RIGGED: A True Story of Greed, Power and Billions in Ghanaian Oil

by M. Rutledge McCall

An e-reader screen adaptation miniseries book inspired by a 2020 film script by M. Rutledge McCall. For 100 years, exploratory oil wells had been drilled off the coast of Ghana by major companies, yet none had found oil. The agency tasked with searching for oil during the administration of the nation’s longest-serving military dictator had also failed to find oil. Yet, Ghana was located near oil producing nations such as Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Equatorial Guinea, which had been pumping oil in commercial quantities for decades. What was wrong in Ghana?
On the eve of the presidential election at the dawn of the new millennium, a challenge was announced by the opposition Find oil in Ghana! After the party won the Presidency, one man initiated efforts that resulted in a $160 billion oil discovery, catapulting Ghana onto the world stage and setting the country on a potential path to economic parity with First World countries. The man was hailed as a hero.
And then, in a bitterly-fought election after the discovery, the government was retaken by the party of the nation’s last dictator. Within weeks of the takeover, before a drop of oil was pumped, the Attorney General filed 25 felony charges against the hero. Police subjected him to a dozen CID interrogations, a relentless smear campaign was waged against him by the media, he was followed by shadowy figures, hounded by reporters, attacked by his own business partners. Even the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI investigated him.
The charges threatened to bring Ghana’s fledgling oil industry to the brink of chaos and destroy the man's life. He could hang on only so long before he had to abandon what was rightfully his share of a multibillion-dollar oil discovery, or keep up a battle that had already cost him every penny he had--and put him deeply in debt. Could he win against these odds? ...Or would the government simply "disappear" him and take his share of the huge find.

254 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 24, 2023

About the author

Author M. Rutledge McCall was born and raised in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. He currently resides at the ocean in California with his unfairly beautiful wife and their chatty Flame Point Siamese cat, jackrabbits, an assortment of deer, hawks, quail, turkeys, bobcats, foxes, raccoons, and turkey vultures.

As a writer, ghostwriter, and script doctor of more than 140 projects, McCall’s clientele includes people named in Newsweek and Forbes magazines’ Most Powerful People lists. He has worked with authors whose books have appeared on the best-selling lists of the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, and Amazon.com. And he has been featured on TV news shows including NBC’s “Today”, BBC News, PBS, CNN, KNBC News’ “Nightside Cover Story”, PBS/KCET’s “Life and Times: Thinkers, Shakers and Newsmakers”, “Larry King Live”, ABC News 9 and ABC Radio Australia, and others.

He spent late 1984 through early 2000 in feature film and television production management at most of the major legacy film companies and TV networks.

In 2000, his first book, "Slipping Into Darkness: A True Story From the American Ghetto", was published, and was optioned for film by a tech industry double unicorn, setting the course for the rest of his career as an author, ghostwriter and script doctor.

Reviews

[M. McCall]

This is the movie script-in-book-format version inspired by the Owusu & McCall book "In Pursuit of Jubilee". Interesting approach McCall took: Co-write the book, then write the mini-series screen adaptation version, then turn the mini-series screen adaptation into a screenplay format book. New genre? Really well written!