“The fight against corruption should start with an incorruptible President. I have said so before and will repeat it today. I can assure you in all humility that I’m not, have never been, and will never be corrupt.”
Those were the words of then Candidate Nana Dee in the heat of the 2016 election campaign. After almost six years in the saddle, can President Nana Dee express same sentiments?
I’m not so sure. I don’t think he has done enough to protect the public purse. I was not enthused with how he handled some of the corruption allegation cases against his appointees. The “Anas Galamsey Video” readily comes to mind.
Be that as it may, President Nana Dee has done better than his predecessor, President Ogwanfunu. Unlike his predecessor, he has neither personally benefited from a corrupt act as President nor facilitated for any friend or family to benefit. All we hear are political effusions backed with no evidence against Nana Dee’s so-called friends and family appointees.
The Minority in Parliament have been baying for the Finance Minister’s blood since day one. So it isn’t surprising that they presented a motion last week calling for his removal. They presented a litany of accusations with no evidence to back a single accusation. Their action epitomises the saying, “Giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it.”
Trust the Majority to resist the diabolic move from the Minority Caucus. Yes, the Majority Caucus has appealed to the President to change the Finance Minister to inspire confidence in the economy. But they will not be part of a scheme to drag an innocent man’s name into the mud. Mr. Finance Minister will eventually leave; but it certainly will not be at the behest of the diabolical Minority Caucus.
As I said in this column a while back, we know corruption when we see it. So, we do not need the lamentations of political crooks to identify corruption.
They say we have short memories, but we’ve not forgotten how a sitting President received a Ford Expedition worth USD100,000 from a Burkinabe contractor friend, Djibril Kanazoe. Yes, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) did rubbish the bribery claim; but we know better. How could CHRAJ justify saying it was wrong to receive the gift, yet conclude that it was not a bribe?
We may be many things, but stupid is not one of them. If CHRAJ had wanted to do a good job, it would have investigated the circumstance under which he and Kanazoe became friends. For that was the only key to unlocking the real thoughts and intentions of both the giver and the receiver.
Per Kanazoe’s own account, he did not win a contract in Ghana the first time he submitted a proposal. After losing the bid, a friend (Mikado) who knew the then Vice-President (Mr. Ogwanfunu), took him to greet the Vice-President. Thus began the beautiful relationship between the two, which led to a USD100,000 gift exchanging hands.
The same President Ogwanfunu has for many years refused to comment on the messy Embraer jets deal. We also saw how he made Alhaji Gilbert Iddi a high commissioner after he (Iddi) had squandered millions of SADA cowries. Not forgetting how Hon. Chooboi was made a minister at the Presidency after presiding over the Brazil 2014 fiasco. Indeed, it was under the stewardship of the ‘greedy bastards’ that the term ‘create, loot and share’ was coined.
It is, therefore, baffling to see those from the Umbrella stock accusing others of corruption. They scream ‘corruption’ at any given opportunity to delude the electorate into believing their deceptive chant.
The Nana Dee government is not made of angels. His appointees are human and may be susceptible to corruption. But it is very wrong to accuse people of corruption with no evidence to support the claim.
Yes, the nun is human so she cannot claim infallibility. Fallible she may be, but she will not learn morality lessons from an unrepentant harlot. It is therefore puzzling to see an unrepentant harlot proclaiming publicly that a nun should come to her for lessons on morality. Funny, isn’t it?
Indeed, the constant pointing of fingers at opponents does not change the fact that those under the Umbrella are very corrupt. It rather amplifies the fact that their self-righteous scream of corruption against others is only to hide the noise of skeletons dancing in their own closets.
See you next week for another interesting konkonsa, Deo volente!