I have been following with keen interest reports that President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has ordered the immediate arrest of Mr. Kwasi Nyantakyi, the President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) for the past 13 years, on the strength of evidence allegedly presented by filmed criminal investigations conducted by famed investigative journalist Mr. Aremeyaw Anas Aremeyaw. The evidence, according to Mr. Samuel Abu Jinapor, the 2nd Deputy Chief-of-Staff at the Presidency, Mr. Nyantakyi was caught on videotape soliciting foreign investment under false pretenses, one of them being the unauthorized use of the names of the President, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, and other senior and prominent officials of the Akufo-Addo Administration.
The spotlight on the GFA’s President does not come as news to me at all, in view of recent developments involving the fraudulent issuance of visas to some poseurs or imposters who flew to the Australia-hosted Commonwealth Games, early in the year, posing as professional journalists working for various media establishments in Ghana. These poseurs, it is significant to note, had been issued genuine visas and other travel documents, except that whoever set them to such acts of fraudulent criminality appears to have forgotten to coach the culprits on how to effectively pose as professional media operatives. We were also told that many of these fraudsters had flatly been denied entry into Australia by that country’s customs officials, because they did not carry the basic tools of their trade. I vividly remember the name of Mr. Nyantakyi being mentioned as a potential suspect.
This incident led to the immediate suspension of Ghana’s Deputy Sports Minister, the man whose specific duties entailed the supervision of his country’s participation in the games. As of this writing, it was not known to this writer whether the Deputy Sports Minister, who had at the time staunchly insisted on his innocence, had been restored to his portfolio. We must also quickly point out that other sporting officials who had traveled with the Ghana team to the Commonwealth Games in Australia had been immediately recalled to help with official investigations.
Now, what I am most concerned about, and I have stated this several times before, is the fact that I am a bit suspicious about the investigative operations of Mr. Anas Aremeyaw and his Tiger-Eye PI team of investigators. My suspicion has far less to do with either the methodology or quality of investigations conducted by the legally trained Mr. Anas Aremeyaw but, rather, the caliber of characters in government with whom this otherwise meticulous and intrepid sleuth and his team have collaborated with in the recent past. And on the latter score, of course, I am alluding to former President John Dramani Mahama. The decision by Tiger-Eye PI to extensively conduct an exposé on judicial corruption in the country was definitely impregnable and laudable. But recent revelations indicating that for nearly four years members of the Mahama cabinet, as well as other highly placed executive appointees, had been criminally drawing double salaries and double paychecks on the blind side of the hardworking Ghanaian taxpayer, have kept me wondering about the professional objectivity and integrity of Mr. Anas Aremeyaw and his Tiger-Eye PI team.
More so because we also don’t know the amount of money that the latter got paid by the “double-dipping” former President for clearly doing his bidding; for we know for an incontrovertible fact that the Mills-Mahama regimes and, indeed, the entire leadership of the Rawlings-founded National Democratic Congress has absolutely no love lost between itself and the judiciary. Still, the lightning-speed of a rush by President Akufo-Addo to have the GFA’s President arrested is quite a bit disturbing, if not outright flabbergasting, especially since we are also informed by Mr. Abu Jinapor, Nana Akufo-Addo’s Deputy Chief-of-Staff, that further investigations are ongoing, irrespective of the fact that a prima-facie case of forensically sustainable evidence of culpability, according to Mr. Abu Jinapor, has been established against Mr. Nyantakyi.
Now, the most logical question becomes: Why haven’t the NDC’s parliamentary double-dippers been arrested and at least suspended from our august House, pending rigorous prosecution and possible imprisonment? Is this primarily because in the case of the Haruna Iddrisu Gang, Nana Akufo-Addo’s name was not specifically connected to the crimes? Concerned citizens want to know and promptly so!
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