Montie petition: Gender minister's signing 'unbelievable'

Gender minister Nana Oye Lithur has been criticized for supporting a petition calling for the release of pro-government communicators jailed for contempt after they threatened to kill judges.

Policy analyst Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby said given the minister’s background as a human rights activist and a gender advocate, it is “incongruous” for her to sign the "Free Montie 3 petition".

Incensed government officials and party gurus are signing a petition calling for a presidential pardon for two radio panelists and a host of a pro-government radio station, Montie FM.

Alistair Nelson, Godwin Ako Gunn and Salifu Maase respectively, are serving a four-months' sentence in Nsawam prison after making contemptuous comments on Supreme Court judges hearing an electoral roll case. The attacks included threats to kill the judges and rape the Chief Justice, Goergina Theodora Wood.

But the ruling National Democratic Congress(NDC) is up against the sentencing, describing it as harsh. They want the three released.

Although President Mahama’s legal advisor Tony Lithur, has advised against the move to pardon them, it has not stopped his wife and Gender minister Nana Oye Lithur from signing the petition.

Condemning support for the release of the convicted criminals, Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby pointed out that “the idea that ministers and appointed government officials who do the president’s bidding, should rush off to sign a petition that seeks to allow him to interfere directly in the decisions of the judiciary is the most dangerous thing that has happened in the Fourth Republic”.

Zooming in on Nana Oye Lithur, the policy expert indicated that her position on the Montie petition is at the very least, bizarre.

Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby
“She was running an NGO called Commonwealth Human Rights [Initiative] and I am surprised that even from that background, she would even put her name to such a petition especially now that she is a Minister of Gender and Social Protection”

Dr. Wereko-Brobby suggested that the “very, very sober” advice of her husband who is the president’s lawyer should have informed her position.

“Not that she is not independent or she is not free to act independently as a person, but it is incongruous”, he explained on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Monday, for the minister to endorse the petition.

He said the call on the President to issue an executive order and pardon the ‘Montie 3’ constitutes a “direct confrontation” between the Executive and the Judiciary.

“It is unfortunate….it will create a constitutional crisis”, he warned. It is an impeachable offence if the President’s power to pardon is found to have been exercised inappropriately.

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