On the 18th of December last year, I sat in my study, fueled by a flickering hope that Ghana was finally on the verge of a moral cleaning. I wrote an article titled “A Year of Whispers,” arguing that the glacial pace of “Operation Recover All Loot” (ORAL) was perhaps the price of meticulousness.
I told myself, and by extension my readers, that in a progressive democracy, you don’t rush the law. I believed that the over 2,000 complaints sitting on the desk of the Attorney General, Dr Dominic Ayine, were being treated as sacred trusts. I wanted to believe that the silence from the courtrooms was the silence of a predator waiting to strike at the heart of impunity.
But today is the 15th of April, 2026, and a letter I have just seen- an RTI response that took nearly a month to travel a few kilometers- has shattered the last remnants of that optimism. We are no longer in a “year of whispers”; we are in a season of calculated betrayal.
The narrative of ORAL was the bedrock of this administration’s mandate. We were promised a “house cleaning” that would transcend political friendship. Yet, nearly a year and a half into this journey, the scoreboard remains at zero. Not a single conviction. Not a single cedi demonstrably returned to the Consolidated Fund from these 2,000 dockets. Instead, we are witnessing a series of legal maneuvers that feel less like a fight against corruption and more like a carefully choreographed retreat.
The most glaring irony- one that would be comical if it weren’t so tragic- lies in the Attorney General’s current priorities. Just recently, the President stood before the nation and admitted that the AG’s office is “overwhelmed.” He made a public plea for private legal practitioners to step in and facilitate the prosecution of these cases. It sounded like an honest admission of a capacity crisis. If you have 2,000 dockets and a handful of state attorneys, you are indeed drowning.
However, the logic collapses when you look at what the Attorney General is actually doing with his “limited” time. This week, news broke that the AG has actively joined a suit filed by a private practitioner seeking to strike down the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) as unconstitutional. Think about the gravity of that. The OSP was established by the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959) specifically to be the specialized arm that handles the very burden the AG claims he cannot carry.
While I have always intellectually agreed that the OSP must, under Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution, remain an extension of the AG’s prosecutorial authority, the decision to actively help kill the office right now is nonsensical. If your house is on fire and you are too tired to carry the water, you do not sue the man who brought a fire extinguisher because you don’t like the brand of the machine.
The ideal, patriotic thing to do would be to amend the OSP law in Parliament to fix the constitutional “glitches” or simply give the OSP the formal fiat to prosecute. Instead, the AG is spending state resources to dismantle the only other institution capable of helping him.
Today’s report that a High Court has directed the OSP to hand over its dockets to the “overwhelmed” AG because of this constitutional challenge is the final stroke of a pen that signs the death warrant of any swift justice. It is an administrative bottleneck created by the very person supposed to clear the way.
This brings us to the most disturbing development: the “Duffuor Recovery Deal.” We were told by the Attorney General that the prosecution in Dr Kwabena Duffuor’s case was discontinued because a “60% recovery” of the state’s interest had been achieved. In any other jurisdiction, this would be hailed as a victory for the taxpayer.
But when a citizen named Emmanuel Senyo filed a Right to Information (RTI) request under Act 989 to see the details of this 60/40 split, the mask slipped.
The RTI response, which I am looking at today, April 14th, despite being dated March 18th, states that there is no “deal.” It says a receiver has merely submitted a proposal that is still under consideration. If the deal is just a proposal, why was the prosecution stopped months ago? Why were Ghanaians told that money had been recovered? This discrepancy is a punch to the gut of public trust.
It suggests that the Attorney General’s office is operating on a “Kumawood” script- telling the public one thing to keep us quiet while the reality in the backroom is entirely different. It makes one wonder if Fiifi Kwetey, the General Secretary of the NDC, was right when he alleged earlier this year that members of the opposition were making attempts to “shortchange hands” to save their faces.
In our Ghanaian political context, we often say “politicians are friends.” We see them arguing on television and sharing tea in the lobby. But the law is not supposed to be a tea party. When the state’s chief legal officer tells the public a deal is done, and an RTI response reveals it’s just a suggestion on a piece of paper, we are no longer talking about “slow justice.” We are talking about a possible cover-up.
This is not just about one man’s case; it’s about the precedent it sets for the other 1,999 dockets. If a “proposal” is enough to stop a trial for a high-profile figure, then ORAL is not a recovery mission; it is a liquidation sale where justice is the item being auctioned off to the highest bidder or the most influential friend.
Look at the structural paralysis we are in. The National Service Scheme (NSS) ghost names scandal, the Adu Boahene video saga, and the National Buffer Stock procurement mess- these are cases that require aggressive, transparent prosecution. In the Adu Boahene case, the state is already bogged down in arguments about Article 18(2) and the privacy of a recording.
These are the “legal skirmishes” I wrote about in December. But back then, I thought the AG was fighting to win. Now, seeing him join the suit against the OSP, I realize he might be fighting to stall. If you take the OSP’s dockets and add them to the AG’s “overwhelmed” pile, you are effectively burying them. It’s like putting a file in a drawer you’ve already told everyone is too full to open.
This triggers a deep sense of despair because it points to four uncomfortable questions. First, was ORAL really about recovery or it was a brilliant piece of election propaganda- a “prop” to win the hearts of a frustrated electorate.
Second, are the allegations of “shortchanging hands” no longer rumors but a plausible explanation for why high-profile cases that are evaporating into “proposals.”? Third, does these suggest that the Attorney General is either incompetent in managing his mandate or, worse, highly competent in managing the failure of his mandate?. Finally, does this point to our judiciary that, by allowing these dockets to be tossed back and forth they fail to put the executive on its toes?.
The struggle for a progressive democracy is not just about voting; it is about the administrative integrity of the state. When the President asks for private lawyers to help, he is admitting the state is weak. When the AG kills the OSP, he is ensuring the state stays weak.
This is a deliberate weakening of the architecture of accountability. We are being asked to buy “hope” with our eyes closed, but the RTI response has forced them open. We see the dates: a letter written on March 18th delivered today, April 14th. That delay is a metaphor for the entire justice system under this AG- it exists, it’s written, but it will only get to you when it’s too late to matter.
As a citizen who understands the weight of law and the nuances of public administration, I am left wondering: what is the clear intention of the Attorney General? If he wants to prosecute, he has the dockets. If he needs help, he has the OSP. If he wants recovery, he should show us the signed contracts, not “proposals.” The silence on convictions is no longer a whisper of preparation; it is the silence of a grave where the promises of 2024 have been buried. We don’t need more press conferences or pro-bono pleas.
We need to see the inside of a prison cell for those who looted the state, and we need to see the money in the bank. Anything less is just “oral” in its most disappointing form: just talk. The ultimate verdict is becoming clear: justice hasn’t just been delayed; it is being systematically dismantled under the guise of “constitutionality.” Ghana is watching, but for the first time, we are watching with eyes that no longer believe the script.
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com