Akufo-Addo as Attorney-General - Going, going, going ...

The “Ghana Palaver” can authoritatively state that the days of Nana Akufo-Addo as President Kufuor’s Attorney-General may be numbered, as the beleaguered and embattled Attorney-General struggles for his political survival in the Kufuor administration.

The first indication of Nana Akufo-Addo’s dwindling political fortunes came when President Kufuor, from far away Australia, caused Minister of State Elizabeth Ohene to issue a statement directing Nana Akufo-Addo to “use all constitutional means” to ensure that the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the Tsatsu Tsikata case was reviewed.

This was after Nana Akufo-Addo had announced only hours after the Supreme Court’s decision in a hastily arranged Press Conference that he, in his capacity as Attorney-General, was going to seek a review of the Court’s decision. The signal was clear – a decision of such fundamental significance is authorised by the President, not the Attorney-General. It was the first sign that Kufuor was in charge, even if he was out of the country. After all, was it not Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia himself who had broadcasted the “no court” reaction to the similar Sallah scenario in 1971?

The successive embarrassing “faux pas” on the part of the Attorney-General and his team must have caused the President extreme consternation.

To begin with, whiles strangely asserting that his intention to apply for a review of the Supreme Court decision amounted to a maintenance of the “status quo ante,” Nana Akufo-Addo nevertheless went ahead and transferred Tsatsu’s case to what he himself called a “normal” High Court, albeit presided over by the same Judge, Justice Ansah.

At the “normal” High Court, Tsatsu was charged under a law that did not exist at the time the action complained took place. When Tsatsu’s counsel sought to explain that the charge against his client was that the offence was committed “in or about February 1993” whiles the law under which he was charged was passed in July 1993, the response of the Attorney-General as conveyed by the DPP, was pure NPP “legalese” – “in or about February” could mean “July”.

Of course, the Presiding Judge, Justice Ansah, was both caustic and dismissive in his ruling: “Our laws in Ghana are stable and in or about February can never mean July.” Earlier, the Attorney-General had sought to “arrest” Justice Ansah’s ruling in the case that he himself had brought before the learned Judge’s “normal” High Court. Of course, he was roundly rebuffed by the Judge who went ahead to rule that the charge against Tsatsu was unconstitutional, a ruling that any First Year Law student could have predicted.

Instead of bowing down their heads in shame and running back, tail between their legs, to lick their wounds, the Attorney-General and his team set out to harass Tsatsu Tsikata and to seek to arrest him and put him before court on an as yet unspecified charge or charges.

On the Friday afternoon on the day of the judgement, an attempt was made to arrest Tsatsu in traffic around the Danquah Circle. It failed. In the evening, four policemen went to the office of one of his counsels at Mobil House with a view to effecting his arrest. He was not around. Late Friday night, they tried again to arrest him at his mother’s residence at Madina. Tsatsu was not at home.

On Sunday morning, two policemen associated with the Deputy Attorney-General, Ms Gloria Akufo, tried to effect his arrest in church. This attempt backfired so badly that poor Sam Awortwi, Commissioner of Police, who was in charge of the Special Investigations Task Force, the inter-agency Task Force set up by the Attorney-General that investigated the case, as well as the two policemen who obviously under instructions attempted to effect the arrest in church, were sent on interdiction.

These “bumbling” antics of Attorney-General Akufo-Addo and his team must have greatly embarrassed President Kufuor and his Government. According to “Ghana Palaver” sources inside the Kufuor’s administration, several NPP internal “spins” were put on Nana Akufo-Addo’s conduct and actions.

On such spin was that as the most credible competitor to President Kufuor’s re-nomination ambitions, Nana Akufo-Addo was deliberately was deliberately committing those blunders in order to show the Kufuor administration in the worst of lights. Another spin was that Nana and Tsatsu are close buddies, having successfully conducted some of the most famous constitutional cases together in the Limann era, and that Nana was deliberately committing those errors to protect and shield his friend and professional colleague.

A third spin was that Nana was behaving in that manner to get Tsatsu off the hook out of deference to Captain Kojo Tsikata, Tsatsu’s cousin and the PNDC/NDC security capo, Nana’s very close friend and confidant during those administrations, who allegedly helped launch Nana on his “business” as opposed to his professional career during those eras.

Be that as it may, the “spins” were effective enough to compel President Kufuor to call an emergency Cabinet meeting on the subject. The outcome was a Presidential order, this time publicly issued through the Minister of Information (and Presidential Affairs?) who is not known to have any educational or academic qualifications, directing Nana Akufo-Addo to freeze all actions on the Tsatsu Tsikata Case until after the Supreme Court had given the reasons for its decision in the Fast Track High Court Case.

The Presidential directive was the most humiliating and devastating blow to both the Office and the person of the Attorney-General, Nana Akufo-Addo. By publicly directing the Attorney-General on what was essentially a legal matter, as opposed to a political matter, and though the Cabinet colleague least qualified to do so, the President was seen to be advertising his lack of confidence in the performance and judgement of his Attorney-General.

That directive was not humiliating but also embarrassing to Nana Adufo-Addo, because it effectively converted the Office of the Attorney-General into a Secretariat of the Presidency, with the Attorney-General transformed into a Presidential Staffer, contrary to Article 88 (3) of the Constitution, which states that “The Attorney-General shall be responsible for the initiation and conduct of all prosecutions of criminal offences.”

NPP insiders see this move by the President as a counter to Nana Akufo-Addo’s suspected motive of using the Tsatsu Tsikata constitutional debacle to ridicule the President in a bid to stake his own claim to the NPP’s 2004 nomination ticket.

According to NPP insiders, that explains why Nana Akufo-Addo is having to fight back. In a move, most uncharacteristic of him, Nana was reported last Monday to have donated ?15 million out of his share of the District Assemblies Common Fund to support development projects in eleven communities in his Abuakwa Constituency. It was announced at the presentation ceremony that Nana had, since January this year, spent over ?40 million of his share of the Common Fund, to support development projects in the constituency. Significantly, this fact had not been publicised until then.

Equally significantly, the Chairman of the Abuakwa Constituency of the NPP, Mr Douglas Asare, was reported to have stated at the same ceremony that the people of the Abuakwa Constituency support and have confidence in Nana not to be deterred by recent attacks on his performance as Attorney-General over the Supreme Court decision.

Put in its political context, it is obvious that Nana sees himself as a likely sacrificial lamb over the matter of his government’s handling of the Tsatsu Tsikata Case. He realizes that his political opponents within the NPP, possibly led by President Kufuor himself, could very well use the incident to cut down to size a formidable and troublesome political opponent. So he has done what all political “Maradonas” do best in those kind of circumstances – bypass the leadership, ignore the national structures, and get down to the base, organize your grassroots support, and dare the leadership to mess with you.

These moves and counter-moves are given sufficient credence by the stories that the NPP rumour mill itself is churning out about the search for a replacement. Attorney-General Ms Gloria Akuffo, the Deputy Attorney-General, is considered “too young” in the profession to be promoted to the substantive position. So also is Interior Minister Malik Alhassan, who is understood to have already declined the offer.

Dr Seth Twum, widely tipped to take over the job, has also reportedly refused to take it. He was very high on the list of possibles, for being an Akyem himself like Nana Akufo-Addo, he would have squashed any rumours of Nana’s removal being a slap in the face of the Akyem clique within the NPP oligarchy who are increasingly seen as losing out to their Ashanti counterparts.

As at now therefore, Nana Akufo-Addo’s position as Attorney-General is very shaky indeed. He appears to be “Going, Going, Going…” But he is not “Gone” yet. That appears to depend on time…..and a replacement Attorney-General!