OPINION: Stop That Maame Dokono Woman!

Not so very long ago, I happened to watch a talk show programme 'Odo Ne Asomdwee' which was presented by Maame Dokono on Metro TV. The topic was about a little innocent girl who had been brutally raped by a good-for-nothing scruffy youth about town. The poor little girl has since died. That is a very sad loss of an innocent girl in her prime of life to her family and to the country too.

In her righteous indignation shared, no doubt, by her viewers Maame Dokono however decried the rapist whose guy name was given as 'Bro. Lion' and the horrid circumstances of the criminal act in such lurid language that was indeed unacceptable by any standard of public decency. Maame Dokono overshot her capacity for understanding the imperative undertones of the rights and privileges which even horrible suspects like Bro. Lion enjoyed under the Constitution and Law to the extent that Maame Dokono stripped the rapist of his right to be presumed to be innocent until proved guilty after due process of law, including police investigation and trial and conviction by a court of competent jurisdiction aided by a lawyer of his choice and engaged either by himself at his cost or, where required by law, by and at the cost of the State for his defence until the case is disposed of.

The result was that Maame Dokono furiously lambasted Judges of the Courts for wasting time over suspected criminals like Bro. Lion, giving them bail and what she perceived to be ridiculously inadequate punishment She also attacked lawyers for defending pervert criminals like Bro. Lion who were obviously guilty, in her judgement, of the crimes of which they had been accused and succeeding by devious means in getting criminals set free from being severely punished for their cruel crimes. Looking upwards, Maame Dokono prayed to God, not without some sarcasm, that no lawyer's daughter be ever raped for another lawyer to defend and have the rapist of his daughter set free through the manipulation of the law!

The depth of Maame Dokono's craving for the crude appeals to emotions was reached when Maame Dokono called up a boy who was said to have witnessed the rape on the girl to demonstrate how the lewd crime was committed by Bro. Lion. The boy obviously found it embarrassing and he was reluctant to comply with Maame Dokono's orders to him to stoop and show how Bro. Lion perpetrated the crime from the defenceless girl's behind or buttocks. But Maame Dokono kept insisting on the boy's compliance, and kept bending him into a stooping posture and muttering in Twi "wodee ye, wodee ye, woate" (meaning in English "you just do it, you just do it, okay") until the frightened boy obeyed to the glee of Maame Dokono and no doubt to the disgust of all the decent viewers of the spectacle of a little fellow humiliated and quite obviously in a state of mental shock! Does Maame Dokono not owe an apology at least to the little boy, the victim of her cruel behaviour?

Maame Dokono presented yet another of her programs on Metro TV of Friday 6th December 2002. Gorgeously dressed Maame Dokono paraded a dark and beautiful young woman on the stage who appeared weary and terrified. The crime of Maame Dokono's victim was said to be that she had gone to Nima and fed a number of children to a bowl of rice and stew and had the kids wash their hands with water after the meal into another bowl which she intended to take away with her. It was understood that Maame Dokono's victim meant to take the dirty water to a Mallam who would use it in a mysterious way to turn round the fortunes of her trading business which had been on a disastrous decline of late. It appeared also that the victim's act was taken to be an attempt to kidnap or abduct or steal the children thus enticed by the young victim's entertainment!

Be that as it may, kidnapping and other crimes against children cannot and must not be tolerated and every legitimate means should be used to prevent their happening. Those who commit such crimes must be made to face the legal and moral consequences of their wrongdoing. And Maame Dokono's effort and contribution towards this end are very commendable and need to be supported by all Ghanaians.

However Maame Dokono did not show complete understanding of the maxim that the END, which is in this instance 'the suppression or prevention of criminal activity' does NOT necessarily or always JUSTIFY the MEANS by which the end is achieved.

Maame Dokono revealed that she arrested and detained her victim the day or night before the show in order to ensure her victim's attendance on the programme at the given time and place. The arrest and detention against her victim's will were clearly wrong and constituted the offence of forced imprisonment. Further Maame Dokono denied her victim's constitutional and legal right and privilege to 'Presumption of Innocence' until she had been proved guilty by due process of Law.

But very determined to make her young victim repeat a so-called confession that she had made on the day or night of her arrest and detention, Maame Dokono callously badgered the otherwise pretty young woman who was now virtually drowned in her tears and trying to hide her identity by covering her face with her hands. Maame Dokono became more and more furious at her victim's attempt to hide her identity and counteracted by forcibly pulling her victim's hands apart accompanied by warning and threatening that she would hand her victim to the police if she did not desist from her attempt to hide her identity and her shedding of crocodile tears or words to that effect. It was just unbelievable; it was sad!

The undeserved public humiliation and act of inhumanity to a woman by a fellow woman in order to wrench a confession to a criminal offence and trial by what could only described as a Tribunal of Torture cannot by any stretch of the imagination be a justifiable means to the upholding and enforcement of our Republican Constitution and Law, be it in the spirit or to the letter thereof.

I had hoped that the WAJU, the Ghana Bar Association, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Police Service or the Federation of Women Lawyers or other like organisations would invite Maame Dokono for a parley to draw her attention to the unacceptable behaviour such as complained of in this article. I was disappointed!

Maame Dokono must however be stopped lest she does some irreparable damage in circumstances such as these to the reputation or even the health of some innocent person.