Law Enforcement and Justice Delivery are Problems in Ghana

In Ghana, as concluded from empirical observations as are prevalent, the two major factors inhibiting the progress of Ghana as a nation and people, are the lack of law enforcement and unethical delivery of justice.

A widely acknowledged dictum goes, “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine”. Simply put, no matter how long it takes to establish justice in any case, the truth will come to reign, thus, a malefactor will eventually get their punishment no matter how long it takes.

However, in Ghana, the above proverb never seems to always be the case but oftentimes the very opposite. A case brought before the courts involving wealthy people, traditional overlords, top public office holders and acclaimed top politicians, just to mention a few, will last ages and in the end, decided in their favour, although from the facts and credible evidence submitted to court, they should have been found guilty.

It is a well-known indisputable fact in Ghana that the law only catches the poor but not the rich. When a rich person, a person of a highly elevated status in Ghana like the top traditional overlords ascribing to themselves the qualities of omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence, a highly educated person holding a PhD degree which most Ghanaians are scared of, therefore seeing those persons as tin gods, commit a crime, the laws are unable to bare their deadly fangs at them. The law becomes impotent before them hence unable to bite them as it is always unfairly, if not stupidly, found, to fatally bite the poor.

However, an intelligent white man, Charles L. Aarons, once said, “Justice is not a prize tendered to the good-natured, nor is it to be withheld from the ill-bred”. By this, he meant to say that justice must be for all irrespective of one’s circumstances. The law must be allowed to take its natural course as might have been formulated without respect for anyone.

How do Ghana judges understand and interpret the legal sayings, “The law is no respecter of persons” and “Justice delayed is justice denied?” Why are poor people, if not persistent hardened criminals in petty crimes, stealing say, a fowl (cock or hen), farm produce (plantain, cocoyam, yam, or cassava), is hurriedly tried and convicted to a prison term of about five years when brought before a court judge whilst wealthy people and government officials colluding to embezzle public funds and state assets worth millions of Ghana New Cedis are allowed to saunter in the streets of Ghana free persons without the law ever catching them?

One Alfred Agbesi Woyome, a criminal who condoned and connived with some other top government officials to dupe the nation to the tune of 51.2 million Ghana New Cedis (GHS51, 200,000) is still walking a free man in Ghana. Any curious person can check how many fowls the amount of money he had so dubiously availed himself of, could buy.

Until our policemen and women, our court judges, those enforcing the laws, cease their unethical attitudes of accepting bribes to twist justice, Ghana can never prosper but to continue to stagnate in dehumanizing status of shithole with easy access by any foreign country so desiring, to re-colonise us.

Try as the government does, if the area of law enforcement and justice delivery is not holistically looked at, Ghana and her citizens will be going in “merry-go-round”, wobbling in injurious injustice, poverty and denigration.

Any Ghana judge and law enforcement agent helping to slow down law enforcement through their quest for bribe to twisting justice for their own parochial interests must bury their head in their palms in shame. I shall not hesitate to name, shame and call for the prosecution of such disgraceful persons by the same laws and justice-delivery machines they have taken them down in spare parts.

It is not only for the president, but all discerning Ghanaians, to ensure that the laws are applied as they should with justice delivered accordingly, to the satisfaction of all.

For how long will the ongoing Kumawu chieftaincy dispute last, with some traditional overlord inducing some corrupt judges to twist justice in his favour despite the abundance of evidence so submitted and the obviously convincing facts in the public domain to the contrary?

My beloved Ghana is becoming a joke with jokers running it but those of us who have seen the light will resist such deplorable attitudes before they culminate in Ghana going back into slavery under the callous Chinese who are aiming at buying and ruling all African countries.

I have to end here because my spirit is sorrowful upon hearing the passing of my family friend, Nana Yaa, in Paris, on Monday, 11 May 2020. Shall her soul rest in perfect peace and how I wish I could attend her funeral had it not been the restrictions on travel and public gathering brought about by the lethal novel coronavirus (Covid-19), otherwise called by American President Donald Trump as the Chinese virus.

Rockson Adofo
Tuesday, 12 May 2020