Ako Adjei?s Will exposed

Nearly 10 years after the death of Dr. John Ackah-Blay Miezah, the Supreme Court on the 24th of October last year, ruled that a 1988 will tendered by the late Dr. Ako Adjei of Big Six fame, is ?entitled to probate.?

Subsequently, investigations undertaken by The Statesman has exposed the purported will, dated May 8, 1988 to be forgery, allegedly masterminded by Ako Adjei?s lawyer, Stephen Annancey.

That so-called last will and testament of the flamboyant Blay-Miezah bore the signature of the late Dr. Aryeh Kumi and James Kaku, testator?s personal attendant. But Kaku, who is now seriously ill, has since sworn an affidavit in confession. In it, he categorically stated, ?what appears at the bottom right hand corner of the will tendered by Dr. Ako Adjei is not my signature.?

Kaku?s confession has been supported by a chief who also confesses to playing a pat in the alleged plot to deceive the court and get a probate for a photocopy to a will, which after 10 years, the holders are still unable to come up with the original.

?On December 11 last year, Nana Asemda VI, an Nzema chief, in the Western Region, who described himself as ?head of the Blay-Miezah family,? made a declaration alleging that in early 1993, he was induced by Ako Adjei?s lawyer, to get James Kaku to attest his signature on a will minors the witness signature? the document that I refer to is the supposed will of Blay-Miezah dated 8th May 1988.?

Section 158 of the criminal code, 1960, Act 29 clearly puts this alleged forgery in the brackets of criminal acts. It reads, ?Whoever, with intent to deceive any person, forges any judicial or official document, shall be guilty of second degree felony.?

Also disturbing is the alleged implication of two respected officers of the law, Messrs Ako Adjei and Annancey.

It is this document that Dr. Ako Adjei and his counsel, with one F.K. Mensah of Tema, presented in court for probate. Moreover, section 168 of Act 29 states that whoever utters or in any manner deals with or uses, any such forged document, knowing it to be forged, counterfeited, or falsified, is equally liable.

The paper says when it contacted Gregory Frazier, an African American who has spent the last 10 years in Ghana in pursuit of Blay-Miezah?s purported billions of dollars, he said, ?I asked Dr. Ako Adjei when I initially saw him trying to pass off the forged document, you know that this is an uncompleted will and Kaku never signed it contemporaneously as required by law, he simply said to me, keep quiet, I know what I am doing. I have been telling Ghanaians for almost ten years that Ako Adjei?s will was not worth the paper it was written on but no one would believe me.?

Indeed, during the trial, Yakubu, a forensic expert who graphically demonstrated the way that he believed the document was forged, told the court under cross-examination that Dr. Ako Adjei could never in a million years produce the original to that document.

Whilst, this post-humorous accusation may seem unfair to one of Ghana?s leading statesmen, the confessions by both Kaku and Asemda were given before Dr. Ako Adjei passed away early this year.

Dr. Ako Adjei acted as one of Blay-Miezah?s lawyers. ?The Statesman contacted a source in Central London who revealed that Blay-Miezah instructed his lawyers, including Messrs Beasley and Feldman, top London-based solicitors to draft a will, which was then supervised by the former Attorney General of the USA, John Mitchell. But this will was never completed, even though he left a copy with each of his lawyers, including Dr. Ako Adjei.?

The Supreme Court?s declaration that the 1988 will is entitled to probate becomes more bizarre in light of the fact that Kaku, a purported signatory to the 1988 will, is also listed in the will as a beneficiary. This is a clear contradiction to the Wills Act, 1971, (Act 360).

Section 3 (4) of the Act states: ?any beneficiary disposition of or affecting any property other than charges or directions for the payment of any debt given by a will to a person who attests the execution of that will shall be void unless the will is duly executed without his attestation and without that of any other such person.? Dr. John Ackah Blay-Miezah, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Acquah, ?during his life time comported himself and led such a lifestyle as to make the public believe that he was one of the richest, if not the richest, person in Ghana. He died in Accra in 1992 leaving behind an estate alleged to value about 42 billion US dollars. As to whether he did indeed have all that much is another matter.?

It is in respect of this estate that Dr. John Robert Kells of London sought a declaration at an Accra High Court that a will produced by him and claiming to have been made by the late Dr. Blay-Miezah on 29th January 1989 was valid. The High Court gave judgment for Dr. Kells on May 20, 1997, declaring the will valid.

The court of appeal on November 18, 1999, by a majority of 2-1 confirmed that decision. A five-member Supreme Court, presided over by Mrs. Justice Bamford-Addo, eventually overturned the decision last October. Dr. Blay-Miezah died at Abelemkpe in Accra on 30 June 1992.

After his death it come to the knowledge of his family that he had left behind a will deposited in some banks in Switzerland. But it appears from the Supreme Court?s opinion that the court was deceived to believe that it was a photocopy of that will which Ako Adjei sought to gain probate with. Justice Acquah?s ruling indicated that a ?copy of the will deposited in Switzerland, had been obtained and deposited at the Accra High Court. It is dated 8th May 1988.?

At the trial, the High Court judge, without prompting, submitted for forensic examination a number of documents to determine the genuineness of Dr. Kells? claim, including both the 1988 will and 1989 will. Two forensic experts testified that the 1988 will was a forgery, illustrating that the photocopy tendered by Dr. Ako Adjei had the signatures of the witness imposed upon it and photocopied severally to remove any apparent trace. But as the validity of the 1988 will was not in issue, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal?s declaration that the trial judge was not justified in ordering examinations into the authenticity or otherwise of the 1988 will.

This must have convinced the Supreme Court to say that the 1988 will is entitled to probate.

The Supreme Court decision is now the subject of review. ?The Statesman is further informed that moves are underway to reconcile the feuding parties in order to achieve the purpose of the litigation, which is to access the purported billions.

In fact, as he went to the press, some family members had traveled from Nzema to retract the review and seek reconciliation.?

?The Statesman?s investigations show that members of the late Blay-Miezah?s family would be hard-pressed to convince anybody that they are heirs to a multi-billion fortune. Blay-Miezah, himself, left only a mansion in a far away Allengenzule, his hometown as the only bonafide property to his name.?

The story of the decade-old litigation appears to point to a kind of fathomless human greed, if the amount of money involved is anything to go by. Indeed, a quarter of the purported $42billion is enough to take mother Ghana out of HIPC and into Golden Age of Business. A top government official that the paper got in touch with said, ?There is little doubt that the money actually exist. The skepticism, however, is centered on the ability of heirs to bring home what the sole beneficiary himself could not in his life time.?

?It appears all parties run the risk of losing out. For the Swiss are notably notorious in releasing funds bearing the tag of contentious ownership. If this is all a hoax, then indeed, as the sixty minutes programme showed, Blay-Miezah was indeed the world?s greatest conman.?

The credibility of the will presented by Dr. Ako Adjei, a former minister in the First Republic, is further questioned by the apparent fundamental breach of the law covering wills.

The Act 360 further stipulates at Section 2 (2), ?No signature shall be operative to give effect to any disposition or direction which is underneath or which is inserted after the signature has been made.?

According to his own confession, his signature was inserted on a photocopy of a purported will more than six months after Blay-Miezah?s signature was purportedly put on the will by the testator. The Act further mandates that ?the witness shall attest and sign the testator.?