Edwinology’s Lab: Betting a dime on Daniel Batidam is a big, bad debt

President John Mahama is going to turn the economy around soon

President John Mahama is going to Kenya to give a speech.

President Mahama has promised not to promise ending dumsor but has ‘promised’ 2017

Okay

President John Mahama is prosecuting 300 Ghanaians for alleged acts of corruption and financial impropriety.

Hurray!!!! Great news. Good news. Real good news before the Christ gets born with even better news.

Cudos Presido. Cudos Presi-don’t Cudos menh. Let’s drink some JD Bitters to that.

Now that’s real political action. 300 is a lot. In fact 300 is an award-winning movie of daringly foolish Greeks who perished on some narrow stretch of land.

E-Lab can’t be more glad that we finally have something to show for after Otabil’s criticsm, Presby moderator’s ‘where-are-the-wise-men’ rant, Palmer Buckle’s red-alert on corruption and Occupy Ghana’s middle-class noise about corruption in government.

L-R Archbishop Palmer Buckle, Pastor Mensa Otabil, Rev Emmanuel Martey

Now we are at peace with the government. In fact we are one.

When you see actions like this you just can’t help go through your music album looking for some old  tunes . Ah. Here’s one.

We are together again….

Just praising the Lord

We are together again….

With one accord oooo

Something good is going to happen

Something good is in store

We are together again…

Just Praising JDM

Applause. Phew. Now settle down. Settle down. Settle down.

Let’s get some details. 300 is a lot. Your dad could be one of them. So who and who and who and who are you prosecuting? We mean, can we get a list of the names Boss?

No response. Okay. The President can’t memorise things and names right now. He could mention a wrong name – like Barton Oduro or Betty Mould Iddrisu. These are politicians of great integrity you know? You wouldn’t want to soil them just because the President had a slip of tongue and mistakenly mentioned their names.

Barton Oduro

So it’s okay if we don’t get a response. There are many people in power to provide us a list. Who would you bet to do that?

Minister for Information Omane Boamah? Naaa. Let’s just conveniently say he is not in the country.

His deputy Felix Ofosu Kwakye? Naaaa. Felix responds to bad news – like Afrobarometer reports, synovate reports, corruption index etc. This is good news.

Radio commentator Sam George? Naaa it’s getting to Christmas – hearing insults enough to kick up your blood pressure is not anybody’s idea of a holiday.

Let’s get somebody who is friendlier, more measured, more appreciative of the need for transparency. If that person is a former Executive Director of the African Parliamentarians’ Network Against Corruption (APNAC Secretariat) that would be great.

But maybe we could push our luck and hope that that person was a former  Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), local Chapter of Transparency International (TI), or has worked as Governance & Political Advisor at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Accra.

But it would be such a big big bonus if that official was a trained journalist and holds two Masters, one in Mass Communication because as a trained journalist he would understand the need for facts and as a communicator he would appreciate the importance of packaging facts for the masses.

Wow. There is actually somebody who fits this mean and lean category – Mr. Daniel Batidam

Daniel Batidam

The new and first and hopefully last Anti-corruption advisor to President Mahama.

Great. Let’s hear him give some answers

“A Presidential Advisor on Corruption says a call by some anti-graft civil society groups for the publication of names of 300 persons being prosecuted for corruption is misplaced.

Daniel Batidam says asking for the names to be published is tantamount to asking for the names of all criminals in Ghana to be published.”

??????????

Wow. Wow. Oh wow. Batidam. Batidam. Batidam. Hmmmmmm. Okay. I see. So how do we answer the new ‘Anti’ anti-corrpution campaigner? How do we respond to a deserter in the battle against corruption?

Let’s go to the Eastern region and get some Joy Daddy Bitters first and read the vision and mission of Ghana Integrity Initiative – where Batidam used to work.

OUR VISION
GII’s vision is that of a corruption-free Ghana in all spheres of human endeavour where people and institutions act with integrity, accountability and transparency.
 
OUR MISSION
GII’s mission is, through the dedication and professionalism of its staff as well as forging strong, trusting and effective partnerships with like-minded organizations, to be the hub for a network of individuals and organizations committed to tackling corruption in Ghana.

Okay now let’s do this.

Look Mr. Batman Batidam, Jesus came to die for your sins, nailed with rusty metals against hard wawa wood and carried a cross as heavy as the V8 vehicle you could be driving to work and guess who is challenging whether he really really did exist? – atheists – they want proof of the man’s life.

Even Thomas – a disciple- wanted to see the nail marks. So if Jesus has to produce evidence of his own existence, what drugs must you take to understand that claims need evidence?

Or what? All of sudden, President Mahama’s pronouncement are more credible than Christ?

Seee- massa  - in an attempt to quell controversy surrounding the status of some $1 billion Eurobond proceeds, Finance Ministry has released full details of utilisation of the funds.

Why? because in governance, the currency of credibility counts. Batidam knows this

Or why? Is the President prosecuting minors in his fight against corruption so that he would have to protect the identity of under 18 year olds?

And look, the reason why you can’t compare a list of prisoners to a list of alleged corrupt officials is because you don’t need political will to find who stole my next door neighbour’s goat but you need political will to find out how GHC 34million was spent on trees with nothing to show for it.

Batidam knows this.

In politics, corruption is a fight against your friends. Policing is a fight against our enemies. And so if Mahama tells you he is dealing with the friends of his friends, surely you need proof before applause.

And Batidam knows this.

We need to know the list because folks on the street cannot understand why Rahael Appoh’s bodyguard  got arraigned, prosecuted and jailed within 48 hours after stealing Ghc800 but for over 48 months nobody involved in GYEEDA,SADA,SUBAH,Woyome has be incarcerated after losses over Ghc 224 million combined. So when you saying you are taking action we definitely wanna know.

Mr. Batidam knows this.

The reason why we ask for a list of corrupt officials but not for a list of rapists,thieves and car jackers is because these 300 officials most likely hold positions of trust – in fact we have given them our purse to hold and keep directly or indirectly.

Mr. Batidam knows this.

Nobody gives his laptop to a man riding a motorbike in the neigbourhood at 2am to keep – why because we can’t trust them. But we can easily trust a man who has three degrees, wears a suit, travelled all over the world, speaks good English and give him a job to give us value for money.

And that trust as we have read in the Auditor-General’s report – can easily be broken.

And when that trust is broken we definitely need to know who did it just as you Mr. Batidam would be hypothetically speaking - interested in that the foolish boy who impregnated your investment – a 16 year old daughter.

Mr. Batidam knows this.

So next time, when your academically challenged son announces that he was first in class, you dare not ask him to show you his terminal report.

Because he is going to tell you to go ask for the reports of his other 79 classmates in class 5. You would have to swallow it hook line and sinker – and pay next term’s school fees without asking  for a receipt because the school bursar will challenge you to go look for the receipts of all the other parents who have paid up first.

Mr. Batidam knows this.

And by the way if President Mahama can label corruption as mass murder, wouldn’t you be more interested in who is killing us en masse than who robbed a taxi driver last week?

Batidam knows this.

President John Mahama on 19th November 2014 at the Accra International Conference Centre hammered journalists for doing ill-researched work and getting their facts wrong because they were not diligent enough.

So in keeping with the President’s challenge to us to be more investigative and analytical, we are starting with the President’s spineless claim, we need to know those 300 alleged mass murderers before we can take the President serious.

Mr. Batidam knows his justification for not releasing the list is illogical. He knows it. Let’s not pretend to engage him in an intellectual exchange over why he must release names. He knows he must – if he can spell transparency.

So it is not that he has lost his reasons, No. It is that, he has lost his feelings.  DCOP Kofi Boakye put it this way “ you have to feel angry and scandalized to be a policeman”.

You have to feel angry about corruption to be an anti-corruption campaigner. And this man here is no longer angry because he apparently is no longer hungry.

Like an over-zealous rookie, he is keen to demonstrate to the President that he can defend him like a serial caller does – so he fires off a jab.

Anti-corruption advisor?????? What is that? No government in the world has a position like that in its presidency. None. You can do the check. Advice on what? Mahama has CHRAJ, a national anti-corruption action plan, an Attorney-General and a a whole bureaucracy to support him if he wants to fight corruption. You really think he wants advice? Real presidents appoint say climate change advisors because it’s a pretty technical area. But Anti-corruption advisor?????

Kai!!! Corruption doesn’t need advice, it needs action.

E-Lab here is convinced that when the Occupy Ghana protester held a sign that said the ‘The king is naked” nobody around him tells him the truth”, she was referring to the likes of Batidam.

If an anti-corruption campaigner of at least a decade old experience can dismiss a call for greater transparency and accountability in fighting corruption, then you can imagine how an appointment printed on an A4  paper can tamper with rational thinking printed on every man’s conscience.

Look – Mr. Batidam – Why not go ahead and advice the President that in the season of Christmas, he should go ahead and release the 300 alleged culprits the same way Herod released Barnabas the thief to the Jews and crucified Jesus the innocent.

After all, it is a season of love and forgiveness too. If Daniel Batidam worked at Daily Graphic, he would have been sacked by now for deserting a cause. Daniel Kenu must be your friend on facebook.

You want us to take the President’s claim as a fact?

President John Mahama promised that 2014 will be a turnaround year. Well, with barely 3 weeks to end the year, guess what has turned around?

You – Daniel Batidam – You have turned your back on what we know you to be.

We have lost great people this year – Komla Dumor, P.V Obeng, Ewurama Addy etc. And although you Mr Daniel Batidam are alive, we know that as far as anti-corruption is concerned, your voice is dead.

Source/myjoyonline.com