Did the Supreme Court really “err bitterly”?

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Garden City, New York

August 3, 2016

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

I don’t know why a mega criminal convict like Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome thinks that he has any respectable social image and reputation to be able to credibly weigh in on the very appropriate conviction and sentencing of the Montie Three and be actually listened to with all seriousness (See “Supreme Court ‘Erred Bitterly’ on Montie 3 – Woyome” Graphic.com.gh / Ghanaweb.com 8/2/16). I suppose this mega-thief also believes that the Supreme Court “bitterly erred” when it handed down the landmark decision urging him to pay back the GH? 52 million that he stole from our national treasury and divvied up with the key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). Which is why he is able to muster the chutzpah to impugn the professional integrity and credibility of the members of the highest court of the land.

The notorious National Democratic Congress’ chief underwriter would also do well to explain to the rest of us precisely what he means, when he quizzically asserts that the Apex Court “erred bitterly” in its decision to convict and sentence Messrs. Salifu Maase, Godwin Ako Gunn and Alistair Tairo Nelson to 4 months’ imprisonment each. I suppose what the mega-kleptocrat meant was that the Wood Supreme Court “erred egregiously.” No wonder then that nearly every legally trained cabinet member of the Mahama government has signed onto the petition seeking to have the President use the powers granted him by Article 72 of the country’s Fourth-Republican Constitution to free the members of the Montie Gang.

They may not know this, but any reckless move made in the latter direction by Mr. Mahama could well plunge the country into a constitutional crisis, with the Supreme Court using the powers granted it in our democratic system of checks-and-balances to impeach the President. Clearly, what the entire affair means is that the Montie Three Gang was acting on the orders, or on behalf, of some key operatives of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress when it threatened to rape Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood as well as cause the summary liquidation of at least some five other members of the Supreme Court. I hope President Mahama is receiving the proper legal advice, else he would soon be in for deep trouble if he makes any reckless move in this matter.

That the NDC, in its antecedent guise as the Rawlings-led Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), has a longstanding track-record of persecuting superior court judges, including Mr. Mahama’s own recent publicly acknowledged covert collaborative exposé of the judiciary, with Mr. Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ Tiger-Eye PI firm, ought not be lost on the President. It is also not clear precisely what he means, when Mr. Woyome asserts that the conviction and sentencing of the Montie Three is tantamount to “judicial tyranny.” Is the greatest white-collar thief in Ghana’s most recent postcolonial history implying that using our publicly owned airwaves to scandalize and terrorize our superior court judges a laudable and civilized normative, or standard, practice?

Mr. Woyome also claims that there is absolutely nothing partisan about the petition seeking to have President Mahama nullify the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Montie Three case; and yet the certified corporate thief also insists that such a move would be all-too-appropriate because former President John Agyekum-Kufuor used powers granted him under Article 72 of Ghana’s Constitution to effect the release of legitimately imprisoned criminal convicts. He does not, however, cite a single instance to buttress his claim: “President Kufuor has invoked Article 72 of the Constitution when it mattered for [sic] the NPP. And nobody complained.” Really, Fiafito Woyome?!

But, perhaps, the most preposterous aspect of his argument is the claim that the Montie Three convicts showed “remorse” and thus ought not to have been imprisoned. Is Mr. Woyome not pleading his own ungodly cause here, to wit, that because he has shown remorse – at least in his own blighted imagination – for creaming the Ghanaian taxpayer, therefore he is not obliged to return his mega-pelf? Indeed, it would be far more worth his while to inform the Ghanaian public precisely why Attorney-General Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong had either flatly refused or woefully failed to flag up the members of the Montie Three Gang, when the latter threatened to rape Chief Justice Wood and assassinate at least five of her associates. Now, let’s talk about contract killing.

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