Editorial: Will Edumadze ever change?

For some years now The Chronicle has been reporting on the bad conduct of Mr. Isaac Eduasor Edumadze, a former Central Regional Minister. Ever since Edumadze sprang into the Ghanaian political scene, there have been several negative reports about the way he conducts himself, especially in public.

Despite his appalling conduct, President Kufuor kept him in his government, apparently thinking the newspapers which were exposing his public life, especially The Chronicle, had ulterior motives against his minister.

Even when chiefs and opinion leaders from the Central Region, protested against his re-appointment as the Central Regional Minister, the President did not heed their call - he went ahead to appoint him.

But despite all support he was enjoying from the President, Edumadze would still not change. It therefore did not come as a surprise, when the President finally decided to remove him from office, during a cabinet reshuffle.

After he had finally been booted out of office, one would have expected that Edumadze would sit down, to reflect on what he might have done to warrant his removal, and change for the better, but alas! That did not occur to him.

Edumadze seems not have learnt any lessons from his removal from office, because he continues to behave the way he did, when he was in office. A front page banner we carry today indicates that Mr. Edumadze has, this time, turned the heat on a poor journalist - Mr. Joe Okyere, of the Daily Graphic, whose crime was that he had discharged his duties, according to the dictates of the constitution.

According to our story, Mr. Okyere, who had accompanied his colleague journalist, Philip Baidoo of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), to the house of Edumadze, was subjected to severe pummelling by the latter, accusing him of writing negative stories about him, when he was the Central Regional Minister. But for the intervention of Edumadze’s own wife, anything could have happened to Okyere. Now Edumadze is claiming that Okyere was an intruder in his house, and has gone further to report him to the police.

The Chronicle considers Edumadze’s behaviour as irresponsible, and one that casts a slur on his office as a Member of Parliament. He has demonstrated that the President was right in booting him out of his government, for his seemingly uncontrollable character. We think that even if Joe Okyere was an intruder to his house, as he claims, the best thing to do was to hand him over to the police, but not to subject him to such inhuman treatment.

It is our hope that the police will get to the bottom of this matter, to ascertain if there was any merit in what Edumadze is saying - that the journalist was an intruder in his house. The Chronicle is also waiting to hear what action the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) would take on this matter.

It is rather unfortunate for a politician, who rode on the back of journalists to fame, to turn round and subject the same people to inhuman treatment.

The Chronicle would also like to call on the leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), whose ticket Edumadze represents in Parliament, to conduct their independent investigation into the matter.

If they find him guilty, they should not hesitate to expel him, before he causes more damage to the reputation of the party.