Former Attorney General Martin Amidu has taken aim at Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh, Chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC), accusing him of pursuing a personal agenda under the guise of constitutional reform.
In an open letter, Amidu suggests that Prof. Prempeh is attempting to condition the public for a predetermined outcome regarding the future of the Council of State.
Prof. Prempeh, appointed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to chair the CRC, recently shared his views on the Council of State in an interview quoted by Joy FM on May 3, 2025.
“Our task is not just to listen to what is broken,” he said, “but to ask how we can make things work better. So rather than taking a binary position of abolish or retain, I’m more interested in a middle ground: retain, but modify.”
While the statement may appear measured and reform-minded, Amidu sees it as a strategic move to push a covert agenda.
He claims Prempeh is “purposefully setting himself and the CRC” on a path to propose amendments to Chapter 9 of the 1992 Constitution — the section governing the Council of State. Such a move, Amidu argues, would ultimately trigger a national referendum to alter entrenched provisions in Chapter 8, potentially reshaping Ghana’s constitutional architecture.
Amidu, a long-time critic of governance reforms he views as politically motivated, goes further by questioning Prempeh’s neutrality.
He characterizes the CRC chair as “a former public office holder under the Akufo-Addo Government dressed in the apparel of the Executive Director of the ideologically infused or saturated Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana).”
According to Amidu, CDD-Ghana was established “to undermine the PNDC and the NDC,” and thus he believes Prempeh’s involvement taints the committee’s impartiality.
In a sharply worded conclusion, Amidu warns that this perceived agenda could have political consequences for the very party that appointed Prempeh.
“Henry Kwasi Prempeh… will lead John Dramani Mahama to his Waterloo in any national referendum on his eventual CRC report on this subject,” he writes.
