Speaking up for the voiceless has always been ingrained in the DNA of the vociferous anti-corruption campaigner, Martin Amidu.<\/p>\n
The influence of his parents, both illiterate, sowed the seeds that currently see him at odds with elements within the National Democratic Congress (NDC), of which he is a founding member.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”eVMKhUQJrc040D95hDC5aobs5gB4OoiR”]Reflecting on his life on the Citi Breakfast Show<\/strong> as he turns 66, Mr. Amidu noted how the circumstances of his parents and their sacrifices set him on his current path.<\/p>\n “I have since secondary school dedicated my life for always speaking for the voiceless\u2026 that is because of the background of my parents and how they suffered to see me and my elder brother through school.\u201d<\/p>\n This zeal, that has seen him \u00a0earn the name\u00a0citizen vigilante, started from his secondary education at the Commercial Business Institute in Tamale, where he was\u00a0part of a socialist group.<\/p>\n He recalled that \u201che has always spoken for the voiceless,\u201d and his eventual transition into governance was still with the common man in mind.<\/p>\n “I didn’t come into government as a politician. When I finished law school, my advocacy was for the ordinary person who hadn\u2019t been to school and who I felt was being cheated\u2026 so right from day one, I have been a sort of vigilante.\u201d<\/p>\n “My family, my children\u2026 they have suffered because I took to trying to help the country than my family so their education and others\u00a0suffered. My mind was focused on the nation and paying back my parents foresight,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Joining the revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n Months after the Provisional National Defence Council’s (PNDC) December 31, 1981, revolution, Mr. Amidu joined Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings’ side, and he noted that it was a\u00a0contrarian disposition that compelled the former President to spearhead the\u00a031st<\/sup> December revolution.<\/p>\n “It [the revolution] was a call to help our fellow human beings \u00a0in the country which we felt were being taken for granted,” he stated.<\/p>\n Mr. Amidu followed in this contrarian stance to government, noting that,”I didn\u2019t come to do politics. I came for the revolution because I believed in an ideal which I had been brought up in. Politics was a secondary matter when we were moving from the revolutionary stage into democratic rule.\u201d<\/p>\n “I am consistent as a contrarian because I remain still on the side of President Rawlings because that is our character, that is our being, and you can\u2019t let me leave what brought me into politics to do the bidding of others, particularly when it is against the constitution I helped to draft, when it’s against the principles that brought me into politics and deprived my family of any benefit, and when it is against the interest of the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n It is this contrarian position that has seen Mr. Amidu and Jerry Rawlings consistently criticize the current incarnation of the NDC for straying from the party’s original values.\u00a0He expressed hope that his uncompromising stance on the party will eventually correct the ills within.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that as time goes on, people will begin\u00a0to appreciate that we are not just criticizing for criticizing sake. I want us to come together, chart the proper course, go back to our fundamental values and then get the people to support us to go back and see if we can complete the agenda we started,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Speaking up for the voiceless has always been ingrained in the DNA of the vociferous anti-corruption campaigner, Martin Amidu. The influence of his parents, both illiterate, sowed the seeds that currently see him at odds with elements within the National Democratic Congress (NDC), of which he is a founding member. [contextly_sidebar id=”eVMKhUQJrc040D95hDC5aobs5gB4OoiR”]Reflecting on his life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11],"tags":[2762,3,129,1980],"class_list":["post-351170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-top-stories","tag-amidu","tag-ghana-news","tag-ndc","tag-rawlings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=351170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=351170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=351170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=351170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}