Opinions of Monday, 22 March 2010
Columnist: Rahimi, Hajia Mutia
Ever since this writer’s first article expressed concern about the ongoing saga of our non performing, thumb twiddling Attorney General, it has become increasingly clear as the days have gone by that Betty Mould as an AG was a political apparition that should never has seen the reality of the morning sun, but it did.
Alas, exactly one year on since she assumed that office, our attorney general last week responded to the barrage of criticisms about her foibling performance in office by adopting several different positions and giving excuse after excuse and heaping blame upon everyone within her general field of vision from the presidency, her colleague ministers, Nana Akuffo Addo, the judicial system, Opus Dei, Jesus Christi, Spiritu Sante, the 12 Apostles, Mary Chain, the King of Norway, El Diablo, Mpoasa Ntiamoah………..indeed anything and everything she could blame. Everything but the girl herself!
For instance, she blames a wanton and ill resourced AG’s Dept and SFO that do not have the gravitas to carry out investigations, let alone successful prosecutions. Then she blames her colleague ministers for not carrying out instructions from the Chief of Staff. The question for Sorry Betty is this; what have you done with what you already have? Why are the likes of Kwadwo Mpiani and Wereko Brobbey arrogantly beating their chests after what we all know from the Ghana @ 50 probes? The cheek with which Wereko Brobbey mouths off about not being afraid to go to prison is making the many people sick to the stomach. And constant calls for the AG to go ahead and prosecute dockets that have already been completed have yielded the same old nothingness. She has gone as far as blaming the Chief Justice through one of her echo bunnies named Chris Ackummey that she (the Chief Justice) has usurped the functions of the Judicial Secretary and allocates cases herself to certain judges who are favorable to the opposition and will by inference thwart every attempt to prosecute criminal conduct if it involved members of the NPP.
It is an open secret that a certain Lawyer Atta Akyea, NPP M.P. for Abuakwa South the purveyor of midnight jurisprudence vicariously allots cases to specific judges and is the empanelling authority on cases that have political slant. The technique that is subsequently used by these judges is to disregard the substantive matter and look for any technicality within procedure with which to dismiss the case.
Case in point is the Bawku Central electoral dispute involving the dual nationality of the current NPP MP, after a lower court had clearly established that the MP had a British passport at the time he filed to contest elections. Other cases include petitions brought by applicants in the Ayawaso East, Ayawaso West, Weija and Tema East constituencies. The cases were given to Justice Ofori Atta, a known NPP activist and FIRST COUSIN of Nana Akuffo Addo, who summarily dismissed these cases on issues of procedure and never bothered with the substantive case. Atta Akyea derives his powers from being the brother in law of the Chief Justice and nearly succeeded in committing high treason just to keep an NPP that had clearly lost the 2008 elections. Well, if Madam Betty cannot see her way through this morass, then the calls for her to be sacked gain even more legitimacy. As the government’s chief legal advisor, why isn’t she telling the president to institute measures to suspend the Chief Justice if indeed there is any evidence that she is misconducting herself? There are clear provisions in the constitution for redress in such a scenario. Is the legal system she is riling against not the same one that was used to jail Victor Selormey, Mallam Issa, Tsatsu Tsikata, Kwame Peprah, George Yankey, Dan Abodakpi (a sitting MP at the time) to name a few? Is it not the same legal system that was effectively used by the NPP to disenfranchise many people who were thought to be of NDC persuasion? Is it not the same legal system that was used to make sure that the killers of the Ya Na and Issa Mobila were never brought to justice? And assuming she is right about being handed a lemon, why has she not made some lemonade with it? Wouldn’t that have been plaudits she could have garnered on her resume to fuel her ambition to be vice president? What is it that Joe Ghartey knows that Betty Mould doesn’t know? Instead of tackling the concerns of the NDC foot soldiers that have to go and defend their party’s record in office come 2012, she ordered a gathering of NDC serial callers at Kuku Hill last week and handed 30GH cedis inducements to them to debunk assertions of her incompetence on radio. Again, she tries to slow foxtrot herself from her cozy relationship with Nana Akuffo Addo by lying through her teeth about the circumstances of her exit from the AG’s department in 2002, only to be rebuffed firmly by Nana Addo in an open statement that lays bare, the kind of conniving person she really is.
The AG is sinking and she is kicking, screaming, spitting out rubble, bleached bones and clutching at straws all in a bid to remain in office. The only reason is not that she is regretful of her non performance but she is fighting to stave off the political obscurity that comes with not having the influence to be a major player come 2016. What she should understand is that she would NEVER be a vice president to any NDC presidential candidate in the future. Not on this showing. But really the time has come for President Atta Mills to back her publicly or sack her. The NDC faithful have absolutely zero confidence that she can deliver the justice that the people of this country deserve. It is also interesting to note that in all his ranting and raving about the non delivery of justice, the founder of the NDC Flt Lt J.J. Rawlings has never once asked the president to sack his protégé and choice for veep in the last election. Perhaps it is a case of willfully selective amnesia. Thank Allah that President Atta Mills didn’t acquiesce to the founder’s persistence. The NDC would not just have had an appointed Trojan horse, but an elected one. This writer avers that Mills should sack Madam Betty Mould and sack her NOW!!!!!
Hajia Mutia Rahimi Wa.