KODJO MPIANIM MUST WELCOME OPPORTUNITY TO CLEAR HIS NAME!

Politicians are such an interesting breed. To hear some of the ministers in the previous regime, who gathered in front of the headquarters of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) yesterday, you’d think that life in Ghana today, was akin to living in President Iddi Amin Dada’s Uganda. When will Ghana’s politicians understand that there has been a sea-change in Ghanaian politics – and that the kingmakers of Ghanaian politics, whose crucial votes decide who wins the presidential elections (the independent-minded and nationalistic individuals who are collectively known as “floating voters”, i.e.) are determined to ensure that all elected officeholders are held accountable for their actions, when they end their tenure?

Rather than resorting to actions that disturb the peace outside the walls of the BNI headquarters (itself an infringement of the law that responsible men and women who have held high office before ought not countenance), when one of their number is invited for questioning by state agencies like the BNI, they must make the point to Ghanaians, that they welcome the opportunity for their colleague to clear his name. One hopes that those in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who have clear consciences because they know that they refused to allow themselves to be contaminated by the virus of unfathomable greed that infected some powerful people in their party during their tenure, will ensure that their party does not take it upon itself to defend those in their midst whom they know so clearly abused the trust of Ghanaians, when they were in power. That will be a betrayal of mother Ghana.

They may take the “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types, whose blind support eventually destroys political parties when they win power, for granted – but they must never take discerning Ghanaians for granted. That type of Ghanaian understands perfectly, the outrage that the actions of those politicians whose acceptance of kickbacks, results in the delivery of shoddy work by contractors executing road and other infrastructural projects, represents. Who, but those who wear blinkers permanently and are too thick to think for themselves, does not see the infuriating evidence of poor quality workmanship, in the thousands of kilometers of roads and hundreds of public buildings, built at inflated prices across this country, that result from yesteryear's corruption in high places? Why should those who shortchanged our country in that egregious fashion get away with their crimes?

The NPP must understand that the Mills administration will be failing Ghanaians if it does not prosecute those who so shortchanged our nation – and investigations by the BNI form an important part of the process of holding those who gang-raped mother Ghana so brutally, to account. As the anniversary of June 4, 1979 approaches, let our political class understand that if they let ordinary people come to the conclusion that democracy is merely a legal cloak, specifically designed to protect clever men and women in the ruling elite, to enable them use loopholes in the law to enrich themselves with impunity, they will quickly become disillusioned with constitutional democracy – and to such an extent that the 4th Republic and its largely predatory political class will be swept away by “people power” in an unstoppable and popular mass revolt. Rather than maligning the Mills administration and making out that the government is persecuting them, the Kodjo Mpianims of this world must welcome the opportunity regime-change now offers them to correct the widespread perception amongst ordinary Ghanaians that their regime was the most corrupt ever elected into office in Ghana. A word to the wise…