Danquah’s Case Is Taking Too Long

The brutal slaying of Mr. Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu, then New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa-North and grandson of the immortalized Dr. J. B. Danquah, the putative Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian Politics, will go down the annals of Ghana’s political history as one of the indelible hallmarks of the abject lack of security in the country in the waning months of Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Under the tenure of President John Dramani Mahama, more targeted political killings occurred in the country than under any previous tenure in Ghana’s Fourth-Republican dispensation. There was, for instance, the point-blank shooting-death case of Mr. Peter Kenyenso (if memory serves yours truly accurately), the Mahama-appointed District Chief Executive Officer of Nkwanta-South, in the Volta Region.

Indeed, even as I write, the killers of both Messrs. Danquah-Adu and Kenyenso have yet to be prosecuted and convicted. In the case of Mr. Kenyenso, the suspects have yet to be apprehended, let alone charged and prosecuted. Interestingly, in the case of Mr. Danquah-Adu, not only are the criminal suspects widely known, there is also more than ample evidence pointing to the fact that the stabbing death of Mr. Danquah-Adu may very well have been contracted and orchestrated for political reasons; which would automatically qualify it to be classified as an assassination. There is enough evidence in the dockets of the police investigators who were originally assigned to the case. And, oh, I forgot to also add that there were several other assassinations whose criminal architects were never ferreted out and brought to book under the tenure of President Mahama.

And now, wonders of wonders, the man who smugly presided over such a bloody political atmosphere has been marching from month to month and city to city, declaring his intention of regaining his deservedly lost post. He has always campaigned in the past on the patently false premise that every Fourth-Republican President is constitutionally entitled to two terms or 8 years in office. It is not clear in which language Mr. Mahama read such constitutional poppycock. This is rather pathetic because the Gonja native willfully ignores the fact that the possibility of being offered a second term by the Ghanaian electorate is squarely predicated on satisfactory performance. And on the latter count, we all know for an incontrovertible fact that the man had been practically AWOL. Returning to power would, of course, mean nurses and teachers being stripped of their trainee allowances. The list goes on and on and on ad-nauseam.

I bring up the Danquah-Adu stabbing death because, evidence and all, this case seems to be dragging on for far too long than it ought to. And we all know for a fact that in Ghana, this means that somebody very powerful and higher up in government may be banking on the bizarre hope that Ghanaians are, by and large, a people who are pathologically afflicted with such a short-term memory that it is only a matter of time before everybody comes to the tired and jaded conclusion of letting the proverbial sleeping dogs lie. In the news article right now and right here before me, captioned “Police Awaiting AG’s Advice on Murdered MP’s Docket – Prosecution” (GhanaNewsAgency.org / Ghanaweb.com 5/10/18), we have police investigators telling us that but for the inordinate pussyfooting of Attorney-General Gloria Akuffo, the Danquah Murder Case would have long proceeded to trial.

Concerned observers want to know just what is causing such undue delay. And, by the way, there is also the long-drawn-out case of the former Upper-East’s Regional Chairman of the then main opposition New Patriotic Party, Mr. Adams Mahama, whose prime suspect remains in judicial custody, with his trial chugging along in fits and starts. What a country of whose nationality I bargained with my nativity. We have to get to the bottom of the Danquah-Adu Case. One only hopes that it was not just another all-too-pedestrian case of an inside job. Observers deserve to be judicially informed: This much is our inalienable constitutional right as Ghanaian citizens and human beings.

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