An Open Letter To The President, H. E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, On The Disregard Of The Rule Of Law And The Abuse Of Human Rights

Mr. President, even though it might seem long overdue, I still wish to use this opportunity to congratulate you on your assumption of the highest office of the Republic of Ghana. Without much reservation on the processes and the procedures that led to your 2016 victory, congratulations once again, my president. As a senior legal practitioner of great repute and a senior human right activist of good standing in this country, many a Ghanaian was very happy to have seen you sworn into office as our president.

However, Mr President, I shudder to believe that our hopes for the rule of law and protection of the fundamental human rights in your presidency per the recent development have failed to travel pass the first four(4) months of your four-year tenure of office. This is clearly evident in the recent unfortunate developments of human rights abuses and conspicuous disregard of law and order led by your financier and MP for Assin Central, Hon. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, who is also said to be your defacto right-hand man.

I thought one of your hallmarks and the benchmark you were looking for to score high marks is the rule of law and for that matter, the promotion of the Fundamental Human Rights for the citizenry. Under your very watch, we have seen some of the worst human rights violations in our democratic history and the blatant disregard for the rule of law in broad day light. What have become of our president whose democratic credentials hence stand for the rule of law so trumpeted by the elephants and their media cabal? Or better still, will I not be right to say it’s the lawlessness of Kennedy Ohene Agyapong's which has fatally plagued your administration, Mr President? Can't the man who so challenged our very statutes in court for the repeal of the libel law, challenge the impudence of this lawless one and bring him to order? Is this a dead elephant syndrome? Or Kennedy Agyapong who is the commander in chief of the delta and invisible forces is mow more powerful than you, the commander in chief of Ghana's armed forces? I wish not to think far since whatever that may have made the elephant this psychiatrical, an ordinary citizen like me who still doesn't want to be a spectator may still not have the cure now until the next four years. But I believe you can still win back our trust if at least you do something about this cancer of lawlessness which Kennedy Agyapong and his delta and invisible forces have plagued your administration and unfortunately for that matter, our nation's democratic credentials.

Mr President, you may recall that at the very seat of the presidency, a policeman on duty was physical assaulted by your vigilante group in charge of the office of the president. And rather unlike about you as we know typical of you in the 1990s and the early 2000s, you would have condemned such acts of human rights violations but you have deafeningly refused to condemned such a human right abuse and violations even at the seat of your presidency. Have the monsters that were created to attack your political opponents, per the reciprocity of karma, now turned and they are eating up their own members?

My president, it's rather unprecedented in this country that a government appointee, the national security coordinator, for no small region like the Asante Region was assaulted, verbally abused and dragged out of his office. Shockingly, this happened in your tenure of office. This was a clear violation of his personal liberty, his fundamental human rights, his right to employment and even his freedom to speech. But what happened? Your MP and financier openly accused your national security minister, Hon. Kan Daapah and dared him, the police and the national security to take his notorious vigilante group members to the court. And that they shall see what will happen. Your guess is as good as mine that it was against this backdrop that this vigilante group raided the premises of a court of competent jurisdiction and freed its members who were on remand. When did our country become such a lawless one? If we justify present evil by past, we have only justified our backwardness. This is how backward political equalization is. We the people deserve better than what we are witnessing in your administration.

Having dared all that he could dare, this notorious MP and his lawless vigilante groups delivered in a Rambo style with their usual impunity to no surprise to those of us who have been fatigued by the MP who dishonorably has set himself above the law. However, to see him and his cohorts attack the very foundation of law and order just to free their people who were culpable is simply an unpardonable treason to the future of our toddling democracy. Your excellency, this honourable Kennedy Agyapong and his terrorists of law and order desecrated the sanctity of all that our courts stand for. Something which is ignobly unprecedented in our body politic. What makes evil and such lawlessness thrive the more even in a democracy and inspire others to do same is when men like you in the highest office of the land, vested with all the powers to call such a one and his hordes to order both within your party structures and state force, instead keep silent and turn the blind eye because you have allowed such crime to still wear political colours even under your distinguished self.

Your comments at the Asantehene’s palace were discourse mastic. Because your financier, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong has dared the police and he went on to carry out his course and nothing was done to him because during the previous government, the NDC when he allegedly said that they should kill Ewes and the Gas , he was arrested by the BNI, your party national executives made a hero out of him. So your Excellency, I think your hero is now making zero all your rule of law credentials as a party and a government. This "honourable" MP has virtually dishonoured with insults every member of your party including yourself good old self. What makes him think that NPP members are fools who do not have "home sense". Unlike you in opposition, you would have called on the president to disassociate himself from such an act of insults and ethnocentric hate speech. We are still waiting for you to bring such a bad nut in your party to order. I don't expect you to wash his dirty linen in public because it's already out there in the public. I expected you and your party to wash him thoroughly behind closed doors so he doesn't flaunt his dirty linen in public dishonorably.

Should the financier be the one who calls the shots in your party? Well, if he is, certainly we voted for you us our president and not for a de facto above the law Kennedy Agyapong. Everybody in this country knows that he has insulted every woman, journalists, businessmen etc. But in all these, you remain silent as usual of you. Well, your status has changed so you can't lead a Kumipreko demonstration now because you are the number one gentleman of the land. However, it's more gentlemanly to bring to order such an unruly mouth.

My president, we know you may not want to openly disassociate yourself from from the lawlessness of your financier even though that would have earned you more presidential credit but at least bring your untamed Hon. member of Parliament and financier to order so the up and coming ones in your party will not have a bad example set before them in him. Nobody can speak of him and will not be hunted. No security agents can work on him, arrest him nor can do anything to him. But we are not living in the days of the animal farm and we know and believe you as a human right activist will bring him to order. We are counting on you to do so.

But kindly prompt our Hon. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, to please take note that as a law maker, he is supposed to protect and uphold the law at all times. Anyway, if I even say he is a law maker, I think I have been most charitable to the facts.

Again your excellency, even though you welcome your AG with the lowest point in our judicial system with the infamous delta force case where justice was stabbed in the back by the lack of evidence. If the rule of law is of mere judicial process then conscience must also pass its verdict on both you and all those in the judicial process that freed the delta forces in gross disdain of justice. Kindly tell the AG, the office you once held, to go on with the prosecution of Kennedy's vigilante group and not back out else it will be a clear admission that you, our President, is in full support of the lawlessness ravaging our infant rule of law and order. We the youths in Ghana will advice ourselves in ways you perfectly understand and the human rights fraternity in Ghana and abroad will have to know that indeed we have lost you as an immortalised fighter for human rights and rule of law. What else will be left for you Mr President is to go down the book of our democratic history as a once highly reputed fighter of human rights and the rule of law but lost his place because of the untamed lawless MP for Assin Central, Hon. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong.

Kind regards
Martin Luther Obeng (Dr)
Ambasciatore dei Diritti Umani (Ambassador of Adsociazione Diritti Umani, a human rights organization in Italy 🇮🇹)

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