The Politics Of Insanity

K1: Koo, what at all is happening in this our country?

K2: Ei, so you too have noticed?

• Why shouldn’t I?
• I know, I know! But sometimes we are not struck by the same thing. I take it you are disturbed by the way and manner in which a judge dealt with Charles Antwi, who unlawfully took a gun into the church where the President usually worships?
• Bingo! What did you find strange about the case?
• Well, some of the things he is alleged to have said about himself….
• Yes, he said he should be the President!
• Not even a District Chief Executive or Minister! But President!
• Where do they get these ideas from?
• Ask me!
• Yes, I see where you could take this. The cult of personality in our politics does create its inconveniences.
• But if you and I could see the ego aspects of the matter, although we are not trained psychiatrists, why couldn’t the judge?
• Maybe he too has an ego problem. For so many elementary things went wrong in that court-room! The judge should not have taken Antwi’s plea, once the question of his sanity had been raised. The issue was argued by a lawyer in the court, who, acting as an amicus curiae (friend of the court) because he had not been formally instructed, sought to draw the judge’s attention to the need to send Antwi for psychiatric observation.
• But the judge ignored him and took the plea of a person whose unbalanced state of mind had been brought to his notice?
• Yep! The judge should have ruled that the accused was 'unfit to plead'; then entered a plea of 'not guilty' on the accused’s behalf, pending a report from a psychiatrist that he wasfit to plead.
• But the judge took the chap’s plea twice, right? First, he allowed him to plead 'not guilty', and later, that was changed to 'guilty'? He allowed him to change his plea?
• It’s all extremely odd.
• When the amicus curiaerequested the judge to send the accused person for psychiatric observation, the judge stated that he had observed the accused himself, and had found him 'confident' in what he said and was therefore fit to stand trial!
• Lord have mercy!
• And he gave the accused ten years, after the accused had said in open court that it was he who caused the death of President John Atta Mills, and that he had expected to succeed President Mills, only to find that Mr John Mahama had been allowed to steal the accused’s 'birthright' and become President?
• Yes!
• Koo, I am not a psychiatrist. But as for this, I can say that to judge from Antwi’s statements, he is both schizophrenic and megalomanic!
• Tu bra! (Bring it on!)
• I should add delusional into the mix! For Antwi does not live in the real world. He lives in a world which he has created for himself. He’s living in a delusion. And he has more than one personality: he can at times behave 'normally', and at times take on a different personality that makes him act in a 'strange' way. For instance, he is alleged to have been able to drive a taxi in his home-town. But he drew attention to his driving by going too fast. He probably regarded himself as having been given powers which prevented him from being involved in motor accidents (delusion.) And also megalomania at work - a person who is bigger than anyone else.

– Yeah– he thought he was bigger than the President who was in office!

• Yeah! The President in office was a ‘usurper’. It was Charles Antwi who had been designated to succeed Mills, after Antwi had killed Mills by merely wishing that Mills should die!
• And the judge heard all this and concluded that Antwi was sane and confident?
• The Chief Justice would be well-advised to call for the papers of the case immediately and give them to a senior judge to review. This is not a matter that should go to appeal and waste

taxpayers’ money. Antwi should be removed from prison and taken to a psychiatrist hospital, and if found to be insane, committed for psychiatric care.

• Why is it important that this should be done?
• The reason is that a person suffering from mental illness is not responsible for his actions. Mental illness is like any other illness - it incapacitates the sufferer. A large number of illnesses, grouped under the single word depression,deprive a human being of his mental faculties. A judge would not wish to diagnose the illness of someone who faints in his court, would he? No - it would be wrong for the judge to turn himself into a doctor. Similarly, he shouldn’t turn himself into a psychiatric, either. A psychiatrist is also a doctor, only he deals with mental and emotional illnesses. A judge who neglects to send an accused person who shows signs of insanity to a mental hospital to professionally establish his sanity, has infringed the constitutional rights of the accused person. And the earlier the head of the judicial service sorted out the injustice, the better. Otherwise bad judges would make slaves of all of us.
• But what about the politicians who are using the case to make accusations at one another?
• They are doing real harm to the country. For by over-publicising the case, they could put ideas into the heads of weak-minded persons who might want to seek attention by imitating the behaviour of equally diseased persons. Imitative crime is in fact a nightmare for every security service in the world. So, people like the NDC General Secretary, Mr Asiedu Nketia, ought to be very careful, lest they create unnecessary problems for the professionals who have been trained to protect our bigwigs.

www.cameronduodu.com
By Cameron Duodu