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18.07.2019 Feature Article

Any Critical Thinkers Here? – Part 1

Any Critical Thinkers Here? – Part 1
18.07.2019 LISTEN

I am annoyingly amused by all these high-horse-riding critics maligning Attorney-General Gloria Akuffo for vehemently insisting that the key suspect in the brutal acid-dousing assassination of Mr. Adams Mahama, then the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Chairman for the Upper-East Region, remain behind bar because Mr. Gregory Afoko, the younger brother of Mr. Paul Afoko, the dismissed National Chairman of the then main opposition New Patriotic Party, is a clear threat and present danger to not only the Adams Mahama Family but, as well, the prime suspect in the brutal slaying of Mr. Mahama poses a serious threat and danger to Ghanaian society at large.

In this part of what we hope to be a series of several rejoining discussions of the comments of those critics who think that there has been a breach of the human rights of the prime suspect in the afore-referenced cause célèbre, we shall attempt to critically analyze the opinions of GIMPA law lecturer Justice Srem Sai, as reported in the news story captioned “Justice Sai Explains Why A-G Is to Blame for Afoko’s Legal Pickle” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/17/19). I must, however, quickly observe that I am disconsolately amazed at the scandalous level of plain dishonesty and abject hypocrisy of those Ghanaian citizens, intellectuals and legal mavens – I use the term loosely here to refer to all professionally and academically trained lawyers who have, so far, weighed in on the Adams Mahama Assassination Saga – especially those who seem to think that the apparently adamant refusal of bail to the prime suspect by Attorney-General Akuffo is not only tantamount to the flagrant violation of the human rights of Mr. Gregory Afoko but that it is, in fact, a serious threat to both the judicial independence and law and order in the country at large.

No such tirade against Attorney-General Akuffo could be more absurd, to speak much less about the downright preposterous. Indeed, as one who has, perhaps, written and published more columns on the blood-curdling assassination of Mr. Adams Mahama than anybody else, I have good reason to suspect that I may possess a far deeper understanding of what is at stake here than most of the “passerby-critics” who morbidly appear to be only presently becoming aware of the fact that the Ghanaian judicial system may be under serious attack, or that the practically nonexistent independence of the Ghanaian judiciary is only now beginning to seem to be threatened under the watch of unarguably the country’s staunchest protector of the judicial system and institution or establishment, the reader may choose his/her pick. I am on the latter count, of course, alluding to none other than President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, himself a human rights activist-lawyer with few peers and/or rivals in Ghanaian jurisprudence.

You see, it is only those of our residents and citizens who did not follow the minute details of the Adams Mahama Assassination Case from the beginning who have the temerity and scandalous luxury to so cavalierly presume that, somehow, the dead man and the family, relatives and friends that he left behind have absolutely no right to have the suspected killer of their relative and friend, just for once, experience how real and true justice looks and feels like, that is, assuming that it was ever possible to experience justice in the manner that it is almost routinely experienced and/or administered in such enviable constitutional democracies as Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Australia and the United States, to name but a readily memorable few. We must also quickly point out that even in these advanced democracies, the administration of justice, for the most part, is still a work-in-progress needing substantial tweaks and revisions here and there to make it more universally acceptable, especially where the issue of the “non-mainstream” race and ethnicity of a criminal suspect may be concerned.

The fact of the matter is that the Afoko Case is not a simple open-and-shut episode of a commonplace kind. It also had the heavy scent and authoritative imprimatur of a politically powerful and well-connected relative who brazenly and publicly attempted to concoct an alibi for the prime suspect that almost immediately fell apart, when police investigators opportunely visited the Afoko home in Bolgatanga only to discover to their utter shock and horror the piping-hot vehicular accessory – in the form of the motorbike – that had been recently used to travel to and from the scene of the crime. But, perhaps, what needs to be subjected to an even greater scrutiny here is the general context and political climate under which the brutal and inexcusably savage slaying of Mr. Adams Mahama had occurred, and the President and the political establishment or party under whose tenure this most heinous crime had occurred in order to fully appreciate the fact of whether, indeed, the nation’s judiciary and the latter establishment’s membership felt more threatened between the constitutional terminal period between January 2013 and January 2017 than they presently feel.

And if so, then, of course, the “Why?” and “How?” will also perforce need to be answered in absolutely no uncertain terms. We must also underscore the fact that it was during the period under review and discussion that Mr. Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu, then the New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa-North and grandson of the legendary and immortalized Dr. JB Danquah and cousin of President Akufo-Addo, at the time Ghana’s main Opposition Leader, was equally brutally, scandalously and savagely slain in his own bedroom, allegedly by some two or three youthful contracted butchers. But in this particular instance, our Dear Readers may be far more interested in the weird chain of events that transpired at the Headquarters of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) that bizarrely but not altogether surprisingly resulted in the immediate removal of Dr. George Akuffo Dampare, the Lead Investigator of the Danquah-Adu Case, and Dr. Dampare’s prompt demotion by IGP John Kudalor – acting, of course, on behalf of then President John Dramani Mahama – and Dr. Dampare’s transfer from his far more significant post of Greater-Accra Regional Commander of the Ghana Police Service, to the relatively far less significant post of Rector of the Winneba Police Training Academy.

Well, since Mr. Srem Sai’s suggestion here is that Attorney-General Gloria Akuffo may have her political fingerprints smack in the details of the judicial bail denial for the prime suspect in the Adams Mahama Assassination Case, it bears an equally sound logical reasoning tack to pose the question of whether then Attorney-General Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong also had her political fingerprints in the clearly deliberate bungling of the investigation of the Danquah-Adu Assassination Case. You see, Dear Reader, unraveling the question of “Motives” on the part of the extant Attorneys-General vis-à-vis the acid-dousing assassination of Messieurs Adams Mahama and Danquah-Adu may not be that simple. But wait, there are other variables at play here not the least bit of which is the fact that both brutally slain men were bona fide front-row members of the then opposition New Patriotic Party. It was also during the period when the leaders of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) preferred to stage, produce and commercially screen documentaries showing the world how pathologically and incomparably corrupt the members of the Ghanaian judiciary, nearly each and every one of them, was than implement policy measures aimed at strengthening and boosting the confidence of the Ghanaian citizenry in the judicial establishment.

“The Eyes of God” Mahama, indeed! Now, by all means, let’s talk about which leader or leaders have posed real and certain threat to the judicial and legal system of the Democratic Republic of Ghana these last 30 years.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
July 17, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]

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