Resigned Special Prosecutor, Martin A.B.K Amidu has described President Akufo Addo as a con man who deceived him about his much-touted incorruptible credentials, saying falling for the deception was his only regret in life.
Martin Amidu was appointed by President Akufo Addo as the first-ever supposed independent Special Prosecutor in Ghana, but Amidu had resigned in November 2020 following his investigations into the dubious Agyapa Royalties deal cooked by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta and the Jubilee House to vest Ghana’s entire mineral royalties in a group of faceless investors.
Amidu’s corruption assessment of the deal led him to conclude that the deal was a fraudulent one being fronted by Ofori-Atta. When he issued the report, he went public to reveal that President Akufo Addo had personally wanted him to “shelve” the damning report.
His angry response to this alleged cover-up was that the President was indeed the “mother serpent of corruption”.
According to Amidu, “the only regret I have in life is to have trusted President Nana Akufo-Addo in such a sheepish manner as to have allowed him to have conned me into agreeing to be his Special Prosecutor in a naïve but sincere belief on my part that he was intent on fighting corruption and was also against using the process of criminal justice administration as an instrument of political discrimination against his political opponents.”
Amidu stated in a five-page statement released recently in the characteristic epistle format of his well-known campaign as a Citizen Vigilante against corruption.
It was his almost-fundamentalist stance against corruption that earned him the role of Ghana’s first Special Prosecutor. However, he insists that that office has been compromised and cannot be a proper anti-corruption agency under the administration of President Akufo Addo.
Already, the cracks in the relationship between Amidu and the administration started emerging barely a year into his tenure when it became apparent that the government had refused to resource the Special Prosecutors’ Office (SPO) for it to function optimally.
Also, it took over one year for the legislative instrument needed to give the SPO office its legitimacy to be passed. In fact, it took Amidu’s unconventional tactics to lament to the media that forced the legislative instrument to be passed.
When it was eventually passed, Amidu again sounded the alarm bells that officials of the government were refusing to release important information needed for him to launch investigations into certain corrupt acts.
He started a running battle with government spokesperson and agents till his resignation.
Amidu is currently in a seeming exile, following his suspicion that the government may be planning to eliminate him for the amount of dirt he may have on its appointees.
According to Amidu, he would not have accepted to be the Special Prosecutor, emphasizing that he had declined similar appointments in the past, particularly in 1999 when he declined being nominated to the Supreme Court. He said he caved in to the assurances and cajoling he got from President Akufo Addo.
“…The position and status of Special Prosecutor was not one I would ordinarily have agreed to be nominated and appointed to after declining nomination for the Supreme Court in 1999 as I indicated on oath at my vetting but for the fact the President invited, cajoled, promised, and assured me that the appointment was going to be on terms personal to me and vowed to ensure my independence and that of the Office,” Amidu stated.