Attorney-General Appiah-Oppong Should Answer Woyome

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
March 16, 2015
E-mail: [email protected]

I wrote the caption for this column before reading the news article, which appeared a little later, in which Attorney-General Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong riposted Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome's charge implicating Mrs. Appiah-Oppong in Mr. Woyome's GHC 51 million bilking of the Ghanaian taxpayer. What is clear here, which the scandalously acquitted Mr. Woyome may not have taken into consideration before firing off his accusatory letter to the media alleging the Attorney-General to have been a prime beneficiary of his loot, is Mr. Woyome's implicit admission of guilt.

In other words, what the Woyome letter points to is the need for the Supreme Court of Ghana to declare a mistrial of the judicial proceedings that resulted in his at once flagrant and outrageous acquittal. The sitting judge also needs to be either censured or summarily removed from the bench for exhibiting such deliberately gross incompetence verging on downright criminality. Indeed, the problem that the most infamous fraudster in postcolonial Ghanaian history seems to have has far less to do with the question of whether Mr. Woyome defrauded the State to the humongous tune of the alleged GHC 51 million, but rather the fact that alleged booty/loot beneficiary like Attorney-General Appiah-Oppong would so brazenly presume to appeal the acquittal of her allegedly generous benefactor.

The acquitted man claims that he paid "approximately $1 million equivalent in Ghana[ian] cedis from the said judgment debt that you now so much criminalize and want me jailed for" (See "AG Benefitted from GHC 51 M Judgment Debt... - Woyome" Peacefmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 3/16/15). Further, Woyome claims that nearly 2-percent of his loot was paid to the law firm of Lithur, Brew & Co., of which Attorney-General Appiah-Oppong was a major partner prior to her assumption of her present cabinet appointment.

The Attorney-General's riposte to Mr. Woyome has a modicum of surface logic, but it is not the least bit convincing because it raises the question of what Mrs. Appiah-Oppong knew about the Woyome racket prior to her receipt of the aforesaid amount from Mr. Woyome which she claims to have been on behalf of her client, a Mr. Ray Smith, and herself, obviously, if, as she claims, the now-Attorney-General was working on behalf of Mr. Smith, for she ought to have, perforce, received a retainer or payment for her legal services. Mrs. Appiah-Oppong also alleges that Mr. Woyome either took an unusually long time to pay off his debt or the debtor was unable and/or unwilling to settle the same.

As a presumably brilliant lawyer sworn to professional integrity, did it not occur to Mrs. Appiah-Oppong that the sudden turn-around decision by Mr. Woyome to pay off his debt, all at once, and in such a huge lump sum, was one that ought to have provoked her immediate suspicion. This is where the entire affair gets more than both interesting and bothersome. The Attorney-General further complicates matters when she rather facilely raises the question of why, if Mr. Woyome felt strongly that Mrs. Appiah-Oppong was irredeemably mired in a "conflict-of-interest" situation, the then-accused fraudster had not petitioned the court to the same effect. This question, in of itself, is quite interesting if also because the mere fact of the defendant's not having raised a "conflict-of-interest" objection during judicial proceedings, does not necessarily negate the fact that Mrs. Appiah-Oppong was hopelessly mired in a conflict-of-interest situation.

Barring the discovery of new evidence pointing towards the contrary, two things are likely to occur here vis-a-vis the Woyome Affair in the offing. Attorney-General Appiah-Oppong will be forced to resign her cabinet appointment, her vehement protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. The Woyome acquittal will also be nullified by a declaration of mistrial by the judicial review board currently examining the case. Till then, let's hold our breaths and keep our fingers crossed, as it were.

_____________________________________________________________