By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Much has been said about the lightening swiftness with which Kenya's Supreme Court deliberated on and delivered its laudably transparent verdict on the post-election fraud petition brought before it by Mr. Raila Odinga, the former Prime Minister in the Kofi Annan-engineered National Unity Government headed by the now-former President Mwai Kibaki. Interestingly, however, not much has been said about the extent to which Ghana's snail-paced judicial process may well have redounded to the benefit of New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential Candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo vis-a-vis Election 2012.
And as I recently confided to a Kenyan colleague of mine, Prof. Adhiambo Okomba, we have yet to know and, indeed, may never know the extent to which inadequate time may have significantly impacted the quality of the evidence presented by Mr. Odinga to Kenya's Supreme Court. Then also, I highlighted the fact of Nana Akufo-Addo's being a legal heavyeight on the Ghanaian political landscape with a legion of highly qualified proteges and mentees who have been frantically engaged in putting the NPP leader's petition together, in contrast to the social scientist Prof. Odinga who may not have been that equally privileged
Once again, as I have already observed time without number, the preceding is absolutely in no way to endorse the almost intolerably snail-paced manner in which the Wood court has been handling the Akufo-Addo petition, although it is quite obvious that the primary petitioner's being himself a widely recognized legal heavyweight may very well have informed the Supreme Court to proceed with caution, if the latter's credibility, badly savaged by the Rawlings-minted P/NDC in the recent past, is to retain whatever may be presently left of the same.
Well, time clearly appears to have been on the side of Nana Akufo-Addo, as Ghana's Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has gone on to reveal one managerial gaffe committed under his watch, either willfully or inadvertently, after another. First was what might aptly be termed as the "Ho Post-Election Review Confession," in which a seemingly cognitively addled Dr. Afari-Gyan virulently accused a remarkable, albeit unspecified, percentage of his own salaried staff members of having criminally pocketed millions of dollars earmarked for the training of ballot counters and other election-related officials.
In other words, between his patently fraudulent declaration of President John Dramani Mahama as winner of the 2012 Presidential Election and now, whether he fully recognizes it as such or not, Dr. Afari-Gyan has been engaged in what might aptly be termed as a "Confessional Circuit." He has been doing the rounds and vehemently blaming everybody involved in the conduct, or execution, of the December 2012 General Election except, you guessed right, himself! And this is where the Electoral Commissioner's problem clearly appears to lie.
Anyway, following a public enquiry made by Justice Dotse, one of the nine, or so, Supreme Court judges presiding over the New Patriotic Party petition, regarding the Electoral Commissioner's virtually AWOL status, even as judicial proceedings ratchet up into high dudgeon, Dr. Afari-Gyan is widely reported to have retorted that, in reality, the Akufo-Addo petition was more about the Electoral Commission as a statutory institution than it being about the man who may have willfully and criminally shortchanged Ghanaian voters last December.
Indeed, a Peacefmonline.com website had the following report to give about the rather cavalier and practically disengaged and disinterested stance of the EC chairman: "Speaking in an interview on Okay FM's morning show, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan clearly told the host that it was unnecessary to mount pressure on him by asking him to be present during proceedings in court, when the place [i.e. Supreme Court] wasn't a movie house" (See "'Is the Supreme Court a Movie Theater?' - Afari-Gyan" Ghanaweb.com 4/11/13).
Well, two interpretations could be read from the preceding quote. First and more significantly, the Electoral Commissioner finally appears to be coming to terms with the criminal gravity of the constitutional crisis that he has created in the country, a corollary or reverberation of which may ultimately land him before a criminal court judge. His failure to appear before the Supreme Court until he is compelled to do so, in his own implicit words, may also be Dr. Afari-Gyan's oblique way of alerting the public to the fact that he has been studiously consulting with his lawyers in a bid to saving himself from near-certain criminal prosecution and immurement.
Of course, the other far less figurative interpretation of the Supreme Court not being a movie house, or theater, has clearly to do with the fact that Dr. Afari-Gyan, who has rather imperiously headed the Electoral Commission, would rather be at the movie theater, voyeuristically watching old X-rated flicks, than stand before the Atuguba panel of jurists having his political motives and professional conduct as a highly paid election chief subjected to the most rigorous process of judicial examination and/or scrutiny.
You see, perhaps he doesn't really need to be told this, but what Justice Dotse appears to have been aiming for, in publicly alerting Dr. Afari-Gyan to his flagrant disregard for the Supreme Court and the apocalyptic mess which he has created, is the fact that in terms of character, the former Legon political scientist may not have much going for him. And, needless to say, how Dr. Afari-Gyan's character comes to be perceived by both the Atuguba panel of jurists and the general public, at large, may well have a remarkable bearing on the verdict ultimately delivered by the Supreme Court.
It is, of course, quite predictable to have expected a long-serving and patently cavalier Dr. Afari-Gyan to relate to the venerable members of the Ghana Supreme Court in such a snooty manner.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
April 12, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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