The decision by the leaders of the Ga Traditional Council (GTC) to back the National Democratic Congress-sponsored petition to have President John Dramani Mahama nullify the conviction and sentencing of the Montie Three Gang to 4 months’ imprisonment by the supreme court of Ghana is nothing short of the inexcusably irresponsible.
To be certain, the members of the GTC would do themselves and the people they have been invested to serve, or govern, great good by staying as far away from this purely partisan political football as possible (See “Stay Off Montie 3 Politics – Okudzeto Tells Ga Chiefs” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/3/16).
And on the latter note ought to be promptly recalled the fact that the members of the so-called Montie Three, namely, Messrs. Alistair Tairo Nelson, Godwin Ako Gunn and Salifu Maase (aka Mugabe) were summonsed before the Wood Supreme Court and prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to 4months’ imprisonment for scandalizing the reputation and integrity of that august judicial establishment, thereby treasonously endangering the security and stability of the country.
In reality, the criminal culpability of the three National Democratic Congress’ propaganda surrogates went far beyond the preceding charges. At least one of these men, with the unreserved concurrence, or complicity, of the other two, had threatened to sexually violate Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, if the Ramadan-Nimako cause célèbre was decided against the Chairwoman of the so-called Independent Electoral Commission (EC), who had been stonewalling the Apex Court’s order to delete the names of registered voters who had registered and voted in the 2012 general election by the use of the recently proscribed use of their National Health Insurance Scheme-issued cards.
Mrs. Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei, a Mahama appointee who is staunchly backed by the key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress, had been insistent that any attempt to expunge the names of voters who registered to vote by the use of their NHIS-issued cards would disenfranchise the overwhelming majority of the electorate.
True to her character and form, the EC Chair would submit the names of a diddly 56,000 people and scandalously claim the same to have been the total number of Ghanaian citizens who had registered to vote by the use of the NHIS-issued cards in the lead-up to Election 2012. What is quite interesting, as well as curious, is the fact that to-date none of the members of the Apex Court has raised any critical questions about the accuracy, and authenticity, of the figures released by the Electoral Commissioner.
But perhaps even more scandalous about the entire affair is the massive support that the Montie Three Gang has garnered among the members of the Mahama cabinet, most of them professionally trained lawyers who ought to know better. The members of the Ga Traditional Council fell short of appending their signatures to the petition calling on President Mahama to use powers granted him by Article 72 of Ghana’s 1992 Republican Constitution to pardon the Montie Three, by summarily nullifying the conviction and prison sentencing of these NDC propagandists.
Nevertheless, the very decision by the members of the Ga Traditional Council to back the call for the release of the Montie Three would almost definitely come as a slap in the face of Chief Justice Wood, who had been threatened with the horrific crime of rape.
What is equally horrifying is the fact that legally trained and self-proclaimed feminists and Mahama cabinet appointees like Mrs. Hanna Tetteh, Ghana’s Foreign Minister; Mrs. Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare, the Minister of Culture and Tourism, as well as Mrs. Nana Oye Lithur, the Gender and Social Protection Minister, have all signed the presidential petition.
As of this writing, Mrs. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyeman, the former Vice-Chancellor of Cape Coast University, who is currently Ghana’s Education Minister, was also widely reported to have signed onto the Montie Three petition. As well, the notorious scofflaw and Deputy Education Minister, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, another professionally trained lawyer, was also reported to have appended his signature to the petition.
To back up my argument as to why the members of the Ga Traditional Council egregiously erred in expressing support for the release of the Montie Three, let me offer the dear reader this purely hypothetical example. Imagine yours truly storming the studios of the Kennedy Agyapong-owned Oman-Fm Radio and threatening to rape the wife of the Ga-Mantse and decapitate His Royal Majesty. You just imagine that.