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Opinions of Saturday, 21 November 2015

Columnist: Adofo, Rockson

Cease Fire Now! – Martin Amidu and Anas Aremeyaw Anas

I am really saddened to the core to see these two most anti-corruption giants or crusaders in Ghana that I dearly respect engaged in free to view public pugilism over the methods of fighting against corruption. Their mudslinging will not help but rather defeat the end objective of clamping the wings of that President John Mahama's most adored and powerful pet called CORRUPTION.

Is it not said, "The end justifies the means?" Yes it is, but it cannot always be the holistic approach to resolving problems or achieving objectives.

Anas Aremeyaw Anas as an ace investigative journalist with that lion's heart to fight to curtail, if not totally uproot, corruption from Ghana believes in any method that will help take him to his dreamland. However, Brother Martin Amidu, a lawyer, believes differently. He believes in the strictest adherence to the constitutional statutes and the Ghana Criminal Codes in achieving their purpose. He is now using legal technicalities to rubbish Anas' modus operandi even though Anas by his supposedly crude methods has been able to nail and exposed some shamelessly corrupt judges and court clerks.

The downfall of Ghana is to be partly, if not mainly, blamed on the corrupt judiciary that we have in place in the country. If JUSTICE were to prevail as it should, all institutions would be automatically strengthened because most people, if not everybody, will be mindful of their actions. They will aspire to do things within the confinements of the law.

Who is responsible to ensure or guarantee the prevalence of JUSTICE in Ghana? Is it not the court judges but who have chosen to sell justice to the highest bidder regardless of the magnitude of their crime and guilt?

Can a judge in all respect not jail a President or a Prime Minister if they were found to have gravely breached the laws of the land? Can a judge not order the incarceration of a Member of Parliament (MP) if they are established to have caused crimes meriting a jail sentence?

We can discuss their constitutional immunities as President and MP later but they can still be sentenced to jail terms by a court judge. This tells how powerful judges are hence the need for them to be fair and firm in the exercise of their duties.

Going forward, Brother Amidu questions why the judiciary has been singled out by Anas for investigation but not the Executive (members of government and the presidency) or the Legislature (Members of Parliament)? To him, it is all because the government is sponsoring him and encouraging him to disgrace the judiciary that the government perceives to be its bitterest enemy.

Anas claims he is neither being sponsored nor directed by the government in his personal crusade to eliminate official corruption from Ghana as is contrary the view of Martin. Nonetheless, the public must be aware that Anas could not have successfully investigated and exposed corruption within the judiciary, capturing and naming both corrupt and incorruptible judges on video without authorisation from "the power from above"

The Chief Justice Mrs Theodora Georgina Wood or the President of Ghana, H. E. John Dramani Mahama must have secretly given him permission to do that. This fact cannot be denied because I am speaking from experience and operational requirements of the security industry when such intrusive investigations are being conducted.

Before what we call "PENETRATION TEST" OR "PLANNED INCURSION" can be conducted, with the aim of ascertaining how robust a Security team is in preventing trespassers or illegal entry into a building or an area they man, certain procedures must be followed.

The Security Management of the building whose Security Officers/guards are to be tested for their competence of vigilance, awareness and readiness to prevent illegal entry into their building by whomever, must be aware of the plan

They must grant the company coming to test the Security Officers secretly by attempting to gain access into their building using perceived vulnerable areas or entrances, written permission with the contact details of the person giving the permission indicated. This is done so that in the likely event of the pre-arranged trespasser being apprehended by a Security Officer, undesired commotion that will attract unnecessary public attention will not ensue.

The holder of the permission note, thus, the arranged trespasser, must tend in evidence the note to prove that he/she is not a criminal in a sense but only staging a penetration test as soon as his/her attempt fails. Without providing the note, the arranged trespasser will be treated like any other criminal trying to enter the building or the area with unknown reasons and intents.


Once the note is shown to the Officer once the trespasser is caught before they are able to achieve their mission, the Officer must quietly take the trespasser aside and make contact with the Officer's senior management member whose details may appear in the note to ascertain the credibility of the note. Once it is confirmed to be genuine, the Officers will let the trespasser go away in peace. The Officer is not to alert his colleagues so that they can also be tested to see how vigilant, professional and up to the task of protecting lives, preventing crimes and protecting properties they are. However, some Officers on the quiet can alert their colleagues so that they are not faulted as being incompetent Security team should a majority be found wanting – unable to detect trespassers but have let them through into the building?

I do not have to be exhaustive in my analysis to tell the reading public that Anas could not have succeeded in his task without written permission by a higher authority that all the judges succumb to.

He would have been arrested by at least one of those judges he claimed to have threatened him with arrest. Why did they not cause his arrest, has anyone bothered themselves to find out?

Brother Amidu is insisting why only the judiciary knowing very well that the President and his outfit (the Executives) and the legislature (parliament) are all smelling foul with corruption, especially the President himself? This is his beef for attacking Anas. He feels Anas has been biased and is directly helping the government to continue to be corrupt to the detriment of Ghanaians.

Does the government not feel exonerated from blame if only judges are singled out to be ridiculed? If Anas has anything recorded on the Executive and the Legislature, please make it public.

However, if the judges will learn from this exposure and the concomitant public ridicule they are suffering at the moment, they will begin to be fair when deciding cases brought before them without accepting bribes (money, goats, guinea fowls, cats, dogs, pigs and cassava) to twist the truth. They will no longer declare cases in favour of who pays bigger bribe even though that person would otherwise be the genuinely guilty party.
Whatever the method used to expose them, as long as they have been found to be corrupt, I support Anas. As we speak, some judges and courts have still not learnt any lesson from the exposure. They are still behaving irresponsibly.

I pray that Brother Amidu will not use his attacks on Anas to strengthen the hands of the exposed corrupt judges but rather do something to let them feel remorseful and repentant.

Anas, please if you have any recordings on the Executives and the Legislature, please get ready to bring them to the public domain. Our politicians are killing us through their disgraceful acts of corruption.

I shall advise both senior brother Amidu and younger brother Aremeyaw Anas to cease fire now. The public salvos they are hurling at each other is defeating their objective of exterminating official corruption from Ghana.

The public must rally behind them, give them the needed support in their fight against corruption.

They are both my heroes and role models in fighting against the ramified official corruption in Ghana.

Rockson Adofo