Chief Justice is dying...Tension brewing over successor

The Ghanaian Chronicle, in its lead story says His Lordship, Mr Justice Isaac Kobina Abban, Chief Justice, is fighting for his life. He is said to have collapsed at a conference In Malaysia and is now in critical condition in Cromwell Hospital, London.

The Chronicle, quoting what it described as 'informed sources', says that the Chief Justice is down with a major kidney condition, though other less authentic but insistent sources are attributing a more dire sickness.

The paper says that even as his loyal wife spends all her time by his bed-side in expectation of a miracle, intense movements within the portals of the Executive and the Judiciary have already broken out on who should succeed the 66-ear-old Supreme Court judge, whose tenure has been marred by controversies and acrimony.

According to the Chronicle, the flash-point is the choice of successor and the mode of succession. The paper says by conventional wisdom and practice, the automatic choice would have been the acting Chief Justice, His Lordship, Mr Justice E.K. Wiredu, who is the most senior at the bench...