Prof Ahwoi’s book irredeemable lie, full of mistakes-Martin Amidu

Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has described “as an irredeemable lie” content of the Prof Kwamena Ahwoi’s new book that suggests he [Amidu] and the late former Vice-President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur were members or associates of the National Reform Movement.

“The narrative is an irredeemable lie because I can say and prove authoritatively in due course that neither the late Mr. Amissah-Arthur nor I was an associate or member of the National Reform Movement,” he said.

In his latest epistle on Prof Ahwoi’s book,  Working with Rawlings, Mr Amidu jabbed the author, who he worked with in Rawlings’ military/democratic administration from the 1980s to 2001 as well as the Mills administration, wondering how rumours constituted a “source of authority for Professors.”

In his controversial new book, NDC stalwart, Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi, claimed that Mr Amidu was nominated as running mate to break the back of the National Reform Movement which broke away from the NDC before the 2000 elections led by  Goosie Tanoh.

What Prof Ahwoi said about Amidu

However, “at that time, the uproar over the Reform defection was raging. Martin Alamisi Burnes Kaiser Amidu was one of the founding cadres of the revolution and was very much respected by the young ‘revolutionaries’ who were leading the Reform Movement.

“His name had also been linked to the Movement, though never openly, and he was rumoured to be attending meetings with them.”

“At the suggestion of Kofi Totobi-Quakyi, we made the following
calculation: ‘Why not dangle the running mate bait before Martin Amidu? If he swallows it, he is likely to deflect the Reform defection or at worst to split their ranks’.

“This calculation was put before Professor Mills who agreed that it should be tried. Martin Amidu was informed and he excitedly swallowed the bait. So, Martin Amidu became the NDC Vice presidential candidate for the 2000 elections”.

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor, however, beat the late Prof Mills in the polls.

It’s a bait

But Mr Amidu has contested the narration, insisting that the book which was left at his gate was a bait meant to get him to “refute and expose its subjectivity, figments of imagination, delusions, and breaches of all the ethics of acceptable standards of scholarly research, and report writing.”

He also went after the NDC’s running mate, Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, who authored the foreword of the book.

“Written in clear, engaging prose, the writer invites the reader to receive the content of the narrative honestly delivered. The vivid, engaging and deeply reflective eye witness account couched in unencumbered prose, brings to the fore events narrated with open honesty and transparency,” she wrote.

Amidu on Prof Opoku-Agyemang’s integrity

But Mr Amidu had questioned the integrity of Prof Opoku-Agyemang.

“Whilst the foreword is normally not an integral part of the book, no ethical academic will ever write a foreword to a scholarly book without first reading the book to make an objective assessment of its veracity because the writer of the foreword knows the invitation to write the foreword was based on the intention to use his or her reputation to entice the public to invest financial and human resources in purchasing and reading it.

“In this instance, the writer of the foreword is marketing the book with her credentials of PhD/FGA and has an ethical obligation to the public for integrity and truth in what she says with her credentials in the foreword,” he said.

“This is the book which the equally portrayed distinguished scholar Naana J. Opoku-Agyemang, PhD/FGA has put her reputation and integrity on the line to the whole world in the foreword when she stated that it is: “Written in clear, engaging prose, the writer invites the reader to receive the content of the narrative honestly delivered.

The vivid, engaging and deeply reflective eye witness account couched in unencumbered prose, brings to the fore events narrated with open honesty and transparency.” (Emphasis supplied).

Prof Ahwoi’s book also narrated how he had used Prof Opoku Agyemang’s show on Radio Gold to turn around Rawling’s image for the 1996 elections and insisting that the NDC put her integrity on the line.

“But wait until we get to examining how she could ethically have collaborated with the author and others to doctor an interview on Radio Gold with the President Emeritus, H. E., Flt Lt. J. J. Rawlings, to the public in 1996 which has shamefully been narrated in the book as a hallmark of integrity.

“The person who brought the autographed copy of the book to my residence has brought me trouble and he knew that by my nature I will not shy away from an honest challenge when professional ethics of any profession is at stake. I have taken up the challenge: and time and the pressure of my already onerous work schedule permitting, I intend to deal with the foregoing issues and more in a series of presentations,” he said.

Mistakes 

He also pointed out numerous mistakes in the 262-page book.

“How ethical can a contract signed on 4th December 1997 be attributed by a scholar author(s) to an Ishmael Ayittey when the judge reviewer and/or editor of the book had concluded ex cathedra in a reported judgment that it was Nat Amateifio who signed the contract?

“Is it also ethical for professional lawyers and a Justice of the Superior Court to be consultants, reviewers and/or editors of a book in which they are unable to tell the Sir Cecil John Rhodes Scholar and author that Mr. Justice P. E. N. K. Archer was the Chief Justice of Ghana on 7th January 1993 and not Mr. Justice I. K. Abban who became Chief Justice on 22nd February 1995 after Mr. Justice P. E. N. K. Archer retired the previous day?

“A serving Justice of the Superior Court of Ghana and reviewer of the book who does not know who his Chief Justice was on 7th January 1993!

“To cap it all, the author who holds himself out as a professor, a governance and local government specialist has not yet mastered in his teaching career how to just pick up the Ghana Law Reports reporting 1993 cases to confirm for himself and his consultants, reviewers and/ or editors who was the Chief Justice of Ghana at a particular time in Ghanaian history such as the date of the coming into force of the very important 1992 Fourth Republican Constitution he professes to know and write about with pretentious scholarly erudition!

“Oh, even a simple Google search would have revealed it! Are Chief Justices Archer, and Abban not by now turning in their graves at this scandal of scholarship and judicial conduct exhibited in Working with Rawlings,” he wrote in his latest epistle.