Nana Akufo-Addo intimated in his weekly Opinion piece posted on your site that he would build on the peace measures of President Kufuor to bring peace to conflict areas such as Anlo and others. I appreciate it very much Nana's intention to bring peace to Anlo in particular and Ghana as a whole. It is the desire of peace loving and all well-meaning Anlos that peace and tranquility should prevail in Anlo and the rest of Ghana, and I therefore commend him for expressing his concerns. I must reluctantly however put in the right perspective the facts as they relate to the so-called peace building measures of Kufuor which he intended to build on in the context of the Anlo area.
On the 1st of November 2007, the members of the Ghana Police Service shot and killed three innocent Anlo citizens, and a fourth person was brutalized and tortured to death in the cells of the Ghana Police Service. A serving police officer also lost his life during the violence of 1st November 2007. Several hundreds of innocent Anlo citizens were arrested by the Police, beaten, tortured and criminally violated. Several houses and properties were also damaged by the members of the Ghana Police Service. The people of Anlo claimed those who were shot dead were killed by the members of the Police Service, whilst the Police Command and officials of the Kufuor government claimed the Anlos killed the police officer, as well as their own brethren and kin with the gun of the dead police officer.
In the above circumstances, what any peace loving, concerned, caring and civilized government and President would do is to set up an independent commission to investigate the deaths and the veracity of the events leading up to the violence. We are ten months away from that tragic day in Anlo history but the government of President Kufuor had done nothing in spite of petitions by the Chiefs and Clan heads of Anlo to the President and the Parliament of Ghana calling for a commission of enquiry to investigate the killings. Other well meaning Ghanaians and civil society groups as well as the Commonwealth Human Rights Organisation have added their voices to the people of Anlo in calling for an independent commission of enquiry and removal of the police Command of the Volta Region to facilitate the investigation and also restore the confidence of the people in the police, severely undermined by the blatant politicization and open biases of the VR police commander, COP Dery. Even the government’s main accomplice in crime Nyonyo Agboada aka Lumorvi Atitsogbi made public calls on the Kufour government to set up the independent commission of enquiry. Thus both parties to the conflict have publicly demanded and endorsed the setting up of the independent commission of enquiry.
However, President Kufuor and his government up to date had refused to do what any responsible government committed to truth and justice would do. The NPP majority in Parliament also refused to heed the pleas of the people of Anlo and would not even allow a discussion of the deaths in Anlo on the 1st of November in the House of Parliament and the need for an independent commission of enquiry to establish the facts and the circumstances of the outbreak of the violence. The Volta Region police commander COP Dery is still at post, as the IGP was ordered by the Presidency to reverse his transfer to Accra as Officer in Charge of the Police Workshop. He is still engaging in acts of professional misconduct and perversion of justice which is seriously undermining the peace and security of Anlo.
The pertinent question to ask is why has the Kufuor government and the NPP dominated Parliament refused to do what would have been done routinely by any government committed to the rule of law, good governance, peace and security?. What are the Kufuor government and the NPP majority in Parliament afraid of by refusing to act as a responsible and caring government?. The answers to these questions are what prompted me to reluctantly write this rejoinder as I do not want to be seen as thwarting your campaign efforts.
The failure of the Kufuor government and the NPP members of Parliament to act as any civilized government would do is simply because of their desire to cover up the facts of 1st November 2007, the unlawful involvement of President Kufuor's government in the Anlo chieftaincy dispute and the gross human rights violations since 2005 in pursuit of a misguided partisan agenda.
The Kufuor government and key members of the NPP naively thought they could exploit the Anlo chieftaincy dispute to further the fortunes of the party in Anlo and the Volta Region. To this end, they sponsored and supported an illegal installation process, a carefully crafted scheme since the year 2005. The police and the military were over the period deployed to harass and cow the people into submission, routinely violating their human rights. Corrupt judges were not only bribed and engaged to further the illegal agenda by stifling the use of the judicial process to stop them but also to persecute the chiefs and people who are opposed to them by use of the judicial process to prosecute framed up and frivolous charges. Meanwhile, the proxies of the Kufuor government engaged in this enterprise routinely indulged in criminal acts, ranging from assault and battery and ritual murders with the police turning a blind eye, and the Kufuor government ignoring several petitions from the Chiefs and well meaning Anlos. Warnings and pleas from even prominent Anlo members of the NPP alerting President Kufour and members of his government to their naivety and the dangers of their actions for peace and security in Anlo were also ignored. The killings of 1st November 2007 are the culmination of the naivety and the foolhardiness of the Kufuor Presidency by unlawfully and unjustly sponsoring and supporting an illegal process by misuse of the security forces to engage in an act which essentially in law is criminal.
It is the sordid story of the persistent human rights violations of the people of Anlo since 2005 by the Kufuor government, the ritual murders committed by their proxies and the fact that the Kufuor government is vicariously liable for the cold-blooded murder of four innocent Anlos on 1st November 2007 that the Kufuor presidency and the NPP Parliamentarians do not want Ghanaians to know about. It is unfortunate that to date the intimidation, harassment and judicial persecution in Anlo land are continuing in a bizarre attempt to cover up the truth and the misinformation put out by the Kufuor government when the illegal plot failed.
The people of Anlo wish to painfully bring it to your notice that President Kufuor has left no legacy of peace building measures in Anlo for you to build on. I hope and wish that you would however have the courage to right the wrongs of the Kufuor government against the people of Anlo should the good people of Ghana grant you the mandate to lead them come 7th December 2008.
However, since justice delayed is justice denied, you need not wait till you become the President of Ghana if you are sincere in your pronouncement. You can use your current stature in the NPP as its apparent leader and presidential candidate to persuade President Kufuor and your colleague NPP parliamentarians to set up an independent commission of enquiry to establish the cause of death of the four innocent Anlo citizens and the misguided police officer, and the alleged cases of human rights violations by the security services with the support of the Kufuor government. The independent commission of enquiry, I believe, would not only serve the end of justice and fairness for the people of Anlo but it would also afford the Kufuor presidency the opportunity and the forum to exonerate itself from the accusations of complicity in the deaths and human rights abuses, if they are indeed unfounded.
A public call on your President and colleague NPP parliamentarians to seek fairness and justice for Anlo by setting up an independent commission of enquiry would convince not only the people of Anlo but the rest of Ghanaians of the sincerity of your promises to seek peace and security for all Ghanaians, which would go a long way to further your quest to assume the highest office of the land.
On the other hand, if you cannot have the courage to do so, then I am pleading with you to stop mentioning Anlo in your campaign message of peace and security for all Ghanaians. The wounds and the pains inflicted on Anlo by the Kufuor presidency are still very fresh in our minds and hearts and we do not want to be recounting them in response to your campaign messages so that it would look like we are putting spokes in the wheels of your campaign. Some of us cannot and would not resist the need to put out the truth of 1st November 2007. We owe it to the martyrs of Anlo, ourselves the living and the unborn of Anlo land. I am therefore pleading with you, Nana, to join our quest for peace, security and justice for Anlo now, or you hold your peace, at least during the political campaign season. The truth is that the mention of Anlo as a conflict area in Ghana evokes anger in the minds and hearts of Anlos against President Kufour and the NPP government for the crimes committed against the peace loving people of Anlo. If you cannot resist the temptation to mention Anlo, then please don’t mention President Kufuor in the same context. A word to the wise is enough.
I wish you well in your campaign and hope that should you assume the highest office of the land you would follow in the foot steps of the late President of Zambia, Mwanawassa( may his soul rest in peace). Only then can some of us trust that you would give the dead of Anlo’s black Thursday 1st November 2007 the justice they are crying for in their graves and the peace and security we the living are craving for.
Kobla Kwawukume
Legal Spokesperson for the Chiefs and Clan Heads of Anlo
