The writer
In the interim a Commission of Enquiry had been set up to deflect attention from the Woyome and Isofoton crimes and suits in the Supreme Court but the findings and recommendations of its own Appau Commission went unimplemented as well.
Nana Akufo-Addo like the NPP government of the Kufour government of which he was the Attorney-General determined to investigate, prosecute and convict only adversaries including the convictions in National Communication Authority procurement case, and the Airbus SE Ghana Bribery scandal referral to the OSP for investigation.
Members of his government and political party suspected of grand corruption, including the Agyapa Royalties Transaction were either cleared by investigating agencies appointed by the President or no action taken.
The re-entry of John Mahama as President for a second term on 7 January 2026 has seen the entry of nolle prosequi and the withdrawal of pending cases against former Ministers, public officeholders and other operatives of the NDC and the hyped investigation and prosecution of the adversary political party and the government first in the court of public opinion and in the courts of law supervised by the government’s chosen Chief Justice.
The objectives underpinning these investigations and prosecutions partake of what Kufour started during his tenure, continued under the tenure of Nana Akufo-Addo – using electoral democracy as the battering ram called the fight against corruption to win the next elections for oneself or one’s political party. John Mahama and the NDC are eyeing election 2028, whether Mr. Mahama qualifies to contest or not, just as Kufour eyed election 2004 for himself and 2008 for the NPP presidential candidate.
In the scheme of reducing constitutionalism and democracy to the electoral democracy machine for winning the next election in the name of fighting corruption, it will be suicidal to investigate, prosecute, and convict suspects from the ruling government and political party.
The opposing political party is waiting in the wings for such prosecutions and convictions to use them as narratives of corruption and looting in the ruling government and political party to the end of convincing the electorate to vote for the political party in opposition.
This explains why since the campaign for the 1996 elections the perceived corruption of the ruling government has been an attractive campaign tool for the parties in opposition.
Corruption as a partisan democratic electoral mechanism for winning the next election has produced alternating governments of the NDC and the NPP underpinned by perceptions of corruption since 1996. No government in power since then has investigated, prosecuted, and convicted its own for corruption or other offences of dishonesty against the state.
President Mahama’s government will not prosecute his own within the less than two years remaining to the 2028 elections and give ammunition to the NPP for the political campaign towards those elections. Mr. Justice Abdulai and Dr. Kofi Amoah, mark my words!
Conclusions
The examination of the qualitative research data available to me, my experience as a participant observer in the Ghanaian political and constitutional process which extends into decades, and my analysis of the extant data in this discourse grounds in me the sincere believe and conclusion from the bottom of my heart that nothing useful in the nature of a thorough professional investigation will come out of any Ghanaian investigation into the Asante Berko-Aksa-Ghana corruption, corruption related and other criminal offences such as money laundry deals that was consummated between 2014 and 2017 leading to the conviction of the principal facilitator of the corruption transactions, Asante Kwaku Berko, by the Unted States District Court Eastern District of New York on 6 August 2026.
All the Ghanaian public officials and politically exposed relative of President Mahama will be cleared of any wrongdoing for the crimes committed between 2014 and 2016.
I have demonstrated from the examination, analysis of the facts, and environment surrounding the Asante Berko-Aksa-Ghana bribery deal and the evolved scheme of reducing constitutionalism and democracy to the electoral democracy machine for winning the next election introduced into Ghanaian politics by the Agyekum Kufour government that governments in Ghana now consider it suicidal to investigate, prosecute, and convict suspects from the ruling government and political party.
EOCO as presently constituted and controlled by the Attorney-General is the worse vehicle for impartial apolitical investigation and prosecution of the Asante Berko-Aksa-Ghana bribery deal whether for corruption or money laundering.
EOCO under its present leadership, it has been contended in this discourse, has been weaponized as the Ghanaian Gestapo for hunting down perceived adversaries through the process of criminal justice administration and protecting the government’s own appointees and supporters from prosecution.
I campaigned for John Dramani Mahama to win the 7 December 2024 elections because I took the view that he had learnt his lessons from being the only President to have been defeated at the polls after one-four-year tenure as President of Ghana. The on-going partisan developments of protecting party members and going after political adversaries are not vindicating me, they put me to shame.
But I still write to contribute to the founding ideals I was part of establishing in the Consultative Assembly, 1991 which became the 1992 Constitution, and to uphold the founding ideals of the NDC in 1992 which I helped to found because I still have hope that President Mahama can redeem himself within the one and half years left for him to become lame duck to leave a legacy of incorruptibility.
President Mahama needs to vindicate the trust the electorate placed in him when it preferred him over the candidate of the NPP at the 7 December 2024 election. Forces of nature, save Ghana!
By Martin A. B. K. Amidu
