THE WHITAKER SCENARIO – STIFLING INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATIVE AGENCIES OF FUNDS
THE WHITAKER SCENARIO – STIFLING INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATIVE AGENCIES OF FUNDS
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
The former United States Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, on 7th November 2018 announced his resignation as US Attorney General and made it clear it was at the request of the President –“at your request”.
The Chief of Staff of the Justice Department, Matthew Whitaker, whom Jeff Session appointed in September 2017, was appointed the Acting Attorney General to the displeasure of the opposition Democrats because of the likely effect of the new acting appointment on Robert Mueller’s investigations into the allegation of Russian meddling into the 2016 US elections.
The opposition Democrats’ fear that the new Acting Attorney General will assume full oversight over Mueller’s investigations and is demanding that like Jeff Sessions, he recuses himself from those investigations because of his previous comments on the probe. Acting Attorney General Whitaker’s comments were made before he joined the Justice Department.
Whitaker’s comments before Sessions appointed him to the Justice Department has just opened my eyes to how an independent investigation and prosecutorial agency such as Ghana’s Office of the Special Prosecutor can be disabled from effectively and efficiently performing its mandate without direct interference with its so called independence and impartiality.
The Associated Press of 8th November 2018 has an article captioned: “With new Justice Official, fate of Russia probe in question”. That caption has no relevance to how to disable an independent investigation institution from performing its duties but what is attributed to the new Justice Official, Whitaker, has. The Associated Press article says:
“Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney from Iowa who twice run unsuccessfully for statewide office...., once opined about a scenario in which Trump could fire Sessions and then appoint an acting attorney general who could stifle the funding of Mueller’s probe.
In that scenario, Mueller’s budget could be reduced ‘so low that his investigation grinds to a halt’. Whitaker said during an interview in CNN in July 2017 before he joined the Justice Department.”
Whitaker’s scenario which I have just read reinforces my own conviction that the effective way to stifle the fight against corruption is to apply Whitaker’s scenario. It also reminds me of the almost utter hopelessness in which the newly established Office of the Special Prosecutor finds itself almost one year after the President caused its establishment as his flagship and vision to fight corruption in Ghana with an overwhelming national consensus and support.
One year down the line it has only a small three bed room house as an Office woefully inadequate for lack of shear physical space to accommodate any reasonable number of employees, lack of subsidiary legislation, and consequently also financially crippled without any ability to acquire the requisite expensive operational anti-corruption and other equipment for the Office let alone to function efficiently. Creating unilateral unrealistic and crippling budget ceilings for such a deprived agency has same effect as the Whitaker scenario. By analogical reasoning the Whitaker scenario reported by the Associated Press resembles the situation of the Office of the Special Prosecutor since its establishment in spite of the President’s sincere commitment to his vision.
The Whitaker scenario appears to be taking shape in November 2018 in the United States of America. Here in Ghana I see the absolute need for all citizens, particularly the electorate who brought the President personally to power to support him to ensure that his promised vision of fighting corruption materializes during his first term in Office. The 1992 Constitution supports the President’s vision and every patriotic citizen is mandated by the Constitution to support him.
I know for a fact that our President means business but there is a missing link provided by the Whitaker scenario to which civil society should wake up now or forever stop blaming the President. We are going into his third year in Office and we must all be stakeholders in the fight against corruption.
This is not politics. This is a fundamental patriotic obligation enjoined by the 1992 Constitution for its defence and to save our dear country of a malignant canker of corruption that has ravaged it since independence. Join the citizen patriotic fight against corruption in Ghana now! Prevent corruption now! Act now! Save Ghana now!
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
The purpose of this discourse is, therefore, to caution the public to hold their horses and refrain from speculating on what the Supreme Court decided in Adamtey v Attorney-General until the certified judgment becomes publicly available. Only then can there be an informed discourse on whether the Court really decided that Act 959 is constitutional in its entirety or found portions of it to be unconstitutional, and the reason for the unconstitutionality.
The interview of Mr. Kenneth Kuranchie on Joy News’ PM Express with Evan Mensah to dispel the credible perception that he brought the action as a camouflage to “seeking a third term for President Mahama” is a hard sell by him as I have demonstrated in this discourse. His action solicits the Supreme Court to usurp the expression of the will of the people at a national referendum with the substitution of a judicial decision contrary to the clear dictates of the 1992 Constitution. We the People can never be deceived by subterfuges!
The continued political witch-hunt against Ken Ofori-Atta by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Government of Ghana through sections of the rented Ghanaian media any time he prevailed in defending his rights under the INTERPOL and the US Immigration laws is nauseating and shameful.
The public is entitled to know the reasons Ms. Justice Akuffo assigned for her resignation to enable us to determine what the government had done to warrant the unprecedented step of a former Chief Justice resigning from the Council of State in the history of the 1992 Constitution. The Government also owes the people of Ghana an explanation for the delay in disclosing and informing the public of the tendering of her resignation.
Every election the NDC has won under the 1992 Constitution has consistently been based on promises to the electorate to implement policies anchored on the core values of probity, accountability, transparency, and social justice underpinning the 4 June 1979 Revolution and Constitution of the NDC: the 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, and 2024 elections speak for themselves. The NDC’s ability to win the 2028 elections will depend on how the electorate perceives the party’s commitment to these values. It is too early for sycophancy, gloating, and flaunting of awards about successes when one remembers the adulations of the early years of the Akufo-Addo government.
Mr. Justice John Eugene Nyante Nyadu of the High Court, Accra, on 9 March 2026, when the parties appeared before him in the quo warranto application, adjourned the proceedings sine die. The public needs transparent and accountable answers because a Court that adjourns the hearing of a case sine die cannot reconvene out of the blue and create a situation where an already written substantive ruling is delivered by the Judge in the case the same day.
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.
I have firstly come to the considered conclusion that the originating notice of motion (the application for quo warranto) before the High Court which purported to begin the action did not disclose any locus standi and/or capacity in the Applicant against the Respondent to have grounded jurisdiction in the High Court to have entertained the application under Order 55 Rule 1(a) and (b), and Rule 2 (1) (b) of C. I. 47.
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.
Insultingly, as though he was not speaking to the very electorate who made him President, President Mahama had the effrontery to flaunt before Ghanaians the unlawful acquisition of acres of land for cocoa farming in abuse of office under Articles 68 and 284 of the 1992 Constitution as an excuse for the indigent cocoa farmer to accept the government’s breaches of trust on the agreed producer price for the 2025/2026 season.
The objective truth vindicating me on the failure of the Asantehene’s Bawku Mediation came out of the President’s own mouth to the Chiefs of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs on 10 February 2026 and is available on the electronic media that mediators whether traditional or whatever form of mediation cannot usurp the functions of arbitrators or adjudicators in making decisions binding on the parties to the mediation process. The law is the law!
Concerning the unlawful arrest and detention of Alhaji Abagre by the GAF from Bawku to Accra, where he is in the unlawful custody of the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) who had to take steps to regularize his unconstitutional and unlawful abduction by moving the Circuit Court, Adenta on 26 December 2025 “praying for a detention order of the Accused Seidu Abagre@Naa Sheriga Kulga II pending investigations, upon the grounds contained in the supporting affidavit.”
President Mahama could have enforced the law on the existence of only one recognized Bawku-Naba as Overlord of the Bawku Traditional Area without enhancing the status of Alhaji Seidu Abagre “as a rival Bawku-Naaba for the Mamprusi people” as no such status is known to the law. The only lasting solution to the Bawku Affairs is to enforce the existing law in strict compliance with the 1992 Constitution and the laws of Ghana without reference to electoral political objectives.
I believe that no court would have ordered his continued detention merely because he shared any of my articles before and after the Bawku Mediation Report was presented to the public at the Jubilee House on 16 December 2025. It is, therefore, mischievous for any person or group of persons who published the press release in the name of the Nayiri to have referred to any of my articles as the reason for his arrest whilst I walk free.
Ghana deserves a government of laws and not of men. Morality has no place in such a design for transparent and accountable conflict resolution except where the law expressly includes the same moral principles. Unconstitutional state censorship cannot suppress the truth nor be a substitute for transparency and accountability of the elected to the electorate.
The Government of Ghana Statement on the Bawku Conflict Mediation Report of 17 October 2025 which has no constitutional or legal basis appears as a gargantuan political scam by the government on the Bawku Conflict to justify the needless deaths between 7 January 2025 and 16 December 2025 which in my estimation exceeds those of the past eight years under the previous regime.
The Bawku conflict is a different identity based and intractable conflict which has also seen political interferences under the 1992 Constitution which eventually led the country to the violence of October 2024 and where we are today trying to resolve the same conflict outside the framework provided for such conflicts under the 1992 Constitution.
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 passing of Madam Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (Madam or Madam Rawlings) on 23 October was as unexpected, and heart wrenching as it was most shocking. There was no indication of illness or medical distress. Ghana lost her first and only true heroine of the 4 June and 31 December Revolutions, and under the Fourth Republican Constitution. May Madam Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings’ passing be the beginning of real reconciliation and remorse for the mistreatments of the past.
The whole of ECOWAS and indeed, Africa, needs to wake up to the reality of the times and the intelligence of the youth, many of whom are unemployed, but discerning. I keep on praying for Ghana and Africa. We failed in our time to take Ghana to the promised land and rather led it to where we are. Africa must learn lessons from each country's military and democratic failings. May peace and reason return to Bissau. I am praying for your safe return.
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.
I congratulate President Mahama for violating his own rules and promises in giving IGP Yohuno a two-year post-retirement contract. This is a typical example of the President’s exhibition of fidelity to his family, friends, and cronies as the core principle of his reset government agenda thus far. We-the-People can never be deceived all the time.
The approval by Parliament on Tuesday 18 November 2025 of a waiver of a 20% withholding tax and Value Added Tax (VAT) on the income of TCS, amounting to approximately $10.46 million was made on a contract adopted and renegotiated by President Mahama’s government based solely on the benefits accruable to the family, friends, and cronies of the government and the reciprocal diplomatic and international relationship capital to be gained from the transaction for the Ghanaian and Indian governments.
IGP Yohonu has been desperate for a post-retirement contract from the day of his appointment and is not, therefore, in a position to stand his ground to defend the responsibilities enjoined on him by Article 202 of the 1992 Constitution against presidential pressures or directives from his subordinate, a COP acting as the National Security Coordinator receiving instructions directly from President Mahama.
President Mahama needs to show leadership as a servant of the sovereign people under the 1992 Constitution by being humble to take personal responsibility for the catastrophe at the El Wak Sports Stadium that resulted in the avoidable deaths of six elector compatriots, and apologize to the affected families and the nation instead of spinning away as usual and trying to pass blame to the victims who had no control over the venue and planning of the recruitment exercise that led to the avoidable incident there.
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 examination and analysis of Dominic Ayine’s confession of buying six heavy-duty printers for EOCO from his “own money or funds” before PAC, a legislative committee of Parliament intended as a check on the abuse of executive power, has been demonstrated in the foregoing discourse to constitute weaponization of law enforcement for partisan politics, and is tainted with illegality, conflict of interest, and suspected criminal conduct needing urgent bipartisan parliamentary investigation.
Sycophancy breeds autocracy which slowly erodes democracy and the rule of law, and eventually kills democracy. That is how democracies die! Parliament must, therefore, never be seen to be on the leash by the Executive arm of government in its law making functions under Article 106 of the 1992 Constitution. The Security and Intelligence Agencies Bill 2025 as presently laid before Parliament has failed to comply with the mandatory provisions of Article 106 of the Constitution to be introduced in Parliament, accepted and considered for enactment.
President Mahama, nominate a new Chief Justice for approval by Parliament without any further delay while your Attorney-General gets the frivolous, vexatious, and abusive application of the court process by Mrs. Torkornoo thrown out of court soonest in the interest of national security and the supremacy of the 1992 Constitution. Ghana First!
Every reasonable and objective non-partisan reader of the ruling refusing bail in the case under discussion cannot fail to appreciate that Judge Samuel Bright Acquah does not possess the learning, integrity, and high moral character to remain on the Circuit Court let alone to be elevated to the Superior Court of Judicature. I hope and pray to God that Animal Farm is not the country President John Dramani Mahama wants to leave for Ghana as his legacy under Superior Court Justices like Samuel Bright Acquah.