Let’s Honor Amidu By Speaking Truth To Power

Photo: Martin Amidu

I am glad that Ghanaians are celebrating Mr. Martin Amidu the former Attorney-General  for winning that case against Waterville Holdings. If I was in-charge of national awards, I’d hand him ten for choosing to fight corruption against all the odds. And I believe we should do more to honor him than just calling into radio shows to express our gratitude to him for  working to retrieve monies paid to companies assisted by government officials to fleece the state.

Mr. Amidu has been in court since 2012 working to retrieve monies paid to Waterville Holding and other companies as judgement debt with a little help from the media and civil society.  The leadership of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) told everyone who would listen that Mr. Amidu was only going to court because he was fired.

I remember some saying he was a bitter man who was only trying to embarrass the government. There were talks of him being hurled before the governing National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) disciplinary committee and breaching the oath of secrecy he took.  I don’t remember anyone within the government or supporters who said one kind thing about the Mr. Amidu’s decision to go to court and do what the AG had failed to do.

As with all things that requires picking a side and sticking to it, the majority of Ghanaians declared their support for Mr. Amidu on the social networking sites and moved on. Clearly not one to quit, he ignored the critics and went on to win the first round of the battle to retrieve all illegally paid judgment debts.

The Supreme Court ordered Waterville Holdings to refund the 47million Euros paid to them by the state as judgment debt. The court reiterated what Mr. Amidu had been saying along, “the state had no contract with Waterville Holdings or businessman, Alfred Woyome.”

The ruling is a huge achievement for Ghana and we cannot thank  him enough for choosing Ghana over his own political party  and position in government. We can do better than just Facebook posts of thanks. We must all refuse to take the cowardly path like he did – speak truth to power without any fear.

Mr. Amidu has set an example worthy of emulation so let us honor him by  refusing to settle for the status quo where incompetence, corruption and stupidity goes unpunished.

Let us use his example to jolt the incompetents into action. There is no reason why we cannot stage demonstrations like the ones at Taksim Square to protect the public purse and more.