Former Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Martin A.B.K Amidu, has refuted allegations and publications in the media that he literally begged the President at a meeting on 13th January, 2012 at the Castle, Osu, to temper justice with mercy and not dismiss him from office as minister.
According to the former PNDC appointee, he instead threatened to resign from his position as the government’s chief legal adviser because “the President had been interfering in the execution of my functions as the Attorney-General under Article 88 of the Constitution.”
He stated that he was however shocked when the Daily Graphic and other ‘rented NDC press’ including government appointees and spokespersons reported that he had been sacked from his position as minister.
“The Daily Graphic, a Government mouthpiece, [on 19th January, 2012] falsely published that I had gone on my knees at the meeting of 13th January, 2012 to plead not to be dismissed. It was also falsely alleged in other NDC newspapers that I failed to mention the names of Ministers I had made allegations against in my press statement,” Martin Amidu stated.
In a 5-page letter to the press, Mr Amidu chronicles the events that led to his subsequent dismissal and also condemns government spokespersons for twisting the facts which led to his subsequent resignation from the ruling government.
According to the statement, Mr Amidu was particularly shocked at the behaviour of government appointees and communication team members particularly Mahama Ayariga and Felix Owusu [Ofosu] Kwakye and others [who] were on air the same day [19th January, 2012] stating that I either had to mention those involved or would be dismissed.
Mr Amidu indicated that he was frustrated to resign from the NDC government because he had made attempts to retrieve a GH¢51million from an NDC financier when “the Deputy Attorney-General [who is still at post] had written that the government had no defence to the action.”
Explaining his decision to pursue Woyome for the repayment of the judgment debt paid to him by the government, Mr Amidu stated that his conviction “after studying the available file on the Woyome case, [which] he discovered to his disappointment that there was no contract and there could not have been a contract upon which to ground a cause of action and locus standi in the plaintiff against the Government” and an appeal from a “an old man who has mentored almost every former PNDC appointee” compelled him to go to court against the NDC financier.
He was also of the opinion that “at the time the plaintiff filed his writ there was no written and signed settlement agreement between the plaintiff and the Attorney-General let alone for it to be filed in Court. Yet the plaintiff’s claim was upon letters from the Attorney-General to the Minister of Finance to pay the plaintiff.”
“Consequently, in a preliminary ten-page report to the President in my letter D45/SF.173/10 dated 6th January, 2012 I stated professionally what I had discovered, including the names of each person I suspected to be implicated in the case. The letter was copied to the Chief of Staff and the National Security Co-ordinator.”
According to the statement, it was in pursuance of his commitment to the NDC’s accolades of probity, and accountability that he decided to pursue the case.
He therefore urged the leadership of the party and its communication directors to stop abusing him and trying to sour his image because he has no public negative record.
STORY: KWAKU NTI
