What Is Kakra Essamuah Talking About?

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

He is at least the second National Democratic Congress (NDC) operative to come out publicly, within the last three or so days, to blame the Election 2012 Presidential Petition, legitimately launched by the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), for the woeful inability of the Mahama government to move the country forward economically, and also for predictably missing several of its policy targets. The first key NDC operative to shamelessly fault the NPP for the gross administrative incompetence of President Mahama within the past three days was Mr. Murtala Ibrahim Mohammed, the deputy Information minister.

The fact of the matter here, though, is that you simply cannot take Kakra Essamuah seriously (See "Election Petition Was An Injunction On Good Governance - Kakra Essamuah" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 12/24/13). First of all, since the Akufo-Addo-led petition was taken on by the august Supreme Court of Ghana on the informed strength of the evidence presented by the plaintiffs, perhaps, Mr. Essamuah would do far better to rather impugn the integrity of the Atuguba panel of nine judges who presided over the petition. I, personally, registered my utter displeasure in the immediate wake of the handing down of the decision and had my observations widely publicized and debated around the country and abroad as well. Besides, being a lawyer himself, at least that is the known allegation, Mr. Essamuah ought to have a better perspective on such matters than yours truly.

We must also quickly underscore the incontrovertible fact that the decision to spend a protracted 8 months on the Election 2012 Presidential Petition, was wholly that of Justice William Atuguba and his eight other associates on the panel. Neither Nana Akufo-Addo nor his NPP coplaintiffs had anything whatsoever to do with it. To be certain, left to the plaintiffs alone, the litigated issue would have been resolved within a week or two.

Thus, regarding the question of unduly dragging out judicial proceedings, and in effect supposedly slowing down labor productivity in the country, as well as unnecessarily wasting taxpayer's money, Mr. Essamuah has none else but Mr. Tsatsu "The Thief" Tsikata and his legal associates on the side of the respondents to blame. Indeed, it was Mr. Tsikata who unduly delayed judicial proceedings with his antics of constant nitpicking and his silly and flagrant game of numbers on the question of the quantity of evidence submitted by the plaintiffs, the so-called pink-sheets.

But most of all, it was the criminally willful collaborative decision of Messrs. Afari-Gyan and Mahama to seriously prejudice and skew the outcome of the presidential aspect of Election 2012 that got us into the Supreme Court, to begin with. And even as we "speak," the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress government just sat duck, apparently, while taxpayer-supported documentary evidence so far gathered by the one-man judgment-debt commission was thoroughly gutted by fire, according to reliable media reports from state side.

Very likely, the fire that reportedly gutted the Apau courtroom was masterminded by professional arsonists in the pay of the government. And just why would yours truly draw such conclusion? Well, simply because most of the incriminating evidence, thus far, points to the fraudulent dealings of key NDC operatives. Still, it is our hope that at least the most significant evidence is stored somewhere on one of those Mahama-purchased laptop computers somewhere.

It is also not true, contrary to what Mr. Essamuah would have his audiences believe, that the Supreme Court resoundingly affirmed the doctored electoral figures mischievously served by Dr. Afari-Gyan. There is absolutely no credible evidence to this effect from any of the nine judges who presided over the petition. And the most telling decision on this score, of course, was the one delivered by Justice Vida Akoto-Bamfo, who categorically, and rather shamefully, predicated her decision on the imperative need to "preserving the peace" in the country, rather than its being predicated on either the strength or weakness of evidence submitted by the plaintiffs.

We must also recall the fact that in the lead-up to the start of judicial proceedings, Mr. Essamuah had categorically and publicly stated that he was fully prepared to back any putsch and the summary abrogation of the 1992 Republican Constitution of Ghana, in the event of the Supreme Court deciding in favor of Nana Akufo-Addo and the main opposition New Patriotic Party. To be certain, I am actually surprised that as of this writing (12/24/13), the Ghana Bar Association has not called for either the suspension or the outright revocation of Mr. Essamuah's license to practice law in the country. Or maybe the man simply does not have any?

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Dec. 24, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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