NPP welcomes granting of bail to Kennedy Agyepong

NPP WELCOMES THE GRANTING OF BAIL TO HON. KENNEDY OHENE AGYAPONG MP, BUT WARNS THAT PRESIDENT MILLS IS CREATING A DANGEROUS ENVIRONMENT IN GHANA.

From the Anglican Book of Common Prayer when we pray for our President we pray to the lord to “Grant unto the President his whole council and to all that are put into authority under the President, that they may truly and indifferently administer justice”.

Yesterday was a day of shame for the President and those he has put into authority under him as they sought to distort the administration of justice. Yesterday the police and the Attorney General attempted to use the justice system to illegally incarcerate a citizen of this country; risking through that attempt setting the country ablaze and causing mayhem and riot.

State prosecutors presented the New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Assin North, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, before a magistrate court on three charges of (i) treason,(ii) treason felony and (iii) attempted genocide. The charges are ostensibly based on remarks he made in reaction to the acts of violence perpetrated in the Odododiodio Constituency by Presidential Aide and Parliamentary Candidate of the ruling National Democratic Party, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye.

The Attorney General, knowing well that the magistrate’s court had no jurisdiction to hear the matter, brought the ‘prisoner’ there only to request for the court to remand him in police custody for an addional two weeks. It was merely to seek to keep the member of the Parliamentary Minority in custody in order to ‘teach him a lesson’.

The treason charges leveled against Mr. Agyapong can be described only as a mockery of the law; being perpetrated for reckless partisan advantage. President Mills, in deploying state resources against a political opponent, is prepared to sacrifice the rule of law and the national interest to satisfy his desire for his own political gain, even if via violence and cheap propaganda. The NPP is worried that President Mills is deliberately building an environment that will compromise the potential for free, fair, and peaceful elections in Ghana.

Had the magistrate done the will of the President and his appointees and remanded Hon. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong for two (2) weeks, no one could have answered for the reaction of those showing him support in Accra, Cape Coast, Takoradi, Kumasi and other cities and towns across Ghana. Shameful

We commend the judiciary for upholding the rule of law and call all NPP supporters and well wishers to have faith in our judiciary and show respect and support to court officials and officers. Something positive must now be made to emerge out of this whole shameful exercise.

The police have shown by their arrest of Hon. Kennedy Agyapong that they are not fearful of taking action against a senior NPP politician. They must now show their even handed application of justice by taking action in any or all of the following examples of NDC orchestrated violence and or incitement to violence, during and before the ongoing registration exercise.

1. Mr. Amatepe, deputy Volta Regional Minister calling on Ewes in the Region at Aflao and elsewhere, at the time of the visit to the region by the President “to beat NPP Akan registration monitors.”

2. Those NDC thugs who were identified in the assault of Miss Ursula Owusu and Mr. Abu Jinapo in central Accra.

3. Those NDC thugs photographed going through Odododiodio Constituency with shovels, pick axes, cutlasses and clubs, which photographs have been extensively printed, with faces shown for easy identification in the Daily Guide.

4. The statement by Nii Lantey Vandapuiye, special Assistant to the President, now the Parliamentary Candidate for Odododiodio Constituency, “I swear to you that the NPP can never organize any rally in Odododiodio in the near future, if that is their mission. The only place that will be safe for them (to hold their rally) will be in space and not in my Constituency.” this set the tone for intimidation and violence in the commercial district which he has carried forward into the registration period. The violence in Odododiodio reflects the way this important National exercise of compiling a new and credible voters’ list has been marred by the ruling Party.

5. In the Ashanti Region, the Police identified a gang of NDC thugs who were moving from registration centre assaulting people queuing up to register and destroying registration machines. When a district police commander offered a prize for information leading to the arrest of the criminal gang, the response of his superiors in Accra was to disassociate them from that move to apprehend the culprits who were terrorizing Ghanaians and disrupting the registration exercise. 6. Justice Opoku, an NDC agent at the registration centre at the Foase Kokoben Electoral Area in the Bekwai constituency, shot a 12 year old boy.

7. On 25th March (the first day of registration), some NDC supporters attacked the Takofiano polling station and inflicted severe cutlass wounds on Kwadwo Sarfo, a known NPP activist.

8. On 25th March, the driver and bodyguard of Professor Ameyaw Akumfi, NPP MP for Techiman North, were attacked with machetes at a polling station at Jama Timponim, the MP’s hometown.

9. Sheriff Mohammed, secretary of the Okakoi North Youth Wing of the New Patriotic Party, was stabbed to death allegedly by NDC supporters at Fadama on 10th April.

10. John Kofi Donyina (Communications Director for Techiman South NPP) was attacked by an NDC supporter around 7:30pm on 10th April.

11. A reporter of the Daily Searchlight newspaper, Bright Amo-Addo, had a portion of his thumb chopped off by irate activists of the NDC at Fadama in Accra on 8th April

12. The Hon. Baba Jamal .who declared a “Jihad” during the Akwatia by-election in 2009. This declaration of war by Baba Jamal was followed by a shocking incidence of barbarism and thuggery by NDC supporters, who inflicted severe injuries on 15 NPP supporters.

13. The events of 25th August 2009, involving the gruesome murder of three traders and workers in the Agbogbloshie market (Alhassan Fuseini from Tamale, Soale from Yendi and Sule J.Y from Tolon) in broad daylight in front of a police station. Witnesses identified the alleged perpetrators to be NDC members, including one Sule, Sahana Mohammed Ayatu, Awal Voulina Naa, Sule Nabiya, Abdalla Say and Abdalla Rasta. Three years on, the nation is still waiting on the law enforcement agencies to even invite these suspects for questioning.

14. The Tamale incidents of February 17th 2009, where violence erupted after discussions on Radio Justice following the seizure of the vehicle of Nana Akufo-Addo by agents of National Security. There were arson attacks in Nyihini, Lameshegu, Worizehi, Choggu and Gumbihini. All the 27 properties those were attacked belonged to NPP members. Not a single one belonged to an NDC member. In the most outrageous case, Madame Sadia Seidu, a thirty-five year-old Nursing Officer was brutally assaulted after a mob burnt and razed down the family’s 18-room house. She had to be airlifted to the 37 Military Hospital for treatment where she underwent surgery and weeks of treatment. No one has been arrested and charged for the attempted murder of Sadia, even though she identified those who led the mob attack. No attempt has been made by the state to assist the innocent victims, numbering about 800, who had their homes and belongings destroyed. Let the Ghana Police meet this challenge.

We are also aware that in addition to our prayer that the President and his appointees must be even handed in the dispensation of justice our Constitution states that: “The executive authority of Ghana shall vest in the President and shall be exercised in accordance with the provisions of this constitution.”

Article 58(2) further explains that, “The executive authority of Ghana shall extend to the execution and maintenance of this constitution and all laws made under or continued in force under this constitution.”

Regarding the President’s police responsibilities, he appoints eight of the ten-member Police Council, including his vice and the IGP. Furthermore, all leadership appointments in the Police Force are made by the President or in his name.

So if the President is not responsible for what the Police does, who is?

It is clear President Mills does not want peace in Ghana, and contrary to his declarations on local and international platforms, he does not want a peaceful, free, fair and transparent election. It is clear that the NDC either intends to use violence itself or to look the other way while third parties acting in their name deploy violence.

Ghana has been peaceful since 1992. We have had 5 elections and none of them have brought Ghana to the brink of violence, but this is a real danger in the election about to be supervised by President Mills.

The selectiveness with which Ghana’s laws are being enforced by the Ghana Police Service, under President Mills, must end.

Should the police fail to meet our challenge, to show we are entering a new period of even handed justice, we shall be forced to the conclusion that the president refuses to empower the police because he wishes to abuse the service. And that the arrest, detention and prosecution of Mr. Agyapong are, not because the government is genuinely concerned about the use of intemperate language—which has been actively wielded by some of their own supporters in this heated election cycle with no consequences brought to bear. The arrest, detention and prosecution of this leading member of the NPP are purely to serve two major agendas of the ruling party: (1) to put the fear of the ‘Asomdwehene’ in the NPP—to intimidate and cow our leadership into submission and;

(2) to punish MP Agyapong for leading the crusade on the single biggest corruption scandal in the history of Ghana: the unlawful payments to Alfred Agbesi Woyome and other equally dubious multi-million dollar judgment debts made by the Mills-Mahama government mainly to its major financiers.

It is obvious that President Mills and his administration have been rocked by Kennedy Agyapong’s exposé on the judgment debt scandals, in which GH¢51.8 million was doled-out to Mr. Woyome, and arbitration settlements of €35 million and €94 million were given to Waterville and CP Construction Ltd, respectively. These payments were illicit because no evidence was proffered to support the claims. On the contrary, government ignored all the glaring evidence that the claims were fraudulent.

So far, out of GHC642 million worth of judgment debts paid by President Mills’ government between 2009 and 2011, at least US$197.5 million (or GHC356 million) has been clearly identified, in the words of the sacked Attorney-General, Martin Amidu, as “gargantuan crimes against the state” and fraudulently given to just three or so individuals and entities.

The NPP MP, Mr. Agyapong, has, over the last few months, shown exceptional courage and patriotism in exposing the extent of the “gargantuan crimes” being committed through the instrumentalisation of very senior people in the government, including the President, who ultimately authorized these payments.

However, the nature of the selective justice being displayed under the law professor, President JEA Mills, is unprecedented in the history of the Fourth Republic. Ghanaians can judge for themselves why the two Ministers of State directly and actively responsible for making these corrupt payments, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, and Mrs. Betty Mould Iddrisu, the former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, have not been charged for this unprecedented fraud against the Ghanaian people.

President Mills must be held accountable as the President of our Republic, who is also the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces and on whose shoulders the fortunes of the nation rest.

The NPP wants an Electoral process free from violence and intimidation free from use of intemperate language and free from selectiveness of which of Ghana’s Laws are to be enforced by the Ghana Police service.

J.O OBETSEBI – LAMPTEY NATIONAL CHAIRMAN