Professor Ransford Gyampo calls out Kissi Agyebeng for describing himself as the conscience of the country.
In a media interview after the arrest of the former Chairman of the defunct Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the Special Prosecutor said that when the public consecrates their saints and heroes, he is their conscience.
Following the arrest of Prof. Frimpong Boateng, on allegations of mismanagement of funds related to the activities of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), the Special Prosecutor, in an interview, maintained that he is the spirit of the nation and that the office stands for that. “In the estimation of the office, there are no saints, there are no heroes,” he said whiles defending the action of his office.
However, in response to the Special Prosecutor, Prof. Gyampo, who is a Political Science Lecturer at the University of Ghana, said that Kissi Agyebeng’s claim that he, an individual and a mortal human being, who is not a saint himself, is the conscience and soul of Ghana, is “religiously and politically blasphemous and problematic.”
In a statement, Prof. Gyampo stated that he has ‘’been pondering over the responses of the Special Prosecutor on Newsfile over the weekend. Though I initially thought the interview brought out some useful information, reflecting on the responses again in more sobriety, makes me a bit worried. Kissi Agyabeng says he doesn’t consecrate saints, and that he is the conscience and soul of Ghana. Not consecrating saints can be interpreted to mean every suspect is a criminal ab initio’’.
‘’But in his own law that he studied, there is a principle that all are innocent or “consecrated saints” until proven guilty. So, where from this new alien legal maxim being propounded and must we allow Kissi Agyabeng to impose it on us as a people? he added.
The Political Science lecturer’s criticism comes from the point of the ‘seeming independence’ assumed by the Special Prosecutor – something the lecturer is wary of. ‘’If politicians have succeeded in bastardizing and making even constitutionally created independent institutions nearly dependent, even to the point of ordering their staff to submit their CVs to them for scrutiny, then Kissi Agyabeng cannot force Ghanaians to trust him all of a sudden as being independent’’.
