Why Martin Amidu was sacked; the Inside Story

Since Martin Amidu was sacked from his position as Attorney General and Minister for Justice, several explanations, sometimes contradictory, have been given for his dismissal.

The official explanation contained in a statement signed by the Chief of Staff said Mr Amidu misconducted himself at a meeting with the President, a claim Martin Amidu denies.

Martin Amidu, who christened himself the “Citizen Vigilante” after his removal from office has been very critical of the NDC government occasionally issuing statements bordering on corruption in the government.

In Thursday’s edition of Daily Guide, a paper critical of the ruling government, carried what it called the Inside Story of why Mr. Martin Amidu was sacked.

Read below Daily Guide’s reasons why Martin Amidu was sack.

Why Martin Amidu was sacked-The Inside Story

Information available to Daily Guide indicates that the former Attorney General, Martin ABK Amidu, was sacked by the late President John Evans Atta Mills because he insisted on the prosecution of some government officials over financial malpractices, to the chagrin of the now deceased First Gentleman and tile NDC leadership.

''The Deputy Attorney-General was instructed by the President to take control of the three dockets which he did on 22nd July 2011 from the DPP’s office to prevent prosecutions" was one of the telltale aspects of the correspondences from Mr. Martin Amidu to the Chief of Staff, copies of which are available to Daily Guide.

Some of the government officials Martin Amidu went after included the Ag Chief Fire Officer who, among others, was involved in a financial malfeasance over the purchase of 10 firefighting motorbikes and some of his colleagues in the NDC administration over the Woyome payments.

The revelation throws overboard the much-touted misconduct charge leveled against the former Attorney General by the Chief of Staff and amplified by the Martin Amidu-christened rented press.

While President Mills stood against the prosecution of the cases, Martin Amidu insisted on going ahead, culminating in his boss showing him the exit.

Before the final decision to dispense with his services, Martin Amidu, Henry Martey Newman, Chief of Staff, J.K. Bebaako Mensah, Secretary to the President, Koku Anyidoho and the President were locked up in a crucial meeting over three issues, one of which was the Alfred Woyome debacle.

A £12million International Finance Corporation, facility for a Ghana Oil Palm Development Corporation project had vanished or did not make it at all to the intended vaults in Ghana, suggesting malfeasance involving some Ghanaian government officials.

The murky development over the Ghana/Belgium Cooperation arrangement to develop oil palm plantations triggered a Police Criminal Investigations Department investigation.

The forensic audit of the suspected malfeasance led to n the production of a docket which was submitted to the then Attorney General, Martin Amidu, who set about to prosecute a number of government officials and private personalities found culpable.

He was stopped from proceeding through the intervention of the then Governor of the Bank of Ghana now Vice President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah- Arthur, to the chagrin of Martin Amidu.

He did this by prevailing upon the late President to stop Mr. Amidu who counseled his boss about the oddity of shelving the docket, given the fact that criminal cases have no expiry date and some detectives have copies of the docket.

The second case had to do with the purchase of some firefighting equipment which was riddled with procurement law breaches and therefore making way for some form of malfeasance by some officials.

Expectedly, the Police moved in, producing a docket indicting some government officials including the Ag. Chief Fire Officer but Mr. Amidu's decision to prosecute was blocked.

Also discussed was the issue of indemnity for the EO Group but which Mr. Amidu demurred and incurred the wrath of the late President.

Mr. Amidu, a whistle-blower with the street name 'Citizen Vigilante,' enumerated the foregone in a correspondence to the Chief of Staff and copied to the UN Resident Representative in the country.

On 20th January 2012, Martin Amidu reacted to a press release from government confirming his dismissal, copying same to Mr. J.K. Bebaako-Mensah, Secretary to the President and Larry Gbevlo-Lartey, National Security Coordinator.

In the covering letter of the same date, he stated, "I am attaching herewith my response to Mr. John H.M. Newman, the Chief of Staff's press release of 19th January 2012 alleging that H. E. the President's letter of even date to me relieving me of my position as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice constituted a dismissal for misconduct."

He stated, "I have decided to send you a copy of the letter for the avoidance of any doubt that H.E. the President will know my reaction to the press release of the said John H. M. Newman which is inconsistent with the letter from the RE. the President relieving me of my position and Articles 3 and 88 of the 1992 Constitution.

"This notice to you is very important to me because you are privy to my letter No. D45/SF. 173/1 0 dated 6th January 2012 on 'Why the Government... must set aside the default judgment. .. ' in the Woyome case which demonstrates 'my consistent efforts to protect and defend the President, the Government and the Constitution of Ghana."

The correspondence stated, "A publication of this letter by the Government in the public interest will protect the President and the Government, restore my assassinated integrity, and expose the lies of the Chief of Staff, John H.M. Newman, who was a recipient of my said letter of 6th January 2012."

The foregone was also copied to H.E. Ruby Sandhu Rojon, the UN Resident Coordinator/Resident Representative, Office of the United Nations in Ghana, Accra.

In the 20th January 2012 letter addressed to the Chief of Staff, Mr. Martin Amidu referred to the President's letter relieving him of his position and pointed out that "the only reason given by H.E. the President was that: 'it is my view that your conduct during the meeting in my office on Friday, 13th January, 2012 constituted an affront to the dignity of the high office of the President.' H.E. the President is entitled to be prosecutor, judge and jury in his own cause! I have no problem with that."

He added, "I, however, have a problem of integrity with your press statement which tells the whole world that my undisclosed conduct was misconduct without disclosing particulars of the misconduct."

Mr. Amidu explained that his action was in consonance with the terms of his oath of office to defend the independence and impartiality of the Office of the Attorney General as contained in Article 88 of the Constitution.

That, he said, could not constitute misconduct or an affront to the dignity of the high office of President.

He referred to his abhorrence to the interference in his "prosecutorial powers under the Constitution in relation to the three dockets submitted by the Police/CID to the Attorney General in the Forensic Audit and Criminal Investigations into the Ghana Oil Palm Development Corporation (GOPDC) SIAT Ghana Affair; three dockets submitted by the Police/CID to the Attorney General for prosecution in respect of three different offences committed by the Acting Chief Fire Officer and other colleagues of his; and finally I spoke about the conduct of the President in the supposed settlement of the E.O. Group criminal case and the request to me to issue an indemnity for the transaction stating that the Republic will not prosecute the case."

Martin Amidu recalled one of his letters in which he raised the issue of financial practices and how "the Deputy Attorney General was instructed by the President to take control of the three dockets which he did on 22nd July 2011 from the DPP's office to prevent prosecutions".

He said he joined the government at the request of the President because of his long standing relationship with him, dating - back to when he was enrolled as a lawyer.

He referred the Chief of Staff to a letter he sent to the Interior Minister dated 8th March 2011I in which he stated, "I have a parting thought: It is our constitutional duty as ministers of this Republic to uphold the truth and defend justice to the end that we save our party and Government from any embarrassment even to the peril of our being dismissed from office than to keep quiet for our party and Government to be damned by timidity."

source: Daily Guide

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Martin Amidu on politics and ethnicity

DIVERSITY IN UNITY FOR SUSTAINABLE NATION BUILDING AND DEVLOPMENT: THE CASE OF ETHNIC, RACIAL, RELIGIOUS AND OTHER IDENTITY ARITHMETIC IN POLITICS. BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU

The modern disciplines of conflict, peace, and security studies and research have underscored the importance of a balanced ethnic, racial, religious, gender and other minority interest group democratic participation in the building of stable and sustainable nations and good governance. This is because in the natural and inevitable struggle for power, status, roles and values within any political system containing these diverse groups, political elites who perceive they are marginalized may and do often resort to these group interest for social and political mobilization for political and economic power.

I believe some of the foregoing reasons account for Article 55(4) of the 1992 Constitution underscoring the national character of political parties when it states that: “Every political party shall have a national character, and membership shall not be based on ethnic, religious, regional or other sectional divisions.” This rendition appears to take into account the fact that most African countries were configurations of an amalgam of different ethnic and tribal loyalties brought together by a common colonial history or circumstances whose interests invariably will have to be taken into account in the building of a unified but diverse democratic nation of different cultures, ethnicities, tribes, religions and sectional interests. It is in this regard that I fondly remember Mr. Drah’s famous second year political science question in the course: “Politics in Africa”. It used to be a recurrent question in various forms and variations: “The politics of Africa is the politics of ethnic arithmetic. Discuss. Or: “How far is it true to say that the politics of Africa is the politics of ethnic arithmetic?”

Scholars of conflict, peace, and security studies; and conflict resolution will agree that most of the conflicts that have bedeviled the world in Africa and Europe have resulted from the suppression of the recognition and identity of minorities and other social groups who felt marginalized and used destructive conflict interaction as a means of economic mobilization. Evidence from research show the degree of probability that marginalized groups invariably may themselves be exploited by their educated and political elite who know the potential value of ethnic, tribal, religious, and or minority discontent mobilization in the struggle for socio-eco-political participation for political power.

Western and North American worldviews had created a stereotype of Africa, Asia and the rest of the Americas as the loci of such conflicts. But the break up of the Soviet Union and before then the low intensity destructive and violent conflicts in Ireland and Spain highlighted the global destructive nature of ethnicity particularly and other identity conflicts to any democratic and constitutional process. Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and others have shown the universal nature of ethnic and identity conflicts as not being merely an African, Asian or Latin American phenomenon.

The lessons from ethnic and identity conflicts are that every nation must respect its diverse identities as the surest means of enhancing unity and stability. Equality of opportunity and equity in the democratic process and outcome should be the means to maintain national unity, stability, and peaceful co-existence. This is why I think that even though ethnic and other considerations may be useful in making certain national affirmative action choices these must be made within the democratic and constitutional structure and institutions set out by the national Constitution of a country. Short cuts on grounds of expediency could be costly in any democracy should it lead to perceptions by other identity groups that choices for national leadership, particularly the Presidency, were not made taking into account merit, competence and patriotism within the frame work of affirmative or other actions.

The political history of Ghana confirms the fact that all political parties and military regimes that have governed this nation since independence have by virtue of the post independence history of the entities that became modern Ghana on 6th March 1957 taken the ethnic, tribal, regional and at times religious configuration of Ghana into account in the assignment of roles and status within the constitutional and political frame work of Government. Indeed since the introduction of the Presidential system of Government under the 1979 Constitution with its requirement of the accompanying office of a Vice President, a convention appears to be developing where the President and the Vice President may not and do not invariably come from the same ethnic or geo-regional group.

Under the 1979 Constitution the President, Dr Hilla Liman hailed from the then Upper Region but was for some reason classified as from Northern Ghana as geographical region. He did not serve out his term of office when that Constitution was abrogated by a combination of forces composed largely of young northern soldiers and their compatriots from other regions. The Vice President on the basis of ethnic arithmetic was from the Central Region.

Under the 1992 Constitution, the first and second NDC Governments had a President who notionally (because he was already a sitting Head of State) hailed from the Volta Region with two different Vice Presidents who both hailed from the Central Region. In 2001 the Government of the New Patriotic Party had a President who hailed from the Asante Region with a Vice President who hailed from the Northern Region but for some odd reason classified as from Northern Ghana. The Presidential candidate of the NDC which contested the Presidency with the NPP hailed from the Central region while his running mate hailed from the Upper East region but classified also for some odd reason as from Northern Ghana. Both the NDC and the NPP repeated the ethnic arithmetic scenario in 2004, maintaining the Presidential candidate from the Central region with a running mate who had to be not only from Northern Ghana but also of the Islamic faith. The running mate was eventually chosen from the Northern region. In 2008 the NDC maintained its Presidential candidate from the Central region with a Christian running mate from the Northern region, classified as from Northern Ghana. The NPP on the other hand had a Presidential candidate from the Eastern region with a Muslim running mate also from the Northern region, classified as from Northern Ghana. For the 2012 elections the NPP has maintained it’s Presidential and Vice Presidential running mates. The NDC intended to maintain their pair of candidates based on the same ethnic arithmetic configuration but as we all know force majeure intervened on 24th July 2012 before the registration of candidates for the 2012 Elections with the demise of the sitting President.

Should the direction in which the NDC appears to be moving in the selection of a Presidential candidate for the 2012 General Elections by undemocratically using the National Congress on 31st August 2012 to endorse the transitional President of the Republic as their flag bearer come to fruition, we may well have a third Presidential candidate from the Northern region/Northern Ghana running with a running mate most probably from the Central region.

On the assumption that the next President will be elected from either the incumbent NDC or the largest opposition NPP we are going to have the NDC presenting a Presidential candidate from the Northern region who will be classified as coming from Northern Ghana and an NPP Presidential candidate from the Eastern region who will be classified as coming from the South or disingenuously tagged as from the Akan ethnic group. The 2012 Presidential elections thus appear already to be purposefully being constructed socially and politically on a broad North/South contest. Other ethnic groups will join these broad configurations as their economic and political mobilization interest inclinations dictate.

On 24th July 2012, I had finished filing my suit against the Attorney-General, Isofoton, and one other and left the Supreme Court registry when I got the news of the demise of the President. I went to see my informant to confirm the news. He confronted me with the fact that it was time Northerners came together to fight for the Presidential candidacy of the NDC. My answer was that we needed a Presidential candidate who can unite the NDC and win the election on the basis of probity, accountability and transparency. Should a candidate from Northern Ghana emerge who possesses those qualities I would support him on the basis of that merit, and not merely on ethnic considerations.

I called attention to the fact that there were already two Presidential candidates representing the CPP and the PNC hailing from the Northern Ghana geographical region. I asked what criteria we were to use to prefer any of the “northern” Presidential candidates to the other if we used ethnicity as the bench mark for reasoned choices?

But I have over the past few weeks come to the stark realization and understanding that the ethnic and religious cards are being purposefully played out by some political parties at the emotional level as tools of mobilization, with Members of Parliament, Chiefs, the religious and other interest groups as targets of conversion.

My candid view is that any region of Ghana that produces a Presidential candidate who can defend Ghana First by exhibiting probity, accountability and transparency in governance ought to be the best President for Ghana. Presidential candidates, who have held public office before, should defend their personal records of commitment to the national interest in those offices against the looting of the exchequer as weighty considerations for election to the high office of President. Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah first went to Parliament from Accra but put Ghana First. Flt Lt. J. J. Rawlings as a revolutionary Chairman, and later as President who won evenly, nationally put Ghana First.

The stability of the nation and the general interest of Ghana First do not favour the playing of ethnic cards in Election 2012 for the Presidency. The difficulty for Election 2012 will be one of convincing the electorate that the NDC and the NPP stand for different traditions. Until the NDC undertakes drastic reforms between now and December 2012 this nation appears to be in the last chapter of Animal Farm where the animals can no longer make a distinction between the hosting pigs and their human guest at the banquet in the Farmhouse. The NDC has seriously deviated from its egalitarian social democratic founding objectives and over adopted the property owning democratic tradition of the NPP.

I make no comments about the distribution of status, roles and other patronage to the various identities because over the years Ghanaians have perfected the art of ethnic and religious arithmetic at the Ministerial and lower level positions. Let’s put Ghana First and avoid tendencies that will harness our unity in diversity for destructive rather than productive democratic interaction.

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Martin Amidu replies Asiedu Nketia in a new write up

NDC FOLLOWED DUE PROCESS IN SELECTING MAHAMA: A REJOINDER – BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU

I have read the name callings and derogatory remarks being made about me by the General Secretary of the NDC and the Propaganda Secretary in their hopping about from one radio station to another to justify the clear beach of Article 50 of the NDC Constitution and thereby Article 55(5) of the 1992 Constitution, amongst others. The reality is that Article 50 of the NDC Constitution is clear and unambiguous when it states that: “Where on any Party matter there is no provision in this Constitution which deals with that matter, the National Executive Committee shall, by the REGULATIONS, provide for the matter to be dealt with.” (Emphasis supplied).

The only power entrusted to the NEC under Article 50 is “BY REGULATIONS, PROVIDE FOR THE MATTER TO BE DEALT WITH.” One of my arguments is that if the NEC met on 25th July 2012 to exercise the residual power under Article 50 then they had only one mandatory duty – make REGULATIONS that will provide for what they perceived was an omission in the Constitution following the death of the President. This is not a matter of law but simple English. Article 50 does not give the NEC any power to make DECISIONS for the party as to who is the anointed flag bearer to be endorsed at a future Congress.

I insist that the REGULATIONS under Article 50 are rules of a Constitutional nature which have to be formally enacted by the NEC and published to the whole world for the benefit of citizens who are members of the Party as to how the omission or gap they allege exists in Article 44(a) is to be dealt with. The NEC has no power under Article 50 to amend Article 44(b) to (g) of the NDC Constitution which provide for elections of a flag bearer unless it followed the processes provided in Article 46 of the NDC Constitution for amendments.

This is why I stated in one of my arguments that: “We are just a few days to the new date of 31st August 2012 when the NDC National Congress will be convened in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital, at great Party and public expense to endorse the transitional President as the only choice of the strongest political elite, for the time being, in control of the NDC as the Party’s flag bearer for the 2012 Elections. I am not aware of any constitutional regulations pursuant to Article 50 the NEC has enacted to take care of whatever omissions or perceived gaps there are in the NDC Constitution.”

The General Secretary and the Propaganda Secretary should simply tell Ghanaians when NEC, met, made and published the REGULATIONS it was mandated to enact by Article 50 of the NDC Constitution. This will help the debate instead of resorting to the defeatist position of calling me names to obscure the important national and NDC Constitutional issues raised in my statement.

My statement is intended to deepen democracy as against impunity and should be seen as such and countered by stronger arguments and ideas. Spins and name calling have out lived their usefulness and ought to be known by the General Secretary and Propaganda Secretary by now. My statement has nothing to do with President John Mahama as a person as it is maliciously being reframed but with respect for the 1992 Constitution and the NDC Constitution.

I repeat that: “Any political party that does not allow its members access to critical information and rules that will affect the exercise of their democratic right of choice of a flag bearer in a democratic and transparent manner in accordance with Article 55(5) of the Constitution will be acting in a manner inconsistent with and in contravention of the 1992 Constitution, and the Party Constitution.” The difference between me and some of my colleagues in the Government and the NDC Executive is that I believe in the core and fundamental values of the NDC as we formed it in 1992 while they are revisionist. It is only fair that we disagree without calling each other names.

Martin A. B. K. Amidu

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Martin Amidu: NDC's flagbearer selection is illegal

CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL CHALLENGES ON THE DEMISE OF THE PRESIDENT OF GHANA AND POLITICAL IMPUNITY: BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU

Political parties under the 1992 Constitution are constitutional and public institutions deriving their power and authority from and under the Constitution. This is amply captured by the letter and spirit of Article 55 of the Constitution. It is because political parties are public and not private institutions under the Constitution that the Constitution guarantees participation in political party activities to all citizens of voting age (18 years and above) and enjoins that every such citizen has the right to participate in political party activity intended to influence the composition and policies of the Government (see Article 55(2) and (10)).

As a bulwark against tyranny and oppression the Constitution further guarantees in clause (5) of Article 55 that: “(5) The internal organization of a political party shall conform to democratic principles and its actions and purposes shall not contravene or be inconsistent with this Constitution or any other law.”

The sitting Vice President on 24th July 2012 naturally and properly succeeded the deceased President as mandated by the Constitution for the balance of the remaining term of the President. The sudden demise of the President as the NDC's Presidential candidate who had been duly elected at a properly convened and contested Congress at Sunyani in July 2010 has, however, left and raised national Constitutional and NDC Constitutional issues as to the succession to the Presidential flag bearer candidacy of the NDC for the 2012 elections.

Firstly, just a day after the unfortunate demise of former President Mills, the General Secretary of the NDC (in what I consider to be an indecent haste in the midst of the mourning atmosphere that had engulfed the nation,) issued a statement allegedly on behalf of the NEC informing members [I suppose all members of the NDC] that the “His Excellency John Dramani Mahama becomes the leader of the Party under Article 26(1) of the NDC Constitution which states that, ‘the president of the Republic who is a member of the Party is the leader of the Party when in government.’” What this statement suppressed is the fact that when Article 26(1) of the NDC Constitution is read within both the context of that Article and the NDC Constitution as whole, the statement of the NEC issued by the General Secretary could be inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the NDC Constitution. It could also be inconsistent with and in contravention of Article 55(5) of the 1992 Constitution.

Does Article 26(1) of the NDC Constitution standing and read alone apply to a sitting Vice-President who was never elected at the previous National Congress as the flag bearer that contested the elections that brought the government referred to in the sub-clause (1) to power but assumes office by virtue of the inevitable death of the sitting President under Article 60(6) of the 1992 Constitution? Does Article 26(2) of the NDC Constitution which states that: “Where the President of the Republic is not elected a flag bearer, a person elected as flag bearer of the party at any time prior to the election is the leader of the party” not reinforce the fact that the President referred to in Article 26(1) is a President who had been elected a flag bearer as Professor Mills had been at the NDC Congress of 2006, for the 2008 Presidential Elections, and in July 2011 for the 2012 Presidential Elections?

Will the NEC not be accused of unconstitutional acts and conduct in equating the right of the sitting Vice-President to assume office as the President of the Republic for the unexpired term of the office of the deceased President with effect from the date of his death with a right to assume the leadership of the Party without any previous endorsement by the National Congress at its previous meeting? Does the selective and out of context interpretation of Article 26(1) of the NDC Constitution not send signals of arbitrariness and impunity when the NEC takes such an important decision and imposes it on the generality of the citizens of Ghana who have a right of expectation under the 1992 Constitution and the NDC Constitution that, in running the affairs of the Party, the NEC will observe internal democratic principles?

Are there any lessons to be learnt from the consequences of the Swedru Declaration and the subsequent fracture of the NDC in the 2000 Presidential Elections leading to the formation of the National Reform Party? Are there further lessons to be learnt from the rapture from the Korforidua NDC Congress which also led to the formation of the Democratic Freedom Party? Does the NDC have to court destructive internal conflict and disunity by handling the transition to the election of a new flag bearer to represent the Party at the 2012 Election in a manner that may raise disaffection and dissatisfaction in some members as experience has shown?

It would appear that those in control of the NDC, for the time being, were bent on excluding other bona fide members of the Party who may wish to lay democratic claims to who becomes the next flag bearer of the Party by excluding them even before the mortal remains of the demised President were interred. It is also symptomatic of how political party elites in Ghana and Africa worm their way into the confidences of persons perceived as likely to ascend to power positions for purposes of eventual personal economic gain at the expense of the generality of the mass of Party members and the Nation which every President swears to serve under the Constitution.

It is with the lense of this attitude of the self serving political elite, as distinguished from the nationalistic and democratic political elite, that I see the attempts by those persons falling over themselves to ignore the letter and the spirit of the NDC Constitution to give the transitional President the impression that it is right to anoint him as leader and flag bearer pending acclamation by the National Congress. Like the Congress of the former Communist States, the NDC National Congress is being called now on 31st August 2012 just to endorse the candidature of one person who has ascended to the balance of President Mills’ term as President because of a force majeure. Yet we are being told that for others the demise of the late President is not a very welcome and prayed for blessing to be exploited for personal power and glory.

Secondly, the Constitution of the NDC provides for the Election of a Presidential candidate in Article 44 thereof. Article 44(a) appears to have envisaged the immortality of the NDC Presidential candidate once elected by the Congress as the highest decision making body of the Party. Consequently, it provides for the election of the Presidential candidate at least 12 months before a national election date in the case where the party is in power, and at least 24 months in the case where the party is outside government.

The rest of Article 44 governing the election of the Presidential candidate of the NDC envisages the democratic nomination of candidates, balloting, and run-offs as the only legitimate procedure for the choice of a Presidential candidate and remain in full force and effect. But Article 44(a) only governs the power of the NEC to decide the date and venue for the election of the Presidential candidate and requires that they do this within the periods stipulated. It does not prohibit an abridgement of the period in exceptional circumstances such as the death of a flag bearer before General Elections!

But as a result of the death of the sitting President and the mandatory assumption of that office by the Vice President, the NEC decided that there was no provision in the NDC Constitution which deals with the election of a Presidential candidate following the death of one elected within the periods stipulated in Article 44(a). They made a decision to endorse the new President as the leader of the Party, and the flag bearer in waiting allegedly pursuant to Article 50 of the NDC Constitution on the residual powers of the NEC to make regulations only.

The requirement that political parties be governed by internal democratic principles necessarily requires that the regulations to be made by the NEC will be published for discussion by the various branches and organs of the party before they are enacted and published as valid and binding regulations. The right of citizens to join and participate in political party activities would be set at naught if the NEC could just meet in a room, enact constitutional regulations altering stipulations in the Constitution without due process and publication of same to its members. Indeed the spirit of the 1992 Constitution requires political parties to furnish to the Electoral Commission copies of such constitutional regulations just as they furnish the Electoral Commission with a copy of their Constitution and amendments thereto.

The letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution, particularly Article 55(5) thereof and the NDC Constitution, Article 44(a), require that democratic elections be held to nominate the Presidential candidate of the NDC for Election 2012. The fact that the elected Presidential candidate died before those elections does not change the spirit in which the National Congress enacted such a democratic constitutional provision. In any case wherein lies the power of the NEC to amend Article 44(b) to (g) of the NDC Constitution and impose in advance a Presidential candidate on the Party, however styled or called in the interim?

We are just a few days to the new date of 31st August 2012 when the NDC National Congress will be convened in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital, at great Party and public expense to endorse the transitional President as the only choice of the strongest political elite, for the time being, in control of the NDC as the Party’s flag bearer for the 2012 Elections. I am not aware of any constitutional regulations pursuant to Article 50 the NEC has enacted to take care of whatever omissions or perceived gaps there are in the NDC Constitution.

The letter and the spirit of the 1992 Constitution and the NDC Constitution are both binding on the NDC and demand that citizens who are members of the Party are treated by the strongest political elite in control of the Party, for the meantime, with utmost respect by making requisite information available to them within a reasonable time before the National Congress. Any political party that does not allow its members access to critical information and rules that will affect the exercise of their democratic right of choice of a flag bearer in a democratic and transparent manner in accordance with Article 55(5) of the Constitution will be acting in a manner inconsistent with and in contravention of the 1992 Constitution, and the Party Constitution.

I speak out now so that I may not be counted among what self serving elite politicians take the mass of the national population for – a herd that unquestionably swallows what ever is put out there in the name of the Party and be led by the nose. Reasoned argumentation is the only way by which group dynamics can be sustained in any political party respecting the rights of its members, the rule of law, democracy and liquidating the impunity of what Marx Webber calls the controlling political elite.

I have had my say by writing this statement. I pray that even those who may disagree with what I have written will respect my right as a citizen of Ghana to articulate my perceptions on such matters of fundamental national and public importance and interest in the market place of political discourse to aid fellow citizens in making informed choices in defending the 1992 Constitution as mandated by Article 3 thereof. I welcome clearly written and convincing opposing views to my perspective to enable informed choices to be made by the citizen. Personal attacks on radio or in writing will constitute a clear diversionary tactic and a demonstration of the lack of an ability to engage in reasoned debate on matters of public and constitutional importance. No democrat should welcome such primitivity in the politics of today’s Ghana.

Martin A. B. K. Amidu

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“I Fought The System And Not Your Person” – Martin Amidu tells Late Mills

A former Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Martin Amidu, has said he will miss the “personal friendship of several years” between him and late President John Evans Atta Mills “in spite of all the animosity the self serving politicians tried to sow” between them.

The late president’s running mate for the 2000 elections and his one-time principal legal advisor said he fought the “system” and not the man he described as his “teacher, my very good friend, and President.”

We bring you exclusively the tribute written by the “Citizen Vigilante” on August 3, 2012 in the book of condolence at the State House in Accra:

“H. E. Prof. Atta Mills, I, Martin Alamisi Amidu, wish you my sincerest fare well. I will miss your personal friendship of several years in spite of all the animosity the self serving politicians tried to sow between that cherished relationship this year.

“I heard it when you said I spoke the truth all along while others lied to you all the time. Your health did not permit us to meet as you envisaged but I know by that singular intention that we made up.

“You have by God’s Grace ended the journey you begun with me on 3/9/2000 and achieved the ultimate goal. You know I fought the system and not your person. My teacher, my very good friend, and President, fare thee well. May God grant you eternal rest till we meet again”.

 Source: Citifmonline.com

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