The Montie-3 Are Criminals Whose Lawful Conviction Mustn’t Be Confused With A Curb On Free Speech [2]

The obnoxious ‘Criminal liable law’ was promulgated by the P[NDC] and it remained in our statutes for the nearly 20years that they were in power. When agitations were rife for it to be removed from our statutes, the P[NDC] fiercely resisted, with then Attorney General Obed Asamoah actually proclaiming that the law will only be repealed over his “DEAD BODY”.

And true to their words, the law was kept in our books till they were booted out of power in the year 2000, after which that obnoxious law was fittingly expunged from our statutes. And incidentally, it was under the tenure of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as Ghana’s attorney general that the law was expunged.

Ghana currently is under a dark cloud of media tyranny being superintended by a bunch of unrepentant crass illiterates whose primary motivation is sacrificing ethics on the altar of self-agrandisments.These illiterate media tyrants have become notorious in pampering those mismanaging our resources instead of being the mouthpiece for the suffering masses and holding political officialdom to account.

Actions of Montie-3 were deliberate
For over one solid year, Montie-Fm was used to insult Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in particular, and other decent Ghanaians in general, without a whimper from any member of the governing NDC. As a matter of fact, top NDC government officials often called into the program to actually urge the host, Salifu Maase, on.

When these social miscreants openly threatened to kill Supreme Court judges, there wasn’t a whimper from any NDC/party government official. Indeed, these NDC officials were probably rejoicing because the montie-3 freely continued with the insults after a week of issuing death threats to the Supreme Court judges.

Now, the judges, having come to terms with the seriousness of the threat on their lives, fittingly decided to bite, taking into consideration our country’s history of innocent judges being abducted during curfew hours, taken to a firing range, summarily executed, their mortal remains mutilated and finally set ablaze.

When the judges made this move, NDC government/party officials besieged the court with different sizes of designer kneepads and firmly transfixed their wobbly knees on, and profusely rendered crocodile-tears apology. But the judges saw through those fictionally fictional fiction of apologies and handed down a befitting verdict.

But after the verdict had been handed down, these very NDC government/party officials who went before the judges to corroborate the shameful waywardness of montie-3 delinquents, and went on their knees to plead for forgiveness, have now turned round to demand for the release of these social misfits because the punishment slapped on them is too harsh.

Now, these very Supreme Court judges declared John Mahama as validly elected in the 2012 election petition case; and we never heard of any cry of “harsh decision” from the NDC. As a matter of fact, it was all jubilantly jubilant jubilation.

So what I can say to these NDC people is very simple: if you claim the montie-3 have been unjustifiably incarcerated, then, you’re at liberty to go and break the gates of Nsawam prisons and take those unrepentant social miscreants back to the studios of Montie-Fm to carry on with their threats against judges of our apex court.

Comparing apples with oranges
There is also this ridiculous line of argument being advanced by some high-ranking NDC government/party officials cum their horde of prepaid apologists that, the 4month prison term handed down to each on the montie-3 is unfair because Sir John did something similar but was let off with a fine. Indeed, this line of argument is either born out of crass illiteracy or deliberate wizardry. Now, when Sir John was fined, he was also bonded not to engage in that behavior for a given period.

But, being bonded for a given period to refrain from an act, doesn’t mean either the perpetrator or any other person can engage in that act after expiration of the said stipulated period of prohibitivity. Effectively, the warnings which accompanied Sir John’s fine, was not to him alone but all Ghanaians, asuch, one cannot commit the offense Sir John committed nearly 4years ago, and still demand that the Law Lords handed down the same verdict.

Free montie-3 project
When Tsatsu Tsikata was trialed in a court of law and fittingly jailed for wilfully causing financial loss to the state, the NDC started the “Free Tsatsu movement” which was used to organize relentless street protests, press conferences and vigils. That platform was also used by the likes of Kwesi Pratt, Raymond Archer, Tony Aidoo, Alhassan Suhunyini, Alhaji A.B.A. Fuseini and NDC footsoldiers to malign judges of this country. And these people who spearheaded that project have all been rewarded with juicy government appointments while those that have not benefitted from official appointments are being well-taken care of by way of free V-8 SUVs, mansions, scholarships/government appointments for their children and other close associates.

These very people, following the montie-3 verdict, have once again started their agitations by opening a so-called ledger for collection of signatures to be presented to John Mahama with an express purpose of mounting pressure on him to exercise powers vested in him by Article 71 of our 4^th Republican constitution, and set these montie-3’ miscreants free.Indeed,these people were able to prosecute the ‘Free Tsatsu’ agenda even in opposition and I know they are going to be extremely vigorous with this ‘Free Montie-3’ agenda because NDC is now in power and cash to oil the wheels of this agenda will be readily available.

Between the devil and the deep-blue-sea

I was listening to the Thursday,28^th july,2016 edition of 'Top Story' on JoyFM,and I heard one of the angry NDC footsoldiers who had massed-up at their $20m party national headquarters to hold their national executives hostage and impressing upon them to mount pressure on John Mahama to release the montie-3, actually saying:

"If the president doesn't release our friends, we shall vote for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and like we have all heard him[Nana Addo] warning; he'll come and jail all corrupt NDC government appointees; so the president can go ahead and joke with us and see what will happen to them if Nana Addo becomes president".

With this development, John Mahama has been caught between the devil and the deep-blue-sea, in the sense that, should he fail to heed to this completely illegal call by his party followers, he will lose their votes and therefore suffer defeat and himself and his appointees risking prosecution for corruption. On the other-hand, any move to set the Montie-3 free will be a serious slap on the faces of the judges of the apex court and also open the floodgates for unrestrained level of politics of insults and unrefined intemperate language.

But the truth is; John Mahama, for fear of a serious backlash, will never dare using any executive power to release the wayward ‘Montie-3’. What is going to happen, and indeed pretty soon, will be; these ‘Montie-3’ will fictitiously fall critically Ill, they’ll be rushed to the presidential suites of Ghana's topnotch health facilities, kept for some days and returned to Nsawam.

And within a matter of days later, these fictitious illnesses will resurface with aggressively aggressiveness aggression, they’ll once again be rushed out of Nsawam, not to health facilities, but to the comfortably comfortable comforts of Holiday Inn Hotel, pampered for a couple of days and returned to Nsawam.

To continue with the plot to set them free, the fictitious sickness of the montie-3 will come back with seriously serous seriousness which will then give credence to the noise for them to be set free, and that is exactly what will happen. But whatever it is, we are only keeping a keen watch from the sidelines, as passive observers.

Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei
E-mail: [email protected]