ACCEPTANCE SPEECH OF THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
ACCEPTANCE SPEECH OF THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
Your Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana
Your Excellency the Vice President
The Honourable Chief of Staff
Honourable Attorney General and other Ministers of State Presidential Staffers
Members of the Press
Ladies and Gentlemen
I wish first and foremost to thank Your Excellency, Mr. President, for the very fact of considering me as a fit and proper person for this position even though I come from the opposite pond of social democracy and in the past, we have been very strong and robust professional adversaries in the development of the constitutional law of our dear country from its inception. Your Excellency’s invitation to me to confirm my acceptance to be Special Prosecutor and my acceptance of the offer demonstrates a fundamental democratic principle and belief to your credit that few people have adhered to for the past twenty-five years. Namely, that adversaries are not enemies and must collaborate for national development by putting Ghana First.
I would not have accepted to come to this job if I did not trust Your Excellency’s integrity and honour from our long years of association from opposite sides at the Bar. I have also given Mr. President my word of honour that I will discharge the duties of the burdensome office you have entrusted to my care with similar integrity and honour, with your support and assistance.
Mr. President, I wish to assure you that the propaganda about witch-hunting will not daunt me from prosecuting all corruption crimes without reference to political considerations, as you had yourself admonished, once a suspected offender is established by investigations to have committed offences prosecutable in the national interest. I will treat crime as crime and nothing else.
I thank you, Mr. President, and the Honourable Attorney General sincerely for the trust you both have put in me and in my capabilities. Above all I also wish to thank and assure Ghanaians that I will do my best to vindicate the trust that the whole nation put in me at my nomination and nomination approval hearing. As an aside I will wish the public to know that nobody has served me personally with any Writ or Statement of Case or injunction challenging my nomination, approval, and appointment so as to restrain me from accepting this appointment.
Before concluding, Mr. President, I wish to use your presence to acknowledge a senior citizen from Accra without whom I might not have been available for this job. Professor J. N. D. Dodoo was my former Hall Tutor at Commonwealth Hall and was formerly of the Department of Modern Languages, Legon. He ensured that I was not cheated out by the exclusion of my name from the LL.B class at the Faculty of Law after my First University Examinations when I had qualified for placement on the programme by merit. His actions almost 43 years ago contributed in no small measure to my passion for the defence of truth, fairness, integrity, transparency and merit in public life and must be publicly acknowledged for once. The General Legal Council may have a lot to learn from him at this time of the problems at the Ghana School of Law.
Thank you, once more, Honourable Attorney General and Mr. President. Thank you to all Ghanaians who stand against corruption. Let us put Ghana First!
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
I feel very strongly that when an Interested Party or Parties join the case of Adamtey v the Attorney-General pending before the Supreme Court for determination and canvass the alternative perspective submitted in this discourse, the Supreme Court may come to the conclusion and decide that the Special Prosecutor has prosecutorial powers under Act 959 and L. I. 2374, particularly under Regulation 11 thereof.
The US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the independent counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government Act. 1978 in Morrison v Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988) and the Supreme Court of Ghana may be similarly persuaded that the Special Prosecutor who cannot be appointed by the President without being first nominated by the Attorney-General under Act 959 is thereby clothed with prosecutorial authority for the appointed tenure of seven years.
Kissi Agyebeng has exposed his own incompetence and vindictiveness as the Special Prosecutor to the entire world in the manner in which he handled the allegations of corruption made by Martin Kpebu against him and the OSP he supervises. The consequence has been the massive public disapproval of his conduct in unlawfully arresting and detaining Martin Kpebu with the draconian bail condition of the production of a landed property in Martin Kpebu’s own name.
The charges filed in the High Court, Accra, by the OSP on Tuesday 18 November 2025 in the Strategic Mobilization Ghana Limited (SML) case has been variously alleged to be a camouflage for corruption involving in one case US$14 million, and to cover-up for the incompetence and misconduct of Kissi Agyebeng in applying for and placing Ken Ofori-Atta on an INTERPOL Red Notice on 5 June 2025.
Whatever grievances anybody may have against Kissi Agyebeng the objective position is that William Kissi Agyebeng does not possess the high moral character and proven integrity to lead the fight against corruption in Ghana because he is dishonest to high heavens to be the Special Prosecutor of Ghana as the interview of Kissi Agyebeng published on the “YouTube - The KSM Show” demonstrates.
The profane declaration of Ken Ofori-Atta as a fugitive from Ghanaian justice by the OSP during the tenure of the John Dramani Mahama government discloses the true nature and character of the Special Prosecutor as a double agent serving the politico-economic interests of the deep state elite in both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to scam the citizens of this country in the name of the fight against corruption.
I cannot as a person born in the then NT recommend Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as a person with the trait of honesty, integrity and selfless service exhibited by our forebearers from the NT to the Republic of Ghana to be elected on 7 December 2024 as President symbolizing a representation of northerners on an NPP ticket for Ghana. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is not only an opportunist and pretender, he has lost track of the high moral character associated with his own biological family and the forebearers of Northern Ghana.
The changing narrative shows that the corrupt and fraudulent William Kissi Agyebeng, the modern day John Ackah Blay-Miezah of our era, has assessed the inevitability of an impending waterloo in the court cases he had brought against Cecilia Abena Dapaah and the human rights and freedoms relief for injunction she brought against him for the infringement of her constitutional rights and is looking for a lifesaving escape through the side door.
The original joint statement must definitely have been signed by officers from the two public institutions which the public is entitled to be provided with. I smell a psychological operation from the rogue OSP in the issuance of the joint statement to coincide with the publication of my article on 27 December 2023 about breaches of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017, (Act 959) pervasively taking place in the OSP. Let the Judicial Service be heard on this alleged joint statement before rushing to unfounded judgment against it. Truth shall stand!
The facts, information and intelligence, and the available evidence demonstrate that the Special Prosecutor, William Kissi Agyebeng, is so desperate to protect the pervasive and endemic mismanagement, the culture of corruption, massive staff recruitment malpractices, and public procurement malpractices within the OSP by resorting to blackmailing the government with publications of former government appointees he is prosecuting to rally public support against possible impeachment for misconduct.
Any citizen upon whom the Special Prosecutor purports to give notice under regulation 20 of L.I. 2374 who has not been charged with any one of the eleven (11) specified corruption or corruption-related offences would commit no offence under Section 69(1) of Act 959 for non-compliance because the demand pursuant to regulation 20 of L. I. 2374 would have been made by the Special Prosecutor unlawfully. The Special Prosecutor took no valid statement on caution from Cecilia Dapaah or charged her with any specified offence.
The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, is running away with his tail between his legs from the adversarial process of the High Court even in matters which are sub judice. The proper forum for a competent and an experienced Special Prosecutor to state why the five bank accounts should be de-frozen when the matter is already in court, is before the High Court and not in the media to con the unsuspecting public.
A dragnet for “everyone and every person” is not law enforcement under the 1992 Constitution. It is witch hunting Agyebengism, pure and simple. When tyrannical investigators and prosecutors in the mold of William Kissi Agyebeng are let alone, they deploy empty rhetorical performances, which signify nothing, to confuse the public. The emerging tyranny of William Kissi Agyebeng activates the constitutional and patriotic duty of citizens to respond to those abuses and stop them in their tracks before they destroy this country with a new McCarthyism.
Did Mr. Kissi Agyebeng say that he inherited nine employees from me, Martin Amidu, when he knows so well from the official records contained in my handing over notes and my budget submissions to the Ministry of Finance for the 2021 Budget that the Office had more staff working in it as at the time I resigned from the Office? All the issues allegedly raised by him are dealt with in my handing over notes and may be of some use to him if he has not seen or read them already…
Commonsense should have pointed Mr. Dame to the fact that a declaration of nullity ab initio by the Court would have been a disaster for the calculating “Puppet Master”, the President, Nana Akufo Addo, and “The Family” from which the President would never have recovered his loss of face and not for me or my then deputy. The many appointed older members and associates of “The Family” who are still at post facilitating its corruption would have been out of office. I welcome Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame’s pomposity and arrogance because they urge me on to continue criticizing him as a customary Ghanaian parent to change for his own betterment.
The public must be reminded that the three-year mandate of the Governing Board of the Office of the Special Prosecutor expired at midnight on 11th July 2021 without word from the President or the Office to the public. Now that the three-year tenure of the Governing Board of the Office has expired, patriotic Ghanaians need to be alert and support the Anti-Corruption Civil Society Organizations to ensure that this time round their chosen representative is sworn-in by the President when the new Board comes to be inaugurated.
This article demonstrates what consequences await any appointee of this Government who takes literally, as I did, the President’s rhetoric of “be citizens’ and not “spectators”. The Agyapa Royalties Transactions anti-corruption analysis and assessment report was done professionally without fear or favour, affection, or ill will. When our political rhetorical President saw that the report implicated him, his family, and friends in suspected corruption activities, an official government anti-corruption assessment supported by law became an instrument of political damage control for his government. The President not only sought to interfere for me to shelve the report from the public, but…
The Office of the Special Prosecutor has been in a vulnerable state since the assumption of the duties of the Special Prosecutor by the Deputy Special Prosecutor by operation of law. Apart from Board meetings held in November and December 2020 no Board meeting to the best of my knowledge has been held since the Chief of Staff’s “very urgent” directives issued on 12/012021. Crucial decisions affecting an independent anti-corruption agency are being taken singlehandedly by one person on instructions even after being passed over for nomination for consideration and possible approval. A new Special Prosecutor would thus have been undermined….
My resignation as the first Special Prosecutor was the result of the endemic attitude of President, Nana Akufo Addo’s penchant to usurp the constitutional authority of investigators and prosecutors in criminal justice administration as he tried to do in the Agyapa Royalties Transaction Anti-Corruption Risk Assessment Report implicating him. It had nothing to do with the Members of Parliament double salaries which I never saw nor handled during my tenure. The President’s responses to the media on 13th December 2018 is evidence that this President determines who may be prosecuted for crime and not the Attorney General or Special Prosecutor…
By all means let anybody root for his or her preferred Special Prosecutor as an insurance against prosecution for corruption in Government but leave me out of the propaganda. I am honouring an undertaking by my silence in not commenting on public affairs. Stop tempting me to speak by the defaming propaganda against me. It will not be in anyone’s interest.
The Government may wish to invite a trusted and friendly anti-corruption country such as Singapore or the United Kingdom or the United States or Denmark to send independent anti-corruption officers to replicate my analysis and anti-corruption assessment work giving rise to the report using the same source letters and documents. I am confident professionally and ethically that they will arrive at the same anti-corruption assessments contained in the Agyapa Royalties Limited Transactions report. I explained this to my dear friend the Minister of Finance when he visited me as early as 5:36 am on the morning of 22nd October 2020 in the company of a mutual friend. I pray that the President takes up this challenge so that the concerted effort he is leading to throw me under the bus and bringing my reputation into disrepute for acting professionally in the Agyapa anti-corruption assessment report in which the President has a personal interest comes to an end.
On Monday, 3rd February 2020, the Office of the Special Prosecutor received from the Secretary to the President a letter referring allegations of bribery of Ghanaian Officials in the aircraft deal, as disclosed in litigation taking place in the UK and USA. The Special Prosecutor has determined that the said referral and deferred prosecution agreements and judgments accompanying them raise reasonable suspicion of the commission of corruption and corruption-related offences of bribery of public officers and the use of public office by public officers for private profit. A preliminary investigation has accordingly been opened. The Office of the Special Prosecutor appeals to the public not to speculate or politicize the disclosures so as to allow this Office to treat these as suspected crimes simpliciter, pending the conclusion of the investigation.
Is the hearsay falsehood being put out by the Acting Director of Public Affairs of Parliament alleging claims of sabotage simply a misguided or malicious reaction to the Special Prosecutor’s latest trending video interview with David Ampofo? Even though this Acting Director has signed a press release allegedly on behalf of the Parliamentary Service, the truth is that she did not attend the meeting and her commentary is simply hearsay. Let anyone of the Leadership of Parliament who was present at the meeting with the Special Prosecutor and his Deputy on 4th June 2019 rather speak up about what transpired at the meeting so that the Office of the Special Prosecutor can publish its contemporaneous memorandum (in which the meeting events were recorded) for those interested to judge as to what truly and really transpired at the meeting.
Presented at Annual Conference of the Internal Audit Agency, Accra Conference Center, 14 - 15 August 2019. Lessons learned since 1957 show that the extent to which the role played by the Office of the Special Prosecutor in protecting the nation’s resources succeeds or fails, will depend on how the President and his Government’s anti-corruption vision is either supported or obstructed by his political and other public office appointees. In the past eighteen months there has been latent resistance and, currently, massive bi-partisan pressure is being exerted to tacitly influence decisions of the Courts around the Special Prosecutor’s qualifications for his appointment and interpretation of his execution mandate. If these actions succeed, they will only demonstrate to the electorate in Ghana and the international community the absurdity of Ghana’s commitment to the goal of combating corruption and protecting the nation’s resources through the instrumentality of an independent and impartial Special Prosecutor.
The jurisdiction of the Office of the Special Prosecutor is strictly provided for under the Act; it is more restrictive than most global anti-corruption agencies, with a limited number of offences that the Office may investigate. Members of the public who are still being misled to believe that the Office may investigate anything beyond the ten offences within its mandate, may start to lose trust. I wish them to understand that my limited jurisdiction means that the balance of criminal offences in the Criminal Offences Act that have not been apportioned to the Office and that deal with several felonies, have to be investigated by various other law and order enforcement agencies headed by among others, the Inspector General of Police, the Director-General CID, the Executive Director Economic and Organized Crime Office, the Director of the Bureau of National Investigations, the Director-General of the Ghana Immigration Service, The Executive Secretary for the Financial Intelligence Center, the National Security Coordinator, and the Director of Public Prosecutions. However, I state again I am committed to fully executing my mandate, and will continue to prosecute all cases under my jurisdiction to the fullest of the powers granted to the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
I have never been paid any money by any Government in my official capacity or because of my position as the Special Prosecutor as a judgment debt. Your intentional, malicious and deliberate defamatory words used to describe any payments to me of any part of the outstanding orders of the Court given on 4th September 2014 were understood by ordinary and right thinking members of the public to mean and you intended them to mean that the Government unlawfully had colluded with me in my capacity as the Special Prosecutor to dubiously pay me some money and other benefits resulting from Court orders.
The lies being bandied in the media should stop. I never consulted any person or political party before accepting my nomination to be put forward for approval as Special Prosecutor. Moreover, nobody is going to push or make me jump from the challenges of fighting public office corruption unless the Supreme Court declares the provisions of the Act under which I was appointed unconstitutional, I am impeached or I become convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the mutual promises and undertakings made with me at my nomination to fight the canker of corruption were not intended to be actualized in practice.
I wish Hon. Yaw Buaben Asamoa to understand that the Office of the Special Prosecutor is governed by statute and I am mandated to lead it in the achievement of that mandate. I do not need any direct or indirect instructions from any office holder of any political party like him. It is time for him and others like him from other political parties to stop confusing the fact that I was appointed by the President of the Republic to mean that it created a vested right in the political party which supported him to win the elections to instruct or direct me as the Special Prosecutor. I was appointed by the President in his capacity as the Executive Authority of Ghana under the 1992 Constitution and not as the flag-bearer of any political party. Should he think that I am talking too much and not doing my job the simple solution is for him to have me removed from office. Until then he should leave me alone to continue to exercise the independent duties of my office in accordance with my oath before Parliament and my oath at my appointment as the Special Prosecutor.
Who is really sleeping on the job when it comes to dealing with the canker of corruption? Heads of institutions wantonly disregard statutory requests made by the Office of the Special Prosecutor for information and production of documents to assist in the investigation of corruption and corruption-related offences. Public officers have been charged, arraigned before the High Court and their pleas taken only for them to return to their workplaces and work normally as though they have never been suspected of committing any corruption offences. Despite all the powers conferred on the Office of the Special Prosecutor by the law, when heads of institutions continually refuse or fail to support the fight against the canker of corruption by not vigorously applying regulations intended to aid the fight against corruption and other crimes, they ultimately undermine the work and impact of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
Members of Parliament who wish to gain exception from investigation and possible prosecution for suspected corruption offences will not succeed by applying bi-partisan pressure upon the Office of the Special Prosecutor. Alleging that there is a tall list for possible prosecution of parliamentarians only enables the creation of an artificial bi-partisan smoke screen for purposes of unduly delaying or running away from justice for those accused of the commission of corruption offences. The only way to get the first Special Prosecutor out of office in a bi-partisan manner is by impeachment or to allow the appropriate independent constitutional institution to do so.