NDC’s pressure nearly forced me out - Georgina Wood

Outgone Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood, has revealed how she scaled the intense pressure from National Democratic Congress apparatchiks for her resignation during the late President John Evans Atta Mills’ administration.

The Justice, who retired from active government service yesterday after ten years of service as Chief Justice of Ghana, said members in the late John Evans Atta Mills government constantly pressured her to step aside because she was appointed by former President John Agyekum Kufuor.

“…Can you imagine; a full vessel, an array of the men and women who matter at the time with the press in full array asking you to resign,” she said, adding that a message she received on her phone also comforted her hence her decision to carry on.

Speaking at a thanksgiving Service to celebrate her 70th birthday at the Ringway Assemblies of God church in Accra, Georgina Wood said but for the support and encouragement of Justice Jones Dotse, a Justice of the Supreme Court, she would have resigned.

“Each single one of you added value to my life. You’re the person who gave me hope and helped us to succeed… that is why I don’t forget Justice Dotse. He has stood by me and has received some of the beatings through no fault of his, except he was helping to do God’s work… It will be difficult on my part that as soon as I exit I forget; I will not. I pray that all the good plans he (Dotse) has God helps him to realize,” she added.

Georgina Wood, who was appointed by the Kufuor government in 2007 as Ghana’s first female Chief Justice, came under intense pressure from some officials of the Mills administration to resign.

The pressure hit its peak when bigwigs in the NDC realized that the party was consistently losing major cases in court.

But the late President Mills following a pledge to include a quota of women in his administration, refused to chase Georgina Wood out, but instead defended her at the detriment of his party.

A thanksgiving service was held in the honour of Georgina Wood at the Holy Trinity Cathedral over the weekend for a successful tenure as Ghana’s first female Chief Justice.

The ceremony brought together officials of Ghana’s justice system, the clergy, politicians, family, friends and the general public to draw the curtain down on her 10-year tenure as Chief Justice.