Re: Illegal political galamsey
Wednesday, August 14, 2013 is sure to go down in our history as a very important day. On that day, the General Secretary of a party whose leaders had petitioned the Supreme Court for a declaration to change the declared results of the presidential election held on December 7 and 8, 2012, was convicted for contempt by the very court in which the petition was being heard.
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What makes this even more arresting is the fact that Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, aka Sir John, the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party, is himself a lawyer of thirty-two years standing at the Ghana Bar, and had practiced extensively here and in the United Kingdom.
In our epistle today, let us reflect aloud on the layered meanings of this event relative to the politics of this country, past and present. To lighten this reflection, a la the advocacy of Lawyer Ayikoi Otoo, it is pertinent to note that it is now confirmed by the events of that day, that the petition has affected productivity in the country.
At the very least, MTN virtually crashed the whole day, and they must have lost considerable revenues. In addition to this reflection, I will say a few words in defence of Mayor Oko Vanderpuije of the AMA relative to the issue of names and titles I raised here last week.
Way back in 1978, after the palace coup that ousted General Kutu Acheampong on July 5, his successor General Fred Akuffo announced that in place of the Union Government idea associated with Kutu, SMC II, as we called the new military government, proposed its replacement, Transitional Interim National Government, otherwise known as TINAGOV.
Soon after this announcement, the late Professor Kweku Folson of the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana, participating in Talking Point on GBC Television, called on soldiers to depart from the scene and return to the barracks immediately after giving us a constitution and organising elections, etc. In his colourful language, Prof. Folson said that it was ‘imperative and crucial’ that General Akuffo and his colleagues returned to the barracks and left politics to civilians.
The purpose of this background is to proffer my humble advice to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its General Secretary in these very words; it is absolutely, necessarily and essentially ‘imperative and crucial’ that the two part ways at once, if only to preserve the fiction that the party believes and cherishes the rule of law.
The conduct of Sir John in the events leading to his condign conviction by the Supreme Court and his continued stay in office as the chief administrative officer of this famous and ancient party is a blot on hallowed party credentials that can only be redeemed by his removal from office by the National Council of the party, or, his voluntary resignation from office. His stay in office in the face of this conviction in the pendency of a petition sent to the court by the party, renders fictive, hollow and untrue the claim by the party to believe in the rule of law.
Probably the most telling part of last Wednesday’s contempt proceedings was the plaintive and sad observation by Justice Dotse that no one, leader or ordinary ranker in the NPP, has found it fit to condemn the utterances of their General Secretary. Justice Dotse was nominated and appointed to the court by President John Kufuor, who won two elections in this country on the ticket of the NPP.
Close party observers have always bemoaned the death of party swami BJ da Rocha, who would not have entertained for a minute in party ranks, political speech designed to endanger public safety, coarsen public debate, and threaten the lives of high-ranking public officers, in the ranks of the NPP without striking a public blow, if only to recover the public image of the party as an assemblage of decent men and women committed to development in freedom.
The disinclination of President Kufuor to gather the moral cudgels of the party that da Rocha laid down in death is very unfortunate, and a danger to his own legacy in the party. I urge him to use his immense moral authority to at the very least, issue a public statement not only to condemn the specific words of his party officials, but also to assure public servants that they have nothing to fear from his beloved party as far as their lives and the peaceful pursuit of their vocations are concerned.
President Kufuor himself is a lawyer of about 50 years standing in the country; it is imperative and crucial that his silence does not lend weight to the murderous, bloodcurdling views by some leading members of a party known for its adherence to the law.
It is not enough to say, as some are wont to, that such advice be given in private. The threats to public order and safety, and to specific lives, were made in public, for maximum political effect of spreading fear and panic. Its rebuttal must also be in public and likewise strong.
The wild, uncouth statements, the disheartening vigils, and the promotion and elevation of such despicable speech and conduct to mythic proportions are all public events designed for the consumption of a much harassed citizenry. The response, firm and resolute, must also be carried out in the full glare of the best political antiseptic and, sunlight. Dirty clothes are dried best in the bright heat of the sun, so must it be with the recovery of the public image of the NPP.
Is it not absolutely amazing that Lawyer Otoo confesses that he was not involved or consulted in the preparation and propagation of the rules of media engagement relative to the petition that he himself deployed in his stalwart defence of Sir John? Is the NPP now a Janus-faced entity? Lawyer Otoo’s frankness is a further nail in the coffin of decency and honest dealing missing in the NPP of today.
These are my reflections, for now, on the contempt proceedings at the Supreme Court last Wednesday.
I have noticed that the embattled Mayor of Accra, Oko Vanderpuije, has come under attack in recent days for being ethnocentric, and leading an ethnocentric brigade at the AMA to change names of streets and buildings and stadia in the city. This is an unfortunate and inaccurate accusation of a public official whose only political crime, in my humble view, is that he is too visible in the public sphere. But what the AMA of Oko Vanderpuije has done cannot be described as ethnocentric without changing the meaning of the word.
The complaint as far as I can understand, is that the AMA should have been consulted in the naming of public buildings in his city. This is a valid complaint, because we know that some Ga-Adangbe groups actually protested the change of name of the stadium to Ohene Djan on the basis that they were not consulted, and not because the name change should have been Henry Nyemitei Stadium, to cite an instance of ethnocentricity.
The same goes for the change of streets and the hockey stadium to John Evans Atta Mills High Street and Stadium. President Mills came from Otuam, not Accra. Even more important, his position as an elected President supersedes all other citizens. Recognising this preserves the stature of Presidents Nkrumah, Akufo-Addo, Limann, Rawlings, Kufuor and yes, John Mahama in this republic. 28th February Street is meaningless relative to the argument. If you disrespect the name and stature of one of these former Presidents who we freely elevated above the rest of us, we are only disrespecting ourselves.
Greetings and respects to my beloved Abura people. May it be well with them.
By Collin Essamuah/Daily Graphic/Ghana
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