MARTIN AMIDU THE COWARD, THE TALKATIVE, AND THE LIAR
MARTIN AMIDU THE COWARD, THE TALKATIVE, AND THE LIAR.
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
I am not a coward or a liar in the terms of the question posed by Michela Wrong in her seminal book on corruption – “It’s Our Turn to Eat.” She asked,: “Was General coward playing his old game of trying to please everyone all the time?” [p. 186]. I have never suffered from indecision which is the worst sin of leadership or lying on major issues for political advantage which are the hallmarks of cowards.
On 8 June 2024, as part of the continuing proxy war against me for an article I wrote: “NDC needs to think long before joining Joy FM and Kissi Agyebeng to try Martin Amidu in the court of public opinion”, a proxy warrior was unleashed to call me a coward and a talkative. He said amongst other things that:
“He mentioned an Airbus scandal implicating Mahama. Whether he was investigating or not, we praised his appointment and were hopeful,” Blakk Rasta recounted. “I even went to his hometown to interview the village king, who expressed happiness at the appointment. Now, they are all disappointed.”
On 10 June 2024 on the occasion of the 32 Anniversary of the formation of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 1992 my nemesis, Joy FM gave its platform for the NDC Chairman of the planning committee for the occasion, Mr. Kofi Attor, to wage another proxy war against me by calling me a liar. Mr. Kofi Attor was nowhere near the room when we founded the NDC in 1992.
On 4 November 2020 I was called a coward for statements I made in a sixty-four page (64) corruption risk assessment I wrote when I was the Special Prosecutor. The accusation was amusing because a coward would not have had the courage to conduct the corruption risk assessment I undertook which was preliminary to an investigation of the suspicious transactions unveiled by the assessment. My resignation as the Special Prosecutor on 16 November 2020 after the death of Jerry Rawlings was both strategic and tactical to prevent the execution of the transaction and not cowardice.
When I am called a coward for exercising my right to decide how to strategically and tactically conduct my campaign against corruption, I always remember an “A” Level European History question which was recurrent in the Cambridge School Certificate Examination that was conducted in Ghana years ago when I was an “A” Level student. The question which came in varying forms went somewhat like this: ‘“Bismarck the conqueror and Bismarck the coward.” How far is this an accurate description of the German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck.’ Or “Bismarck the conqueror and Bismarck the coward. Discuss.” The German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck had played a crucial role in the unification of Germany under the Prussian Empire. Bismarck’s foreign policy after unification was to ensure the consolidation of the unified Germany instead of engaging in expansionist wars of conquest that may unravel his unification achievements.
In those days, history students who wrote the Cambridge School Certificate or West African Examinations Council School Certificate “A” Level exams rarely made it beyond grade “C”. Otto von Bismarck had adopted a foreign policy and diplomacy to prevent expansionist wars in Europe after unification, but one had to be analytical to understand history questions, such as the conqueror and the coward, to make it to grade “B”. Such simple European History questions or its variants in the WAEC were challenging for the average student and only a few made the grade “B” mark and fewer still manage the grade “A”. I made a grade “B” in the history paper (made up of European History – Europe since 1848 -, and the History of Islam in West Africa) at the “A” Level along with General Paper, the other two main papers being the ultimate grades at my “A” level exams to enter the University of Ghana, Legon.
It takes scholarship and a sharp mind to understand that Otto von Bismarck’s cowardice was a form of ingenuity to accomplice and consolidate a noble task, German unification. When I was called a coward on 4 November 2020 I took the views that my accuser who read history (as his major) at the University of Ghana, long after I graduated from my first degree in June 1976, had failed to internalize the purpose of learning history in the University. I could have taught him history in his sixth form. I had studied history up to the second year in Legon and dropped it only after the tutor assigned for my welfare in Commonwealth Hall, the late Professor J. N. D Dodoo had, ensured that I was reverted from the BA (Political Science and History programme) to the LL.B programme, that I had rightly earned by merit. Historians are better placed in understanding conflicts, security, intelligence, strategic and tactical decision making, and the history of other academic disciplines. The dumb history student thinks of history just as a study or memorization of facts about the past without seeing the interpretative purpose of history as sharping the intellect to guide human interaction in the present and the future.
The proxy warrior who was unleashed to fight my article on “The NDC needs to think long....” by designating me a coward and his boss ought to understand that I operate at a higher level and not the level of the zombified masses. Like Otto von Bismarck I am quite happy to be called a coward because my strategic and tactical objectives are beyond their comprehension. What those pushing proxies to fight me by calling me names do not know is that the cadres of the Civil Defence Organization (CDO) whom I worked with as PNDC Deputy, and Acting Secretary in the Upper East Region knew my mantle as a leader who never sent them into battle to face the dangers of revolutionary struggle while I sat in the ivory tower – the surviving few are now old and infirm whom the NDC does not know or care about. But it was Solomon who said that: “The glory of the young is in their strength; the gray hair of experience is the splendour of the old.”
I could not have fulfilled my socialist internationalist revolutionary obligations as a revolutionary spurred on by youthful enthusiasm and valour at the prime age of 32 years alongside brave and committed revolutionary comrades, most of whom have now gone to their ancestors. I was informed that my last operational colleague and orderly who accompanied me on our last challenging assignment that late July, died on 31 January 2024 when I tried finding his whereabouts after several years of no communication. The 40 day “Adua” for him was held on Friday, 23 February 2024 in Tamale.
The proxy war and warrior unleashed against me for my article “The NDC needs to think long....” went far to state that: “I even went to his hometown to interview the village king, who expressed happiness at the appointment. Now, they are all disappointed.” My background checks on the proxy warrior shows that he was born in Tamale, in 1974 and grew up there in Moshie-Zongo, and Aboabo. My daughter is also a 1974 born. I lived in Moshie-Zongo on the Waterworks side of the Road when I moved to Lugu Chambers from Bawku as a lawyer in Tamale from August 1980 until I became PNDC Deputy Secretary for Upper East Region in February 1983. I know as a fact that the proxy warrior’s parents are not natives of Tamale or anywhere in Dagbon.
I have lived in Bawku since the 1959 primary school third term when my father was transferred from Lawra to Bawku. We were in Nzema, and later Ahanta land when Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah decided in 1959 to open the Preventive Customs Marine Police stations or barracks in the border areas of the former Northern Territories which had become Northern Region upon the attainment of independence in 1957.
My parents were natives of Kadema (Kadem) in the now Builsa North District, but I never knew there until 1969 when my parents sent me there for a short visit. I have never lived there for more than sixteen days continuously. Both my parents died in Bawku in their self acquired house where we lived, and I conveyed them to Kadem for their burial, and funeral rites. My mum’s funeral rites in March 2018 was the longest stay lasting sixteen days. The only chief or king of my adopted hometown who could give testimony about me is the Bawku-Naba whom I called a senior brother and we grew up together in the Bawku township until he became Bawku-Naba in 1984 when I was then Acting PNDC Secretary for the Upper East Region.
It was not until I became the NDC running mate to Professor Mills on 3 September 2000 for the presidential elections that the people from my parents’ native administrative district started laying open claims as to my tribal identity. The tribal place of origin of residents had never been in issue in Bawku where we grew up until in the 1980s. We were all from Bawku town and had a share in each others progress in life. The Bawku-Naba even offered me to be the uncontested NDC Parliamentary candidate for the Bawku Central Constituency which I politely declined, to allow another person to have the chance since I was already in government and was most likely to be re- appointed to public office should the NDC win the 1992 elections.
The Kadem-Nab when I was nominated the founding Special Prosecutor was my nephew, John, who could not have been the village chief or king referred to by the proxy warrior. Incidentally my mother’s funeral took place in Kadem from 3 March for us to depart on 18 March 2018 just after I had been sworn into office on the 23 February 2018 without my extending any invitation to the Government in Accra. The successor to John , the then Kadem-Nab is his half brother, Amos, who is also a nephew. The proxy warrior must, therefore, have spoken not to the village king or chief of my parent’s native village or “hometown” as he puts it, but to an imposter who was trying to ride upon my nomination and appointment as the Special Prosecutor for his own ends. The brave proxy warrior, some how, did not have the courage to name the village king whom he interviewed for me to make an appropriate rebuttal.
Mr. Proxy Warrior, next time your boss sends you again, go to the Bawku and ask any king or chief who is reigning or has reigned there for a reference about me. Spreading fake news and insults does not help enlightened discourse. I write, I do not talk. I write in order to be able to think through everything I put down on paper and to defend my treatise. Of course, if your boss and you are referring to my writings as talking, well, so bad for you, because you cannot stop me from exercising my freedom of expression in print.
On 10 June 2024 on the occasion of the 32 Anniversary of the formation of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 1992 my nemesis, Joy FM gave its platform for the Chairman of the planning committee for the occasion, Mr. Kofi Attor, to wage another proxy war against me by calling me a liar. I first met and knew Mr. Kofi Attor, who is said to be an employee of Parliament working as the Chief of Staff to the Speaker of Parliament as a cadre of the 31 December Revolution (he was not even the CDR Co-ordinator) when I was re-assigned from the Ministry of Industries, Science and Technology to relieve the late Dr. Kwabena Adjei from the Volta Regional Administration as PNDC Deputy Secretary in March 1988. He knows me well to know that I am not a liar except for the fact that he was speaking this time for his employer and the side where his bread is buttered.
As a shot across the bow, Joy FM and he may wish to read the tip of the iceberg reported on: Alban Bagbin admits he is corrupt (audio) - Graphic Online. My article on: “The NDC needs to think long...”, published on 27 May 2024, never used the word “admits” consequently the host and he on the Joy FM programme on 10 June 2024 must have read the link above which explains their putting the word “admits” into my mouth in their TV interview while pretending that I had adduced no evidence to support the words I really wrote - “the self-confessed corrupt Speaker.....”. The evidence has always been in plain view all over the internet; one simply just needed google it for the evidence to pop up in multiple torrents.
I defend the 1992 Constitution by adapting the classic by Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”, and Carl von Clausewitz’s “On War” to my strategic and tactical purposes in the arena of politico-socio-Economic, and constitutional adversarial conflicts. I do not leap blindly into adversarial confrontations. I cannot be silenced as a citizen of Ghana in defending the 1992 Constitution. Proxy warriors, beware!
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
13 June 2024