A Critical Look at the Agbagba-Nasrame Tragedy

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

The report of a Ghanaian soldier suspected of the felonious crime of murder-suicide being tried ex-post-facto, with the sole objective of denying his children and other relatives benefits and entitlements that may be due them, is rather unconscionable and morally depraved (See "Suicidal [sic] Soldier to be Tried in Death; Likely to lose Entitlements" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 2/15/14).

The nature of the purported trial itself calls into question the sanity of the officers in charge of the Ghana military's court-martial/judicial system. For instance, we are told that it is the uniform, and not the corpse, of the criminal suspect that would represent the latter at the trial. We have yet to learn if there are any defense attorneys involved in the impending trial and, if so, what sort of defense they are likely to put up in favor of the dead soldier. I am also, of course, interested in whether the personnel involved in this patent judicial charade, or mock court martial, will be paid by the financially overstretched Ghanaian taxpayer.

If the answer to the last question is "yes," then, of course, this will be no different from the plethora of judgment-debt ripoffs that the country is already saddled with. It is also not quite accurate, as one anonymous military source has been widely quoted to be saying, that "Once you put on the military uniform, you are the property of the Ghana Armed Forces." Actually, the uniformed and actively engaged Ghanaian soldier is the bona fide property of the Ghanaian state at large, constitutionally represented by the government of the day.

Likewise, the Ghana Armed Forces, as a statutory establishment, is the bona fide property of the Ghanaian state, funded with public capital resources. What the preceding means is that Ghana's President and Parliament can promptly step into the fast evolving eighteenth centuryesque judicial charade to ensure that the Ghana Armed Forces is not reduced to a laughing stock before a bemused onlooking global community.

Then also must be highlighted the tragic situation of the soldier-wife of Cpl. Fred Nasrame, the man charged with the felonious crime of murder-suicide. Do the couple's children and relatives also stand to lose benefits and entitlements that may be due them, merely because Cpl. Antoinette Agbagba had apparently been unable to prevent her husband from killing her? Even in the case of the man accused of murder-suicide, the very notion that his children and relatives ought to summarily lose benefits and entitlements that may be due them is patently absurd.

For starters, there appears not to have been any eyewitnesses at the crime scene. What this means is that the charges preferred against the dead man are merely speculative, unless the military court operatives have credible DNA evidence clearly establishing the incontrovertible fact of Cpl. Nasrame's having committed the crimes attributed to him all by himself. The fact of the couple's being notorious for regular spats over Cpl. Nasrame's apparent conjugal/marital infidelity is significantly telling of the high possibility of such heated conflicts culminating in a murder-suicide tragedy. But what needs to concern the larger public even more, and strangely appears to have been glaringly overlooked by journalists covering the Nasrame-Agbagba conjugal tragedy, regards the critical question of whether the Ghana Armed Forces is equipped with the necessary psychiatric, psychological and marital counseling services that any military establishment worthy of such designation ought to have.

This is where any legitimate and credible enquiry into this ghastly incident ought to begin. And this is what is critically missing from even a casual examination of the circumstances surrounding the murder-suicide case involving Cpls. Nasrame and Agbagba. I hope somebody higher up is paying sedulous attention.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Feb. 15, 2014
E-mail: [email protected]
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