Kissi Agyebeng’s nomination as the next Special Prosecutor has been described as due to pressure from the president’s cousin Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko and Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame, on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The latest of such critique has come from Agyebeng’s predecessor, Martin Alamisi Burnes Kaiser Amidu.

Aside from being the president’s cousin, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko is a kingpin at Africa Legal Associates, a law firm, and Asaase Radio, a private radio station operating in Accra.

In a three-page statement copied to GhanaWeb, Martin Amidu, the first Special Prosecutor, highlighted how both the Attorney General and the president’s cousin are using Asaase Radio, a pro-NPP radio station, to prepare the minds of Ghanaians to accept Kissi Agyebeng who is their surrogate as the Special Prosecutor.

Amidu says the move is to protect the duo’s interests in the controversial Agyapa Minerals Royalties Transaction.

According to Amidu, Asaase Radio, through propaganda and a defamatory news publication in respect of his resignation and the subsequent announcement of Kissi Agyebeng as the new Special Prosecutor wrote:

“His [Martin Amidu] reasons for resigning were roundly criticized by civil society actors, who maintained that the law offered him enough protection to stay in office and perform his duties without interference and that there was no clear evidence of any executive interference that should have triggered his resignation.”

He argues, “Asaase Radio and its alter ego did not have the courage to point out one civil society actor who expressed the fabrication it was putting out to the public to aid the appointment of its new surrogate and preferred ‘Agyapa’ Special Prosecutor.

“Asaase Radio also shamefully pretended not to have read my rejoinder giving further and better particulars on my resignation dated 26 November 2020 to the Secretary to the President’s supposed reply to my resignation letter which we now know by experience that the President might not have instructed to be written at all. My functions or my judgement and decision as the Special Prosecutor to resign my office under Act 959 was not subject to the supervision or judgement of civil society actors let alone those of them who secretly attend Government policy-making meetings as I had occasion to point out in writing previously.”

Martin Amidu further stated that Gabby’s radio station in the exercise of its brazen impunity reported a matter that was not part of the reasons he resigned as the Special Prosecutor, all in an attempt as “propaganda to facilitate and enhance the status of its surrogate ‘Agyapa’ Special Prosecutor even before the President could indicate his acceptance of the nominee and forward a request to Parliament”.

Amidu also questioned why the nomination of Kissi Agyebeng as the Special Prosecutor was made known to the media in a letter solely addressed to the president.

“How then did the nomination letter of a new Special Prosecutor come into the public domain to make the rounds in the press?” he asked.

In trying to answer his own question, Amidu wrote, “Asaase Radio should also have told the Ghanaian and international public that its surrogate and nominee Special Prosecutor in the published letter is a personal friend and classmate of the Attorney General, and the owner of Asaase Radio, all of whom attended the University of Ghana’s Faculty of Law, and Ghana Law School.”

Thus, he questioned the independence of the Special Prosecutor from the direction or control of any person or authority in the performance of the functions of his office.

He added that these are the operative statutory words for the nomination of an “impartial Special Prosecutor!”

Martin Amidu recounted how his nomination was kept secret and out of the public until deliberations at Cabinet meetings where some members of the Cabinet vehemently opposed his nomination but the President had to conclude and accept his nomination before announcing at a press conference.

“Consequently, the announcement of my nomination as the first Special Prosecutor was made by the President on 11 January 2018 at a press conference at the Jubilee House and followed up with a request to Parliament to consider the nomination for approval. The Attorney-General at the time never arrogated to herself the authority to force the hands of the President to accept my nomination by making her nomination public before the President had the opportunity to make same public. The Attorney-General at the time followed the dictates of Ministerial and Cabinet responsibility in allowing the Cabinet and the President to consider my nomination before it was made public. And those of us who had ears inside the Cabinet knew the debate that went on before the President concluded the Cabinet debate in accepting and announcing my nomination as the first Special Prosecutor on 11 January 2018,” he stressed.