Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Monday, March 23, 2015
Former Attorney-General
and Minister of Justice, Martin Alamisi Ben Kaizer Amidu has sent signals to
his detractors that he does not fear death.
Mr Amidu particularly
mentioned the sacked National Security Coordinator Lt. Col. Larry Gbevlo-Lartey
(rtd) who he allegedly used threats on him for daring to continuously speak up
on issues of corruption in the country.
“I will not now be
cowed and thugs can be sent to assassinate me should the government or anybody
wish, for all I care!” he said in another explosive statement released over the
weekend in the wake of the much-talked-about Woyome judgement.
Mr Amidu
said: “I am sending this rejoinder out at the weekend so that it does not on a
working day detract from the real issues of the perception that the Government
and the Attorney General were not bent on sincerely prosecuting Woyome and all
his accomplices or retrieving the judgment debts ordered by the Supreme Court.”
He had indicted state officials as possible in bed with Woyome for allowing such a gargantuan amount to be paid with no contract in place.
First Salvo
The former security chief
reportedly took to Facebook, a social media platform last week, to lambast Mr.
Amidu - who has come to be regarded by many as a leading anti-corruption
crusader - for making statements that were not ‘entirely factual’ in the Woyome
GH¢51.2 million scandal.
Mr Amidu had claimed
that he advised the Mills/Mahama administration to persuade his predecessor, Betty
Mould-Iddrisu who authorized the Woyome payment to be used as a prosecution
witness in the criminal case against Woyome in lieu of prosecution as stated in
his recent press release.
“I made a press statement about Ministers of State involved in gargantuan
crimes. I also advised the President of my intention as the Attorney General to
prosecute Woyome along with all his accomplices and to persuade the then
Attorney General to be a witness or be prosecuted. I am then invited by a
Member of the Council of State (incidentally Betty Mould-Iddrisu’s husband) at
the behest of the President and told to withdraw my press statement accusing
members of the Government and its card bearing members who use the NDC as an
insurance against prosecutions for crime”, he said.
“The next day the President true to his demand through Alhaji
Iddrisu Mahama purports to dismiss me with immediate effect. Am I, therefore,
wrong to contend that I was removed from office to prevent me from prosecuting
the offending NDC Ministers and party members that raped the nation”, he asked
rhetorically.
Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey had stated “that is not a statement of fact
for those who witnessed the episode that led to the firing of Martin.”
This might have anger
Mr. Amidu who is affectionately called ‘Citizen Vigilante’ firing back, by asking
Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey to shut up because he (Gbevlo-Lartey) did not witness every
episode that led to his removal from office as Attorney-General by President
John Evans Atta Mills.
“There are other
things to be said about my latter relationship with Gbevlo-Lartey after I left
office should he persist in peddling untruths about me to which he has no
personal knowledge,” he warned.
“He had used cajoling
with promises, threats, and intimidations on me with the singular intention of
shutting me up,” he added.
Seeking Favours
The former AG described
Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey as someone who wants government’s favour by propagating lies
after his sudden dismissal by Mahama.
“Gbevlo-Lartey after
his sudden and unexpected removal from office may be seeking to curry favour
with the Government by pretending to know everything that happened before I
left office,” he said.
“I would want
Gbevlo-Lartey and his type in the NDC to know for the avoidance of all doubts
that on 4th September 2014, a High Court entered judgment in my favour
recognizing that my alleged dismissal for misconduct was illegal, and wrong as
it was without due process of law.”
Gbevlo’s ‘lies’
He said he was
letting the public down if he did not react to the security capo’s comment
saying “Gbevlo-Lartey threw the first stone and no one can blame me! Suffice it
to say that all rational people know that any assertions that Larry
Gbevlo-Lartey knew everything that happened in the Mills/Mahama Government just
because he was National Security Co-ordinator are patently obvious and irredeemable
presumptuous lies.”
He said he had
ministerial responsibility for security and intelligence as Minister of the Interior,
and as Attorney General he was principal legal advisor to the government and “would
not convey legal advice to the President through a National Security
Co-ordinator, a subordinate officer under the 1992 Constitution.”
Gbevlo & Woyome
According to Mr.
Amidu, Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey had an open and public grudge against Alfred Agbesi
Woyome over some party primaries involving the former’s son in the Volta Region
prior to the scam going public adding ‘’as the Attorney General, I did not know
even Woyome in person let alone to have any personal grudge against him.”
“Should Gbevlo-Lartey
not have recused himself from this whole Woyome investigations, the reports,
and prosecution when he was in office because of the prior personal and public
animosity between them on grounds of conflict of interest?” he asked.
He recounted the
incident of January 13, 2012 which led to his removal from office as AG and
said Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey was not there during the main discussion and said the
security capo was feeding on hearsay.
BNI Arrest
He also confirmed
that indeed, on the eve of the Election Day in December, 2012, Mr.
Gbevlo-Lartey had sent security operatives to ransack his residence without a
court warrant, saying tensions were very high in the country and that could
have caused mayhem if “I had invited the media and others to my residence that
day.”
“I refused to be used
by him as a scapegoat in causing any upheavals that might lead to confusion and
God knows what, at the nick of the elections! Does Gbevlo-Lartey know whose
votes would have been affected most if I had made his illegal search, arrest,
and detention at the BNI public on that day even if the election still went
ahead?”
He said he later got
to know that the security coordinator did not even have the permission of the
President to order the raid.
“The President told
my emissaries latter that he was not informed, was not aware, let alone to
instruct him on that critical day in the nation’s history: the President
undertook to deal with the matter. I prevented whatever unconstitutional
intentions, if any, Gbevlo-Lartey might have had to use me innocently for: I
preserved the dignity of Ghana as a democracy!”
NDC Attacks
“The intention to
overwhelm me with personal attacks by agents of government and the NDC some of
whom may selfishly and greedily be seeking only to build their personal stomach
infrastructure at the expense of the Republic will not succeed because those
who have ever worked with me know that I was a work horse for the governments I
served and I still have the same energy to protect and defend the Constitution
of Ghana as by law established even during my retirement.”
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