The Lessons Of History

By Cameron Duodu

Feature Article The Lessons Of History

SUN, 16 JUN 2024 1

I wonder how any of those who listened to our President’s speech during the commissioning of The Law House – the new complex of offices that accommodate the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and other legal establishments – were familiar with the very interesting anecdote he related which (he said) his father, President Edward Akufo-Addo, had passed down to him, Nana Akufo-Addo.

The story was that in 1961, the powerful Minister for Presidential Affairs in the Government of President Kwame Nkrumah “played a crucial role in establishing a Special Criminal Court intended to expedite trials for national and political offences under President Kwame Nkrumah’s administration. This court was seen as a tool to swiftly address threats to national security and consolidate power.

“Ironically, in 1963, Tawia Adamafio found himself as one of the first defendants before this very court, accused of treason, in connection with the Kulungugu bomb attack aimed at President Nkrumah.” The President went on: “Despite the court’s composition of judges appointed by Nkrumah, which seemed to doom Adamafio’s fate, the judges meticulously examined the evidence and found Adamafio and his co-accused innocent.”

However, President Nkrumah was dissatisfied with the judgment of the three judges – Sir Arku Korsah (Chief Justice), Mr. Justice Edward Akufo-Addo and Mr. Justice W. Van Lare. Nkrumah promptly sacked all three judges and found a new Chief Justice, Mr. Sarkodee-Adoo, who found Adamafio and Co. guilty of the offences with which they had been charged.

President Akufo-Addo smiled as he remembered: “Following his release (from prison) after the 1966 coup that ended the First Republic, Adamafio visited my father (Edward Akufo-Addo) to express his gratitude. He acknowledged that his life had been saved by the court’s adherence to the rule of law.

Mr. Edward Akufo-Addo, however, refrained from mentioning Adamafio’s earlier insistence (during his advocacy of the establishment of the Special Criminal Court) on that court should 'dispense justice, not law.'” This episode, President Akufo-Addo emphasised, “exemplifies how the rule of law stands as the best protection of individual liberty, regardless of the political climate.”

The President told his audience that in 1961, Tawia Adamafio, then one of the most powerful of Dr. Nkrumah’s ministers, took a bill to Parliament for passage into law. When passed, the law provided for the establishment of special courts, over and above the normal superior courts of judicature that dispense justice to the people of Ghana. Tawia Adamafio (the President recalled) told Parliament that the new law was meant to safeguard national security.

I think the President’s speech supports my view expressed in my article entitled 'Are We Operating A Guilty With Explanation Type Of Justice?' published last week. You see, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice has been accused of practices that possibly infringe the rules of his profession. So much so that the judge trying a case he was prosecuting advised him to “recuse” himself from the case.

This is an unprecedented happening, as far as my limited knowledge of legal affairs goes. The matter should not be ignored in the way embarrassed Ghanaian officials simply IGNORE certain issues. For one day, ANYONE could find himself or herself in the position in which Tawia Adamafio found himself in 1963. If that happened and witnesses were interfered with, who would be safe?

By CAMERON DUODU

Martin Cameron Duodu is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.. More Martin Cameron Duodu (born 24 May 1937) is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.

Education
Duodu was born in Asiakwa in eastern Ghana and educated at Kyebi Government Senior School and the Rapid Results College, London , through which he took his O-Level and A-Level examinations by correspondence course . He began writing while still at school, the first story he ever wrote ("Tough Guy In Town") being broadcast on the radio programme The Singing Net and subsequently included in Voices of Ghana , a 1958 anthology edited by Henry Swanzy that was "the first Ghanaian literary anthology of poems, stories, plays and essays".

Early career
Duodu was a student teacher in 1954, and worked on a general magazine called New Nation in Ghana, before going on to become a radio journalist for the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation from 1956 to 1960, becoming editor of radio news <8> (moonlighting by contributing short stories and poetry to The Singing Net and plays to the programme Ghana Theatre). <9> From 1960 to 1965 he was editor of the Ghana edition of the South African magazine Drum , <10> and in 1970 edited the Daily Graphic , <3> the biggest-selling newspaper in Ghana.< citation needed >

The Gab Boys (1967) and creative writing
In 1967, Duodu's novel The Gab Boys was published in London by André Deutsch . The "gab boys" of the title – so called because of their gabardine trousers – are the sharply dressed youths who hang about the village and are considered delinquent by their elders. The novel is the story of the adventures of one of them, who runs away from village life, eventually finding a new life in the Ghana capital of Accra . According to one recent critic, "Duodu simultaneously represents two currents in West African literature of the time, on the one hand the exploration of cultural conflict and political corruption in post-colonial African society associated with novelists and playwrights such as Chinua Achebe and Ama Ata Aidoo , and on the other hand the optimistic affirmation of African cultural strengths found in poets of the time such as David Diop and Frank Kobina Parkes . These themes come together in a very compassionate discussion of the way that individual people, rich and poor, are pushed to compromise themselves as they try to navigate a near-chaotic transitional society."

In June 2010 Duodu was a participant in the symposium Empire and Me: Personal Recollections of Imperialism in Reality and Imagination, held at Cumberland Lodge , alongside other speakers who included Diran Adebayo , Jake Arnott , Margaret Busby , Meira Chand , Michelle de Kretser , Nuruddin Farah , Jack Mapanje , Susheila Nasta , Jacob Ross , Marina Warner , and others.

Duodu also writes plays and poetry. His work was included in the anthology Messages: Poems from Ghana ( Heinemann Educational Books , 1970).

Other activities and journalism
Having worked as a correspondent for various publications in the decades since the 1960s, including The Observer , The Financial Times , The Sunday Times , United Press International , Reuters , De Volkskrant ( Amsterdam ), and The Economist , Duodu has been based in Britain as a freelance journalist since the 1980s. He has had stints with the magazines South and Index on Censorship , and has written regularly for outlets such as The Independent and The Guardian .

He is the author of the blog "Under the Neem Tree" in New African magazine (London), and has also published regular columns in The Mail and Guardian ( Johannesburg ) and City Press (Johannesburg), as well as writing a weekly column for the Ghanaian Times (Accra) for many years.< citation needed >

Duodu has appeared frequently as a contributor on BBC World TV and BBC World Service radio news programmes discussing African politics, economy and culture.

He contributed to the 2014 volume Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochukwu Promise.Column: Cameron Duodu

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