Ato Ahwoi; Ghana's Vladimiro Mentesinos!

Vladimiro Montessinos Torres (born may 20, 1945) was the long-standing head of

Peru’s intelligence service, servicio de Intelligencia National (SIN), under

President Alberto Fujimori. In 2000, secret videos were televised revealing him

bribing an elected congressmen to leave the opposition and join the Fujimorist

side of congress; the ensuing scandal caused Montesinos to flew Peru, hastening

the resignation of President Fujimori. Subsequent investigations revealed

Montesinos to be at the centre of a vast web of illegal activities, including

embezzlement, graft, gunrunning, and drug trafficking, for which he is currently

being tried.



Montesinos first came to public notice when he defended Alberto Fujimori, then

an obscure candidate in the 1990 Peruvian presidential elections, against

accusations of fraudulent real estate dealings. The paperwork in that case

mysteriously disappeared and the charges were quietly dropped. After Alberto

Fujimori won the election on July 28, 1990, Montesinos became his chief advisor

and the effective head of the Servicio de Intelligence National (SIN).



Through his position, he came to have virtually unlimited power within Peru.

During the course of the decade, he established a network of corruption that

permeated media, business, political parties and government. Towards the end of

the Fujimori years, it was reported that Montesinos’ tax records indicated he

was making $600,000 a year, even though his official salary was $18,000. During

the controversial 2000 election, a journalist claimed to have a video tape of

Montesinos bribing election officials to fix the vote.

Frequently, Montesinos secretly videotaped himself bribing individuals in his

office, and he made thousands of such tapes, incriminating politicians,

officials and military officers and, in all probability, Fujimori himself. His

downfall appears to have been precipitated by the discovery of a major arms

shipment, airlifted from Jordan via Peru, to the FARC insurgent guerrillas in

southenrn Columbia.

Currently, Montesinos is imprisoned and also facing sixty-three other charges

that range from drug trafficking to murder. The lengthy series of court cases in

Lima to which he is being tried is revealing the scale of corruption during the

Fujimori administration.



Ghana seems to have its own Montesinos; the de-facto Prime Minister cum Vice

President in the person of Ato Ahwoi. We have a policy advisor to the President

who is a viper in a basket of figs and epitomizes everything about Vladimiro

Montesinos.

Ato Ahwoi is a pain in the neck of most NDC activists. There has been several

tales of him involving in one corrupt deal or the other and countless

accusations of him denying party activists access to the Presidency! I have

heard him recently speak to certain issues relating to President Mills’ health

in the run up to the 2008 election campaign and I was taken aback that such a

spurious character is around the President.

How could anyone with an ounce of decency, or any sense of responsibility gift

the Presidency of Ghana to John Mills whilst describing him, behind closed

doors, as “delusional, Paranoid, hallucinatory and lacking mental capacity”

Grapevine information even has it that, he is involved in a lot of shady deals

in the oil sector. Other news also has it that, he has engaged certain

journalists to run down the Rawlingses for reasons best known to him. It appears

his agenda of denigrating the Rawlingses has been shifted to another gear; where

his CJA attack dogs led by Kwesi Pratt, Omane Boamah, James Agynim Boateng,

Okudzeto Ablakwa and Raymond Archer are now leading the graceless campaign of

the ridicule to discredit agenda against the Rawlingses. Ato Ahwoi is indeed a

trickery customer and an evil parasite.



What good reasons do we have to validate the actions of Ato Ahwoi? Is it astute

to choose quietness over engagement, when the behavior of the likes of Ato Ahwoi

violate cultural decency and treat party activists with little respect?



Today because of politics of patronage, Ato Ahwoi is heaving self-defeating

sighs of angst against the very people who made him gain any prominence within

the political echelons of this land of our death. Mr Ato Ahwoi is a clear danger

to our nation’s security. He schemes, lies and manipulate! He is a divisive

element in the NDC and his actions and inactions could spell doom for the NDC

and the country as a whole if not checked.

I detest Ato Ahwoi because he is wrecking this country and he is also a snake in

the grass. My contempt for Ato Ahwoi is absolute!

What reasonable person would express happiness over the war of attrition being

waged against the Rawlingses by Ato Ahwoi and his media collaborators? Something

has gone awry with the operable mechanics of the brains of our leaders and our

future as a nation is scary.



What kind of nation are we building when the seat of government is flooded with

characters who are themselves stained with conducts that defy the basic

stipulation of contemporary universal morality?

What is wrong with our leaders? In Ghanaian politics, the salacious pursuit of

wealth is becoming a problem, if not a fashionable norm. Why do we tolerate the

morally obnoxious, and justify their eccentricity? As a citizen, I lament deeply

over the many choices we have made by electing some human caricatures to

positions of trust. The decisions they make affect our lives. Don’t they?



While the present Ghanaian government is flooded with wretched comedians, the

leadership of NDC is equally inundated with a bunch of noisy ducklings that have

lost touch with democracy and would sell their integrity for a pack of

cigarettes.

In my judgment, many of our leaders are not saints, but subsets of criminals’

draped in suits to hide their criminal dispositions.





Ato Ahwoi is turning out to be President Mills’ nemesis but the empty suits in

government sees things differently. You cannot tell if these guys are social

democrats, democratic socialists, and capitalists in socialistic garbs or simply

confused people operating under the clueless tenets of an ideologically

questionable background. Nothing about their actions, inactions or

pronouncements points Ghanaians towards a direction or path that would inspire

or galvanize the entire establishment to follow their undefined pathway

irrespective of our reservations.



What sorts of advice do the likes of Ato Ahwoi gives to the President? How come

the rules governing our emerging oil industry are being changed? Who is

constantly creating all these mess in GNPC and TOR? Why do we think we can get

away with these antics because some interests must be satisfied at the expenses

of our image, integrity and fortunes as a nation?



Pardon me asking but are there any wise men (women) left in the NDC? Against all

good judgment and common sense, the likes of Ato Ahwoi seems so hell bent on

destroying the NDC but it appears everyone in the party hierarchy are

comfortable with the current development. Could it be that Ato Ahwoi has bought

the conscience of all these guys at the party headquarters including the party

chairman?

If our nation continues to elate itself on the nonsense that it is fed by our

politicians, then we should be prepared to pay a very heavy price for not

speaking out against corrupt policy advisor whose notoriety is sourced from

dabbling in corruption.



We shall be back!

Emmanuel Dela Coffie

delacoffie.wordpress.com