign to power, is today a fighter of corruption fighters.
The removal of the Auditor-General, Mr. Daniel Yao Domelovo for his relentless fight against corruption, the harassment of investigative journalists such as Anas Aremeyaw Anas, Manasseh Azure Awuni, Edward Adeti and other anti-corruption campaigners, and the sad and gruesome murder of Ahmed Suale of Tigre Eye PI fame, casts the most undesirable record of any democratically-elected President who is so determined to dim the torch of accountability.
Never in the history of this country have we witnessed this level of terror and cruelty being unleashed on anti-corruption crusaders who deserve to be honored and celebrated for their good works.
Distinguished friends, the NDC is deeply concerned about the threats of arson, robbery and assassination on the life of Mr. Martin Amidu.
We wish to serve notice to President Akufo-Addo and the NPP that the Ghanaian people will not sit down and watch them extend their wickedness to Mr. Martin Amidu.
Therefore, should anything happen to him, President Akufo-Addo will be held responsible. Ghanaians will not sit aloof for President Akufo-Addo and his wicked and treacherous hirelings in government to take the life of Mr. Martin Amidu as they did to the late Ahmed Suale.
Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the attempt by government to stop Citi FM which conducted this interview from airing same, is in itself a perverse act of corruption and confirms what we have known all along about government’s manipulation of the news.
We call on the GJA and National Media Commission to launch a full scale investigation into this matter as it portends grave danger to press freedom.
We also call on all voices of conscience in moral society, traditional authorities, and Civil Society to rise up and condemn the tyranny and totalitarianism being supervised by President Akufo-Addo.
Under the erstwhile NDC/Mills administration and NDC/Mahama regime, Martin Amidu went about his anti-corruption activities in peace.
Even though we disagreed with him on many issues, neither President Mills nor President John Mahama nor their appointees attempted to interfere with Martin Amidu’s work as citizen vigilante in any way. Nor was he threatened by anybody.
So why is he being threatened with arson, robbery and death by the NPP now for professionally discharging his statutory duties as Special Prosecutor under the Akufo Addo government who touts themselves as apostles of the democracy.
It is evil to appoint a man as Special Prosecutor and refuse to pay him for two (2) years. Deliberately, starve his office of basic resources necessary for his work. And when he indicts you for corruption, threaten him with death. It is sad that President Akufo Addo and the NPP have sunk this low.
Is it not perplexing that this same Martin Amidu was hailed by President Akufo-Addo and the NPP as an avowed anti-corruption crusader while in opposition? Didn’t they celebrate his appointment as Special Prosecutor to mean the single most important commitment of Akufo-Addo to the fight against corruption in the history of Ghana?
Is it not this same Martin Amidu who was hailed by the NPP as a Citizen Vigilante whose word was the gospel truth in the past? What has suddenly changed about the man today, that President Akufo-Addo and his surrogates will turn around and vilify him, while branding everything he says as lies?
The Ghanaian people are discerning enough to know that between Martin Amidu and President Akufo-Addo, it is the latter who lied his way into government, and continues to thrive on lies.
Ladies and gentlemen, the corruption risk assessment of the Special Prosecutor has confirmed our long held position, that the stinking Agyapa deal is fraught with cronyism, corruption, greed and potential money laundering.
The mandate agreement violated the Public Procurement law, Public Financial Management Act and the 1992 Constitution, hence null and void.
If President Akufo Addo cannot suspend or prosecute his cousin and finance minister, Ken Ofori Atta, and his acolyte, Charles Adu Boahen as required of him, for their roles in this Agyapa scam due to his glaring complicity in the matter, the least he can and should do, is to stop harassing Martin Amidu and rather, retrieve for the country, the over 240 billion old cedis ($4 million) that his government has illegally paid to African Legal Associates which is owned by his cousin, Gabby Otchere Darko; Databank, which is owned by another cousin of his and finance minister and their foreign collaborators.
We need our money now!
Friends from the media, Ghanaians today are having to deal with one corruption scandal per day, with state-sponsored thievery reaching a crescendo in the final days of the Akufo-Addo government.
Unprecedented culture of state capture has become the mainstay of President Akufo-Addo, as we have witnessed in the case of ‘My Sisters Keepers’ Foundation’, where the daughters of President Akufo-Addo have been hiding behind a so-called charity foundation to extort monies from state Agencies, the capture of A Duty Free Shop and CIP Lounge at the newly-built Terminal 3 at the Kotoka International Airport for the family and friends of President Akufo-Addo and the doling out of GNPC cash to wife of the President under the pretext of charity work, just to mention a few.
Ghanaians today are left in no doubt as to the fact that President Akufo-Addo is the most corrupt President in Ghana’s history, who has been using subterfuge and intimidation to conceal his true nature. But thank God his cup is now full, as all these latest revelations are signs of the end of his corrupt tenure and the judgement of God against his misrule.
Coming events, they say, cast their shadow, and the defeat of President Akufo-Addo on 7th December, 2020 is increasingly becoming glaring.
No amount of threats or intimidation against political opponents, the media and CSO’s will stop our collective resolve to expose the stinking corruption being supervised by President Akufo-Addo and his family and friends cabal, as the Ghanaian people wait with bated breath to kick him and his corrupt government out of office and restore truth, decency and honesty to the Presidency.
Thank you for coming.