The Criminal Investigations Department's main office stood like a concrete tomb—grey, bureaucratic, lifeless. It wasn't meant to impress; it was meant to intimidate.
Abdul Ghaffar walked through its steel-framed doors, flanked by Kojo Frempong and Serwaa. No cameras. No microphones. Just whispers behind curtains and eyes watching through tinted glass.
The officer at the desk didn't ask questions. He just said, "Room four. They're expecting you."
Room Four had one table, two chairs, and a fan that swung like a judge's head on a slow pendulum. The officers were already waiting—Superintendent Nartey and Detective Lydia Mensah. Both were known. Both were feared.
"Mr. Ghaffar," Nartey began, without looking up, "thank you for honoring our invitation."
Kojo nodded. "We're here in good faith. To clear the air."
Nartey smiled thinly. "Good. Because the air's been thick lately."
He slid a file across the table. "Let's start with the offshore account. You're familiar with it?"
"I'm not," Abdul said, calm. "I've never opened any foreign account in my name."
Nartey opened the file. "And yet, this bank in South Africa confirms a passport-matching entry was used to open an account that received three major payments from a shell company tied to a government contract."
Kojo leaned in. "Let me guess—the passport has his name and face, but no real verification from our local registry?"
Detective Mensah flipped the page. "Actually, it does. Ghana's passport registry confirms the serial number and image."
Abdul blinked. "That's not possible. Mine is with me."
Mensah smiled faintly. "Then I suggest you check if you've been cloned."
Kojo frowned. "That's not a legal term."
Mensah shrugged. "Maybe not. But it's real."
Then came the laptop.
Pulled from nowhere, placed on the desk. Nartey opened it and played a clip. A voice. Abdul's voice. Discussing "cutting corners" and "channeling percentages" with someone named Kojo B..
Abdul stared at the screen.
"That's not me," he said.
Mensah paused the video. "You deny the voice?"
"I deny the context. I deny the content. It's edited."
Kojo Frempong leaned forward. "Do you have an uncut version?"
Nartey chuckled. "You think we release uncut evidence in a corruption probe?"
Kojo leaned back. "Then this is theater."
"Then bring popcorn," Nartey said. "Because it gets better."
That night, the news stations were fed again. New documents. New audio clips. A voice that sounded like Abdul promising a "5% kickback" on a road project in Wa. A claim that he owned two luxury flats in London. And an anonymous voice—feminine, emotional—claiming she had delivered cash to his house on three occasions.
"Your own party is asking questions now," Isaac told him as they sat in the dark.
"Let them," Abdul replied.
"You should respond."
"No. Not yet."
Serwaa leaned on the door. "They're shaping the story. If you don't speak—"
"They'll hang themselves," Abdul said quietly. "They're overplaying it."
Kojo sat in a corner, flipping pages of the new documents leaked online. "They're muddying the water. Too much dirt too fast. It's starting to smell... manufactured."
Abdul nodded. "But they'll still win. Because in Ghana, all you need is enough smoke. People won't wait for fire."
Two days later, Parliament's Ethics Committee reconvened.
This time, the atmosphere had changed. Even MPs from Abdul's own party kept their distance. The ones who used to shake his hand now nodded from across the room like strangers at a funeral.
Chairman Addae opened with venom.
"Honourable Ghaffar, we regret to inform you that, based on the growing mountain of evidence and testimonies, your conduct is now considered not only questionable—but possibly criminal."
Abdul stood calmly. "Are you now a court?"
Addae's eyes narrowed. "We are the mirror of Parliament's integrity."
Kojo Frempong cut in. "Then wipe the fog from the glass."
The room murmured.
Addae ignored him. "You are hereby suspended pending the completion of both our inquiry and the criminal investigations. Your parliamentary privileges are revoked."
And just like that, the floor disappeared beneath him.
By the end of the week, his face was everywhere again—only this time, not as a reformer, not as a rising light—but as the cautionary tale.
Commentators who once praised his principles now shook their heads on live TV, sighing, "Another fallen angel."
His wife, Ama, hadn't called. Not even once.
Instead, she'd posted on her private Instagram:
> "I didn't sign up for this. I just wanted peace."
The comments were brutal.
> "She knew."
"She was part."
"Smart woman—run while you can."
Abdul scrolled for a second… then threw his phone into the sink.
Late that night, he sat alone in his study.
There were no speeches to write, no press releases to approve. Only silence and the steady hum of betrayal.
He looked around at his bookshelves—filled with political theory, African biographies, and Qur'anic exegesis.
Then he took out his journal—the same one he used to write campaign notes in—and penned something new.
> "If they want to bury me, let them. I am a seed."