The Bizarre and Wretched Case of Attorney Adjei Sarfo

"....The evil ones amongst us will have their just dessert for whatever they do wrong, because there is no iota of evil that we do that will go unpunished in the natural scheme of life...." (Attorney Dr. Adjei Sarfo, Ghanaweb, 21 December 2014).

In a recent series of articles on Ghanaweb about the "brutal" Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, Lawyer Adjei Sarfo sought to prosecute an elementary case more than 2 generations removed from Ghanaian reality, of a man who died prematurely from a heart condition aggravated by a fit and rage. In the end, we found this Houston, Texas Southern University's (TSU) Thurgood Marshall School of Law graduate all wretched, hyperventilating, and making no sense, saying:

".... the greatest tribute we can pay to the forebears who fought so hard and sacrificed their lives so that we may live in true freedom and independence, is to abolish all forms and vestiges of tyranny and dictatorship which Nkrumah’s misrule has spawned...and to swear a terrible oath, that never again shall the people of Ghana allow the likes of Nkrumah, his evil ideology, his party, heirs and assigns and progeny to become leaders of this great country of ours...."

What is it that causes a Thurgood Marshall lawyer who earned his law degree in 2011 to want to permanently proscribe so many living Ghanaians, even more of them unborn, from ever working for the people - for posterity - long after he, Lawyer Adjei Sarfo himself, will be long dead and gone?

We ask this question this time because Prof Lungu also attended Texas Southern University (TSU), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). In fact, Prof Lungu earned 2 Master's Degrees from TSU, nearly 9 years before Lawyer Adjei Sarfo entered the doors of TSU's Law School, if our numbers "half-ass" add up.

No drama here, except to point out the TSU community is contemplative, reflective, forgiving, and above all, professional to the disadvantaged and the advantaged. TSU students and graduates from the public interest institutes, the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, and the Graduate School, in particular, carry a special obligation to exhibit decency, respect of humanity, and an uncommon sense of purpose that honors themselves and its many heroes.

Among those TSU heroes and exemplary public figures are former US Representative Mickey Leland who was killed on a humanitarian mission to Ethiopia in 1989; former US Rep Barbara Jordan, also the first African American elected to the Texas Senate in Austin; and Thurgood Marshall, name-sake of the TSU Law School, a former Justice of the US Supreme Court. Justice Marshall, as a young lawyer, was instrumental in "Brown vs. Board of Education", the precedent-setting 1954 case that caused the US Supreme Court to rule that African-Americans deserved equal access to education in America, as whites, a mere 13 years before Ghana won its independence from the UK.

Where is all that passive-aggressive talk coming from, we ask of Lawyer Adjei Sarfo?

The ideas is, Prof Lungu cannot conceptualize how any one of those TSU heroes could be so absent-minded, so full of themselves, and so antagonistic against the Father of their own country, as to "swear" the most bizarre of a self-serving "terrible oath" against "vestiges of tyranny and dictatorship which Nkrumah’s misrule has spawned..."

Reckon that Lawyer Adjei Sarfo's preferred political party/tradition has occupied the highest offices in Ghana about 12 of those 60-plus years.

Further, how did our Austin lawyer arrive at the proposition that "...Nkrumah’s real responsibility as the first president of Ghana was to affirm the democratic principles and establish a strong institutional base for the rule of law...freedom of the press and the human rights..."? In six years, we must ask?

Seriously, did our lawyer check to see what kinds of political systems there were in 1957 in all corners of the world? Did he check to see Ghana was no island then, that Ghana with a unitary form of government strongly defended by DR. Nkrumah, had adversaries - internal and external, even as the entire world wobbled between to antagonistic axis, from East to West?

And did our lawyer forget TSU taught him that the first real responsibility of the leader of a country is the security of that country? Or does our lawyer need us to help him channel President Abraham Lincoln who ordered a Civil War to preserve America, a War that resulted in the death of over 640,000 Americans, for a reminder on that one?

Or that, it takes considerate and fair-minded compatriots as a group to help institutionalize "the rule of law" in any country, most of all, in a new country that is frontally just a newly-concocted amalgam of tribal and national groups who just happen to have been pulled into one by colonial masters with their own permanent interests?

On another level, it was this same Lawyer Adjei Sarfo who recently wrote another essay for Ghanaweb about himself, Sidiku Buare, and "Car Thieves." Clearly, those two cases did not compare. Numerous Ghanaweb commentators told Lawyer Sarfo so, some in very unflattering terms.

Mr. Buare's case was a business transaction gone awry. In our lawyer's case, it was a personal decision by him to (1) allow two females he did not know or trust into his vehicle, (2) drive them around Austin, Texas, for reasons only known to him, and (3) allow the "strangers" unfettered access (and control of) to his "...truck....I-phones and keys," resulting in the females absconding with his properties. Then, more than days 5 days later, this same lawyer was still driving all over Austin, Texas, and its suburbs, looking for his truck and the strange ladies, knowing the chances of him finding them by his own effort "was virtually absent." Why? Because told us there are more vehicles in Austin than in all of Ghana.

Why this useless Been-To, "Burgher" talk?

So, could we therefore hazard that Attorney Dr. Adjei Sarfo is probably yeaning for attention on so many levels the earth is itself wretched under his antagonistic feet?

Then there is this other recent case where in one of the afore-mentioned essays on Ghanaweb, Lawyer Adjei Sarfo pasted text of an unauthenticated "letter....(J. B. Danquah) wrote to Dr. Nkrumah" about his "detention" at the Nsawam Prison in 1964-1965.

Why would a lawyer expect anyone to believe the "letter" is authentic when (1) text and words were selected and pasted and (2) the lawyer himself did not even bother to provide the date written/stamped on that same letter?

And with respect to many of his unreasonable claims against Dr. Nkrumah, how do we know (1) the "letter" was actually delivered to Dr. Nkrumah and (2) that Dr. Nkrumah actually read the "letter"? Further, why did our lawyer neglect to tell us there was actually a second "letter" that would have allowed readers to draw a more reasonable and objective conclusion? (We are sure hiding facts useful for analyses and prosecution, even in elementary cases, is not one of the principles they teach at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston, Texas).

Our sense is, the visceral and antagonistic hatred of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is having the better of Lawyer Adjei Sarfo. It is unhealthy and totally unbecoming of a professional lawyer, in our opinion. It demonstrates to us that Lawyer Adjei Sarfo is being totally unreasonable and self-serving for peculiar reasons.

Lawyer Adjei Sarfo is totally out of bounds when he assigns blame to Nkrumah for even current problems at Akosombo. Consider that most infrastructure (buildings, roads, power plants, etc.) have a 25-50 year life span, if properly maintained during that term. In the absence of proper maintenance and/or re-trofit, these public goods last a whole lot less than 30 years. This is just common sense balanced by good urban education, and a willingness to be reflective and professional, as expected of any good lawyer (or professional).

So, we are now thinking Lawyer Adjei Sarfo's world practically came crushing down on him when he received the news. We are talking about the report that came out yesterday, that his preferred choice for President of Ghana, Nana Akuffo Addo of the NPP "...called for a new spirit of reconciliation between...(Ghana's)...two famous political traditions...the CPP...and the UGCC/NPP, (saying) ...the two traditions must unite to face the teething developmental challenges crippling the country."

We will again hazard that Lawyer Adjei Sarfo's hyperventilation must now be at super-acute Rambo-levels now that he is in possession of that "news", news that just happens to be diametrically opposed to his bizarre and tyrannical pet wish to ban ideology, party, heir, assigns and progeny remotely connected to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

So, with the aura of perspiring self-importance ridding on with bizarre thoughts and pronouncements, how Lawyer Adjei Sarfo balances his visceral, antagonistic, and shameful attitude toward Ghana's first President, with the expressed interest of Nana Akuffo Addo to "forgive" Nkrumah will be anyone's guess, as we go forward.

But never mind!

Dr. Nkrumah absolutely does not need "forgiveness" from any Ghana-centered person. The totality of the 2 letters alone, if truly genuine, show just that. Premature death in a 1965 Ghana prison within 6 months of arrest, where the detained was not deprived of food, was not tortured, was not water-boarded, etc., is not murder. In the main, there is absolutely nothing cavalier about "decency" when a "repressive government" does not enforce its own rules, but instead, allows a body to be claimed and buried with dignity, but before an autopsy could have been performed, if so desired, by the family members, or volunteers.

Or, must we, in 2015, now conclude that Dr. J. B. Danquah actually got his "just dessert for whatever...(he did)...wrong, because there is no iota of evil that....will go unpunished in the natural scheme of life..."?

How delusional and totally devoid of a proper sense of purpose and respect must we be, Ghana?

Texas Southern University (TSU) alums and students must be better than all of that, Attorney Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo!

Prof. Lungu is Ghana-centered/Ghana-Proud. Prof Lungu is a moniker for strictly Ghana-centered reasons. This is the record. Prof Lungu is not a supporter or apologist for any party. However, Prof Lungu strongly believes that Ghana benefited more from Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, than Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, from Ghana. Prof Lungu is based in Washington DC, USA. Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com©5 Feb.15.