My fellow Ghanaians, my heart is heavy and so should yours.
“Instead of virtues, we have luxury and avarice, public distress and private superfluity; we extol wealth and yield to indolence, no distinction is made between good and bad men; and ambition usurps the honour due to virtue. Since each of you focuses on his individual interest and since at home you are slaves to pleasure, money or favour, it happens that an attack is made on the defenseless state.” These are not the words of any Ghanaians–they belong to Cato, dubbed by many historians as “Rome’s last Citizen”, a man whose life of integrity inspired the likes of Washington and Jefferson.
Our Ghana is being destroyed before our eyes. This month’s issue of AFRICAWATCH magazine contained interviews by editor Steve Mallory with 2 very important Ghanaians on the state of our nation and its prospects. Former and perhaps future President John Mahama told Mr. Mallory, ” I don’t have to tell you that people don’t believe that their lives are better off.” He added that “There have been a deterioration of every aspect of life– in Healthcare, in education and the infrastructure has gone bad, the economy is in crisis”. Finally, he added stunningly, ” I knew that one day, I will be vindicated from the web of lies the NPP spun around me. I expected that posterity would take centuries to judge. It looks like that judgement has come quicker than I thought. I feel vindicated.”
Professor Frimpong-Boateng was equally substantive. He went over the now familiar galamsey crisis.
Then, he dropped a bombshell. AFRICAWATCH reported that “Starting from the Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Finance, a scheme was put in place to swindle Ghana of a humongous US$ 88.24 million but Prof. Frimpong-Boateng’s refusal to accept a bribe of 5 million USD stopped it.” According to Prof, “The whole thing was too shady. I confronted Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta about it and he told me Charles Adu Boahen, the then deputy Minister of Finance was probably behind it. Soon after some people from Apex Pollution Control Company came to see me in my office and offered me a US$5 million bribe to approve the judgment debt for them. I rejected it and told them to disappear from my office.” And he had copies of letters from the Attorney General and Ministry of Finance to back him up!
Shockingly, this revelation has been met by loud silence from all corners.
President NADAA who pledged to protect the public purse has been silent. The Attorney General, who is implicated and has been working with his “Jonathan”, the Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyabeng to maintain this government’s bogus anti-corruption credentials has been busy spinning the fallacy that there are no criminal galamseyers in Flagstaff House.
The Special Prosecutor, the self-styled “conscience of the nation” is silent.The peoples’ Parliament has not said “Fe” mpo!
The media houses who claim to be staunchly anti-corruption have been silent– they are busy covering the horse-race in the NPP primary to pick who will protect the legacy of perhaps, the most corrupt government ever to rule Ghana.
The “Asofo Akese3” are silent–waiting for their Cathedral while the masses wait for their true prophets.
Think about it. One judgment debt, negotiated quietly for 88 million USD! How many such deals have been done in the name of loot-and-share? President Biden is being investigated over allegations that he took USD 20 millions over 8 years as VP! How much did they pay for the media silence?
I miss the days of yore when newspapers like the Pioneer, Legon Observer, the Free Press etc would have fearlessly exposed the dishonorable honourables destroying Ghana.
I miss the days of yore when NUGS, UTAG and TUC etc would have demanded accountability. I miss the days of yore when men like Adu Boahen ( the father), Reverend Essamuah, Bishop Sarpong, Palmer Buckle, Elizabeth Ohene, Tommy Thompson and Mrs Nikoi would have called this government out for the bull. I even miss NADAA, the firebrand and Rawlings– not the one we buried but the AFRC one who breathed accountability and probity! Lord, we need some cleansing!!!! To the priests who can’t find which side God is on, I call your attention to Isaiah 5:8 ” Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left alone to live in the midst of the land.” There is a proverb that we sometimes stand in the house of a coward and point to the ruins where a brave man used to live. Soon, there will be no ruins anymore!
We must sing “Yen Ara asase ni” and save Ghana or see Nkrumah’s prophesy, “If change is denied, or too long delayed, violence will break out.”
May God bless you.
May God bless Ghana and May Ghana never want for men and women whose spirits will be stirred by Ephraim Amu’s patriotic lyrics.
Arthur Kobina Kennedy
October, 14th, 2023.