The NDC Government's Biggest Failing: Allowing Kufuor-Era Crooks To Escape Justice!

Shortly after the new National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime of President Mills came into office, a spending scandal occurred. An air force plane was used for a junketing trip abroad by some members of the new administration.

A number of VIP's, led by the then minister in charge of the youth and sports ministry, Alhaji Muntaka, were flown to Abidjan to watch a football match involving the national team, the Black Stars, by the Ghana Air Force (in an aircraft apparently jam-packed with their cronies and sundry regime-hangers-on).

The regime's apologists subsequently claimed that the trip had been sponsored by a private company. Yet, it was to later emerge that in fact taxpayers' had had to fork out some US$10,000 to pay for the air force plane's landing fees at the Abidjan airport.

This being Ghana, the silver-tongued individuals who lied through their teeth, to try and hide the truth, did not have the decency to do the honourable thing - and resign from their positions: and save the new government from embarrassment and enable it keep the squeaky-clean image, which President Mills' personal integrity, initially lent it.

There was a subsequent attempt by some of the new regime's spin-doctors, to try and justify what clearly was an unjustifiable example, of unacceptable and wanton abuse of power in our democracy. It was to prove to be an early indicator of the mastery of the art and science of the exploitation of government perks and freebies (including junketing trips of course) - by those ace hypocrites and serial-evaders-of-the-truth, lurking in the shadows of the Mills administration.

That unfortunate attempt at covering up the truth, was indeed a harbinger of things to come. For, it was an early example of a penchant for the deployment of the cloak-of-obfuscation to hide the truth, by some in the new NDC regime whenever there was the slightest whiff of the unpleasant about the Mills administration (the plain truth, ie!).

Those were the selfsame too-clever-by-half individuals who were later on so aptly labelled as "greedy bastards" by President Rawlings. And it is at the doorstep of those "greedy bastards" that must be laid the blame for what has turned out to be the biggest failure, to date, of the Mills administration.

The fact of the matter, is that it is not in the interest of the NDC's "greedy bastards" that the Kufuor-era crooks are investigated, prosecuted and jailed - as a change in governing parties in December 2012, will see them at the receiving end of a similar calling to account for crimes against Ghana.

Their serial-wrongdoing, often hidden by the deployment of the cloak of obfuscation, is the sole reason for the apparent lack of interest, and reluctance, on the part of the present NDC regime  to investigate and prosecute past wrongdoing from the Kufuor-era.

It is said, for example, that it is the "greedy bastards" love for the Kufuor-era pork-barrel politics that the NDC regime that promised Ghanaians a better Ghana, failed to remove the disposal of "seized vehicles" from the presidency - and make a deliberately opaque process much more transparent.

The question we must ask those self-seekers is: Is this still not a nation that is perpetually in need of money (go and ask any of Ghana's teachers, for the answer to that one, dear reader!)?

 And if it is, why then - when the present regime is led by the most honest individual to lead Ghana thus far, since Nkrumah's overthrow in February 1966 -  is the sale of such confiscated vehicles not seen as a means of raising extra revenue for the Ghanaian nation-state by the denizens of the corridors of power at the Osu Castle, Ghana's seat of government?

Surely, in the regime of a man of integrity such as President Mills is, the entire process of the disposal of such vehicles ought to be made more transparent than it had been under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) - by opting to dispose of such vehicles through public auctions open to all Ghanaians: so as to yield maximum revenue for the national kitty?

With respect, President Mills must understand clearly, that the failure of his administration to make the investigation and prosecution of Kufuor-era wrong-doing, a top priority item of his regime, shows a lack of political nous and foresight, on its part (or at any rate, the faction of their party that controls the Osu Castle!) - and will come back to haunt the NDC during the campaign for the crucial 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections, as sure as day follows night, if things are allowed to remain as they are. 

That is why many independent-minded patriots and Ghanaian nationalists (the so-called discerning floating voters!), so desperately want President Mills and the NDC to prevail on Vice-President John Mahama, to step aside and have Mrs. Rawlings appointed vice president to replace him - and put in charge of a special task-force of world-class individuals with the relevant investigative and legal backgrounds, to deal with the issue of the investigation and prosecution of the crooks of yesteryear, once and for all.

The NDC needs to take cognisance of the fact that after several years, when federal agencies sought and failed to nail Al Capone for the many murders linked to the organised criminal syndicates  he was such a genius at organising and leading, in the end the U.S. authorities opted to use the IRS to nail him.

Why can't the same method be used to put behind bars, all those who took part in the brutal gang-rape of Mother Ghana, during the golden age of business for Kufuor & Co, I ask? What are the tax authorities doing - when there are stories circulating of prominent Ghanaians acquiring assets, both locally and overseas, worth millions of dollars, for example?

And what about those individuals who never cease telling all who will listen that they are single-handedly shouldering the burden of funding the New Patriotic Party (NPP)? Where exactly do they find the means to do so - and is their expenditure on sustaining the NPP  and the many mercenary journalists who are in their very deep pockets, commensurate with their declared incomes, one wonders?

In light of all the above, why should society continue to allow our nation to be held to ransom, by a few biased judges, who all fair-minded and discerning Ghanaians are aware, based on their record, would not last even five minutes, in the judiciary of any of the established democracies of the Western world - for their outrageous tribalism and egregious partisanship?

And much reluctantly, amongst such judicial bias, one must unfortunately include - if we are to believe its source, the Hon. Atta Akyea - the apparent assistance once upon a time rendered by the present Chief Justice to the selfsame Atta Akyea & Co.

To be fair to her, she did say later on in her defence, that it was part of her plan to speed up the adjudication of electoral disputes in the law courts - to which the cynics might counter, "That was before Tain: so how did she know there would be an electoral dispute case, when no votes had been cast, in the decider, the election in Tain constituency?

Did she have the powers of a mystic and a clairvoyant, perhaps?" Hmm, Ghana, eyeasem o: asem sebeh! This shocking news, came into the public domain, when a legal team representing the NPP, sought to manipulate the legal system - in a failed bid to deny the then candidate Mills, the presidency, during the run-off of the December 2008 presidential election.

As we all know, that incredible piece of evidence, of an action that would definitely have led to the Chief Justices of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, resigning immediately it came into the public domain, had they, in a moment of fleeting moment of madness, done same, was a revelation that came directly from that gentleman's own inference of the aforementioned painful and unacceptable fact: when he complained, in a petulant voice, about "Mame nu" in apparent reference to a message, which he said had been sent through his wife to him, by her relation, "Mame nu - me yeri nu anipa nu": ie, the Chief Justice of Ghana - and all of which was caught on a tape-recording  played on Radio Gold's "Election Forensics" programme, and which the Hon. Atta Akyea admitted publicly to Mr. Kwesi Pratt during a radio interview on Hot FM, was his own voice.

In light of all the above, perhaps the question we must pose those who now rule our nation, is: Will the hard-of-hearing folk in the NDC regime, some of whose members are toying with the power their party won the hard way, listen to practical advice from those who only give such free advice because they love Mother Ghana - and want nothing in return for it: and be creative in nailing the crooks of yesteryear: by putting a Vice-President Nana Konadu Agyemang iRawlings in charge of that vital task?

One hopes they will, for our homeland Ghana's sake - as their regime's failure to investigate and prosecute all those responsible for the corruption of the Kufuor-era, is their administration's biggest failing to date.