'Land Rapists' Hotly Chase Gbevlo-Lartey

*Egbert Faibille and Chief Justice Georgina Wood Draw Secret Daggers On Security Chiefs, Using Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey*

*By Larry-Alans Dogbey*


Attempts by the National Security Co-ordinator, Larry Gbevlo-Lartey, to clear the gruesome rape on state land under the Kufuor administration, has placed him in between three beneficiaries who are hotly pursuing him under a cloak of a genuine legal tussle.


The Human Rights Court presided over by Justice Paul Dery, has fixed Tuesday, November 9, 2010, for the hearing of a contempt application filed by the Member of Parliament for Weija, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, against the country’s topmost security chiefs, Lt.-Col. Gbevlo-Lartey and Brig.-Gen. Joseph Nunoo Mensah. What is, however, unknown to many is that the principal actors in the case, namely, Ms. Botchwey, Egbert Faibille and Chief Justice Georgina Wood, have one thing in common.


Egbert Faibille is the lawyer for the litigating NPP MP and Chief Justice Georgina Wood has empanelled Justice Dery, who is famously known for insisting on having the BNI Director, Mr. Yaw Donkor, brought before him, inherently stand to gain should the contempt against the security chiefs succeed, as all three are on the long list of beneficiaries of the state lands.


Convicting the security chiefs means the ex-government officials who got the land, in some cases on gratis, can go ahead to put up their private homes on the state land or even sell them at exorbitant prices as has been done in several instances.


Enter Shirley Ayorkor Botwey, said to be an ex-wife of the Commissioner of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Justice Emile Short. She is captured on page 41 of the report on the “*Sub-Committee on Transfer of Executive Assets of the Government Transition Team” *chaired by fire-brand Dr. Don Arthur, as one of the high-ranking politicians and cronies of the Kufuor-led regime who got the state land.

She served as Deputy Trade Minister and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister respectively, during the Kufuor administration, thus getting the leverage to acquire the pricy state land just like Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei, an ex-Finance Minister; Yaw Osafo Maafo, ex-Finance Minister; Kwame Osei-Prempeh, an ex-Deputy Minister of Justice and Attorney General; Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, ex-Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations, and now NPP National Chairman; Mr. Dan B. Agyeman, office of ex-President Kufuor; Joseph Henry Mensah, ex-Senior Minister; S.K. Boafo, ex-Minister of Culture and Chieftaincy Affairs; Sheik I.C. Quaye, ex-Greater Accra Regional Minister and Prof. Nii Ashie Kotey, ex-Forestry Commission boss.


Lawyer and publisher of the Ghanaian Observer Newspaper, Egbert Faibille. He is not directly mentioned, but has his beloved wife, Nana Yaa Asante-Faibille, captured on page 42 of the report on the *Sub-Committee on Transfer of Executive Assets of the Government Transition Team Report.*


It has been argued that the introvert and lawyer, Mrs. Asante-Faibille, who has been living with her husband in her dad’s private residence, together with the old man at Legon West Lands, on the Omanye Avenue, is not the real owner of the said land but rather, Mr. Faibille himself who is only concealing it in his wife’s name.


Mr. Faibille’s father in-law, popularly called Nana, is a retired lecturer of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). He never saw eye-to-eye with Prof. Stephen Addae, the immediate past Rector of the school, and many believe that in fact Mr. Faibille’s lawsuit against the former Rector was indeed, a fight on behalf of his father in-law, a matter of vested interest.


Lawyer/Journalist/Social Commentator, Egbert Faille’s name was prominent on a list prepared by ex-Information Minister, Kwamena Bartels, to receive a telephone facility in his office paid for by the NPP government to assist in its communication strategy.


Mr. Faibille’s inclination towards the opposition NPP has never been in doubt. On TV, radio and in the newspapers, he ferociously defended the NPP when it was in office, and was among “senior journalists” who predicted victory for Nana Addo the 2008 NPP Presidential candidate.

He is also a member of the “Coffee Shop Mafia,” a group of journalists who hide behind the CPP, laying claim to Nkrumah’s ideology but see everything right with the NPP. They extol its virtues while seeing everything wrong with the other political parties, including the CPP, which they lay claim to.


Chief Justice Georgina Wood: She duly applied for the state land through an application and GH¢20, 000 paid for, with a cheque. Documents cited by The Herald revealed.


Days later, the land was taken from her. However, her money was not returned to her. But to correct this situation, she was put on the list of beneficiaries of the 25-acre International Students’ Hostel land which include Freddie Blay, Akua Kuenyehia, T.K. Hammond, K.K. Sarpong, Hajia Alima Mahama, NPP MP for Tema West; Irene Addo, Akwasi Osei Adjei, Esther Dapaah, Ben Owusu-Mensah and many others.


With this land again taken from Chief Justice Wood, and her money yet to be returned, all eyes would be on Justice Dery as to which direction his justice scale will tilt in the contempt case against the security chiefs who have announced their readiness to take back the state lands.


Meanwhile, Chief Justice Wood was recently accused by one Evans Akwasi Amankwa, who was in a land dispute with Mr. Edwin Wood, Chief Justice’s husband, and that she empanelled a very favourable judge, Justice Ofori Atta, to preside over the case and ultimately got judgment in Mr. Wood’s favour.