Committee upholds ruling in Gbese case

Dodowa (Greater Accra) - The Judicial Committee of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs on Friday upheld the ruling that the installation of Nii Ayitey Agbofu II as Gbese Mantse is null and void.

J. Ayikoi Otoo, Counsel for Nii Ayitey Agbofu had argued that at the time of the judgement the defendant had died, which flouted the rules of natural justice, adding that, when a party to suit dies before the conclusion of hearing, the trial should stop until a substitution was made.

He said a court could not enter judgement against a dead man and urged the committee to set aside the judgement. However, Counsel for the petitioner, Nii Tetteh Ahinakwah II, Head of the Naa Onidin Akua We and Akote Krobo Saki We, W. N. Adumuah Bossman, said the death of a chief required "very solemn customary rites".

Adumuah Bossman pointed out that the stool elders of the first defendant should have informed the court of his death and said it was wrong for the counsel for the defendants to say, "this court should have known this because they were chiefs and without being formally and customarily informed".

Bossman said, the defendant kept the court in the dark because as late as August 2002, a cousin of Nii Agbofu, one John Ayitey Aryee, deputised for him and sprinkled Kpokpoi during the Homowo festival.

He argued that the impression that Nii Agbofu was alive but sick "should not be permitted to take advantage of their wrong doing". Counsel said, "to the merit of their case the signing by the stool family of Nii Agbofu, of the 1941 deed of agreement on rotational succession stopped him from saying contrary".

The counsel for the Committee, E. O. Komatsi, described the application as "frivolous, unmeritorious and an abuse of the process". The Committee held that the elders of the first defendant were aware of the case involving Nii Agbofu and should have taken prudent steps of informing the court of his death.

It continued that the first defendant died on 27 June 2002 and as late as August 2002, the public was made to understand that he was sick. The Committee continued that the elders of the Gbese Stool entered into an agreement stipulating that occupancy of the stool should rotate and that the provision enshrined in the 1941 agreement had been breached.

It was of the view that the defendant and co-defendant have no defence and that no useful purpose would be served when the case is reopened. A letter from the counsel for the defendant calling for an adjournment had been read to the Committee, but the panel said the case had dragged for 22 years and "at a point in time there should be an end to the litigation".

It therefore proceeded and dismissed the motion awarding ?4m cost against Nii Agbofu. Members of the panel were Nene Nagai Kassa VII, Chairman, Nene Kanor Attiapah III and Nii Ofosu Oblie IV with E. O. Komatsi as member-counsel.