The writer
I sincerely believe and conclude from the bottom of my heart that nothing useful by way of evidential results would come out of any Ghanaian investigation into the Asante-Aksa-Ghana corruption, corruption related and other criminal offences such as money laundry deals that were consummated between 2014 and 2017 leading to the conviction of the principal facilitator of the corruption transactions, Asante Kwaku Berko, by the United States District Court Eastern District of New York on 6 August 2026. The evidence will be suppressed!
The Asante Berko-Aksa-Ghana bribery deal for which Asante Berko was convicted in the US on 6 August 2026 relates only to the bribery and corruption of public officials of the John Mahama government between 2014 and the early part of 2017 after Berko had resigned from Goldman Sachs in December 2016 to enable investigations into his conduct.
It had nothing to do with bribery and corruption during the Nana Akufo-Addo’s government. Of course, the corruption transaction involving AKSA continued as some payments were made in July 2018 according to the investigation from the OSP.
There is, however, a concerted attempt by the government to present the conviction of Asante Berko in the US for bribery as having been committed during the tenures of the Mahama National Democratic Congress government (2013-2016) and the Akufo-Addo New Patriotic Party government (2017 -2024).
The AKSA bribery might have continued bi-partisanly in Parliament and under the Nana Akufo-Addo government and continues to date as AKSA has become an institution in Ghana.
But any attempt to extend the conviction of Asante Berko as involving criminal activities beyond December 2016 when he resigned from Goldman Sachs for internal investigations for his misconduct will be an attempt to establish equalization as the government did in 2012 with the Justice Appau Commission of Enquiry.
The Mills/Mahama government when it was faced by my accusations of suppressing the criminal investigations of the GARGANTUAN CRIMES involving its Ministers of State and financier, Alfred Abesi Woyome and others, set up the Commission of Enquiry into Judgement Debt to pre-empt my intended action in the Supreme Court.
I beat the government to the game by commencing my constitutional actions against Wayome and Isofton before the Commission could be established. I won Amidu v Attorney-General & 3 Others (the Woyome case) and Amidu v Attorney-General & 2 Others (the Isofoton case) in the Supreme Court. The findings and recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry were never implemented by the government.
The Mahama government should deal separately with investigating the public officials and the politically exposed relative of President Mahama indicted for the trial of Asante Berko in the US in the Asante Berko-Aksa-Ghana bribery deal for which Asante Berko was convicted in the US.
The OSP commenced investigations in April 2020 while Asante Berko had resigned from Goldman Sachs in December 2016 to enable investigations into his conduct to establish credentials of incorruptibility.
This had nothing to do with any continued bribery and corruption by ASKA under the Nana Akufo-Addo government’s tenure from 7 January 2017 to 7 January 2025 which was not the subject of the US convictions of the Mahama government’s chief corruption facilitator from Goldman Sach. Mixing the two cases will be an attempted at equalisation again and not impartial investigation and prosecution.
I started writing this discourse on Monday 17 August 2026 after I had read calls and admonitions in the media from well-meaning and seemingly non-partisan members of the public demanding impartial investigations into the Asante Berko-Aksa-Ghana bribery deal, in particular, today’s news in Joy News and other media – “act swiftly, decisively, and ensure that this matter is nipped in the bud,” and “don’t fail Ghana because this opportunity of a perfect storm to nip corruption at its most fertile center, ministries and parliament, may never come in another hundred years” – are but only two of the demands, by Mr. Abdulai and Dr. Amoah, that I wish to refer to as a sample of the calls and admonitions.
Nonetheless, I still believe from the qualitative data at my disposal that any investigation will just be one of the usual strategical ambiguous exercises in this government’s psychological operations to divert public attention ending in tin air and with no prosecutions when the public has again forgotten this episode and moved on. Six years was not enough for the OSP, so how can the remaining two years of the government’s active tenure yield any results?
Time will tell whether my believes and conclusions are wishful thinking or derived from an impartial qualitative analysis as a participant observer of the evolving democratic practice that has turned all the guarantees provided in the 1992 Constitution for good democratic governance into a partisan electoral democracy machine of the ruling government using the fight against corruption as a smoke screen for winning at the next elections.
Theoritical Framework And Antecedent Facts
In the study of conflicts and conflict resolution the personality and antecedents of decision makers have been established to influence the decisions they make in all interactive socio politico-economic or other environments, be it interaction in inter-personal, intra-group, inter group, community, other social formations, national or international relationships.
That is why objectifying and re-reifying socio-politico-economic facts or ideas as objective phenomenon for purposes of any discourse without reference to the social facts or reality making up the personality of the decision maker or makers yields only abstract results, not reflective of transparent everyday interaction in the society.
Constitutions are mere words on paper requiring operationalisation by various human actors with varied personality traits and behaviour of the particular societies to achieve the end results the framers envisaged and embodied in the constitutional document.
The lesson of history is that no constitution lasts forever. Its survival depends mostly on whether those entrusted by the electorate with the mandate to operationalise and serve the general good do so sincerely or put their personal interests and those of their associated political formations above the general will.
On August 9, 2026, I wrote a discourse on the Asante Berko-Aksa-Ghana bribery deal in which I called on President Mahama as the repository of the executive power and branch of government to tell Ghanaians, “What happened to the OSP investigation into the Aksa bribery deal?”
The premises of my discourse was my knowledge that the OSP had in April 2020 opened “a preliminary investigations into the…allegations of bribery and corruption contained in the…SEC suit against Asante K. Berko and his cohorts under the supervision of the Deputy Special Prosecutor….”
The style which I had cultivated and internalized through decades of experience as a lawyer and public official from the professional ethics of investigators and prosecutors was to presume every suspect to be innocent until the investigation leads to a charge fileable in a court of law against the suspect and a charge subsequently filed in a court of law.
The media was then at liberty to access the charge sheet which had become a public document or seek an interview limited only to the charges, excluding the evidence intended to be adduced against the suspect.
The OSP changed the professionally acceptable ethical standards of investigating and prosecuting cases by trying suspects in the court of public opinion during the process of investigations and before charges are filed in the courts of law.
While the OSP during my tenure published only cases that had been filed in the courts of law, the OSP under William Kissi Agyepeng as the Special Prosector adopted the unethical method of briefing the media on all cases under investigation except those in which the Special Prosecutor had a personal interest whether as a lawyer before his appointment as the Special Prosecutor or involving relatives, friends and cronies. Investigations and prosecutions were reduced to transactions,
It was under these circumstances of personal interests of the leadership of the OSP that “the investigation into…the allegations of bribery and corruption contained in the the…SEC suit against Asante K. Berko and his cohorts under the supervision of the Deputy Special Prosecutor….” disappeared from the list of cases under investigation by the OSP’s periodic briefing to the media under Kissi Agyebeng as the Special Prosecutor. I have written about the unlawful and unprofessional manner in which the Special Prosecutor oversaw the Airbus SE-Ghana Bribery scandal and then absconded from Ghana until after the 2024 elections.
The Asante Berko-Aksa-Ghana bribery deal which is the subject of our present discussion shares the same modus operandi, environmental circumstances, and time period with the Airbus SE Ghana Bribery scandal.
By Martin A. B. K. Amidu
