President of the nine-member panel hearing the suit on the 2012 election results, Justice William Atuguba, has vowed to stop people he describes as engaging in “too much illegal political galamsey”.
During hearing on Wednesday, August 14, 2013, the Supreme Court judge flared up in rage against some political power seekers in the country.
Justice Atuguba questioned why such small number of people seeking political power could hold the whole country to ransom at the expense of ordinary, poor Ghanaians, whom he recalled sold everything they had in 2000 and fled the country for fear of war and chaos.
“We have to watch these things for the sake of security of this country for which the constitution has given powers to everybody,” Justice Atuguba stated.
“How many people are they?” he asked as regards the political office seekers. “How many people run for elections in this country that sometimes when these things are coming everybody is panicking?”
“We have the mandate here and if we don’t exercise our mandate properly we will not be doing our work well,” he asserted. “We will be letting the state down. That’s our concern.”
Justice Atuguba descended heavily on politicians on the penultimate day of sitting, accusing them of taking almost everybody for a ride.
“[Why] should 24 million people be taken for granted, for a ride?” he asked. Justice Atuguba's statements were in reaction to comments attributed to Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and deemed to have run down the venerable status of the Court.
“Some people have grown horns and we want to match the powers of the state against those people,” he indicated.
“There is no sincerity in politicking,” Justice Atuguba stated.
He said most of these politicians are practising illegal political galamsey, which, according to him, is unconstitutional and “we want to pitch the strength of bloated egos of politicians against the ego of the state and see who is stronger,” he dared.
“The authority of this country must be upheld for the ordinary people,” he emphasized.
“It is unfortunate,” he added.
According to Justice Atuguba, all the apprehension “affects the security of the ordinary people. That is the point I am drumming home.”
Justice Atuguba had issued several warnings to persons and groups over contempt of the Court.
“We noticed more contemptuous cases but we did not issue summons. But these were outstanding because we had decided to deal with this long ago,” he said on Wednesday’s hearing.
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