Since the NPP won elections in December 2016, and even before Nana Addo was sworn in to take office as the sixth President under the 4th Republic, Delta Force, a known NPP political vigilante group, the party of the sitting president, had been on rampage.
Forcefully seizing toll booths and forcing out lawfully appointed officers have characterized the NPP administration with apparent impunity.
Many of us hoped that these lawless conducts would be dealt with, and should end; but on the contrary, the Delta Force has taken its lawlessness to the zenith by destroying court property and almost attacking an independent Judge about her duty in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, coincidentally the stronghold of the president’s party.
Although I was shocked when I learnt of the report on Citi FM, an Accra-based radio station about the attack at the court because the Judge ordered the remand of the thirteen Delta force members, I was also in disbelief for hours.
If the abduction and murder of three High Court Judges and the army officers in the 80s were grievous and heinous, an attack on democracy and rule of law, then this cannot be praised.
In a civilized society like ours, the courts are all we have. Any attempt to undermine its authority and to ridicule it in this manner is unforgivable. But how did this impunity fester and continued?
In the early days of the NPP victory, a number of these loose canons who call themselves Delta Force and in some cases invincible forces, all affiliated to the NPP, went on rampage and took toll booths under the guise that their party was in power and they wanted to protect state assets. Really?
My expectation at the onset of the hooliganism and criminal conduct was outright condemnation from the president elect at the time. Instead of members of the NPP condemning the acts outright, they resorted to political trickery by claiming that there was a sitting president at the time and the government of the NDC was still in power and that the sitting government needed to act on the development.
With all due respect, the expectation of outright condemnation did not come from president-elect. My recollection is that, when president Nana Addo, then president elect spoke, his comments as carried on Citi FM or so, were unbelievable.
To paraphrase; he said these were few young intoxicated guys misbehaving and that the situation will normalize. He spoke casually of such serious issue. But here we are: the situation is degenerating to the extent that the work of a whole judge, the fountain of justice, came under attack, and the remand orders made by her, rendered inefficient because Delta Force created confusion at the court and whisked the suspected criminals away.
Recall that members of the Delta Force had appeared before the court in connection with a dastardly act of attacking the president’s appointee for security coordinator. It was around 2:00pm when Richard Sky barged into Jessica and Philip’s programme with the update from Kumasi.
To think that a group of people affiliated to a political party forming the government could muster the courage to put up this behaviour in a court of law has never happened even under the democratic regimes perceived as nascent.
Of course, they are strengthened because their party is in power. What a sad day for the Judiciary and our democracy especially under a government that touts itself with democratic feats.
This is a huge embarrassment to Ghana before the International Community and I pray the International media does not take this up. It is to avert this embarrassment that the president must cause the whip to be cracked.
But it should not end there, just like the Martyrs day lectures have been instituted by the Ghana Bar Association to commemorate the abduction and murder of the Judges in the 1980s, a similar thing must be done.
This judge need not die before this unfortunate and barbaric incident is immortalized. Like we always remember the Judges, and speeches are made to remind the public and other power bearers that never again should this happen, the Ghana Bar Association must do same.
This is because although it is a chapter that we would love to forget, it will be suicidal to pretend that a sitting Judge was never attacked in the history of this country. It is serious enough that members of the Delta Force attempted to attack the judge and disrupted business for the day. It is even more serious that when the court remanded the accused persons, members of this unlawful group stormed into the court and whisked the accused persons much to the helplessness of an ill equipped and prepared police.
Every practitioner of law knows that the orders of a court are not to be taken lightly and the courts themselves in order to maintain the force and effect of their orders will not make them if they may not or cannot be enforced or supervised. Orders which may be circumvented by certain intentional conducts are also generally avoided. An order which cannot be enforced exposes the court to some ridicule from the public.
In the latter consequence, the public might feel smart by being able to evade the effect of an order which should not have been made. There are serious consequences attached to disobeying courts processes much more its orders. This is why the audacity of the Delta Force to take their members out is worrying.
Finally, Mr. President; since you assumed office, a number of things have happened in response to which I expected some stern reaction and message to be sent out but it did not happen.
Mr. President, National Security Minister, the Inspector General of Police, AG’s department and the Chief Justice, and all of us; must not allow this to slide. A dangerous and irreversible precedent will be set. To the Ghana Bar Association, you must immortalize this day.
By: Albert Quashigah/ UPSA (Law Faculty).
albymine@yahoo.co.uk
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
