By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
I am writing this brief rejoinder to Mr. Samson Lardy Ayenini's rather unprofessional tirade captioned "Pedestrian Illogic Elevated Over SC Judgment" (JoyOnline.com 9/3/13) some twenty-four hours later; so I may end up overlooking a point or two discussed by the critic. The substance of the Accra-based author's argument, however, is clear: it is quizzically that since he is a certified/licensed "Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana," perforce, his is an unimpeachable expert opinion that trumps all that have been proffered, so far, by opinion leaders on the side of the Election 2012 Presidential Petitioners.
No such argument could be more preposterous. To be certain, his being a "Barrister and a Solicitor" of the Supreme Court of Ghana ought to make us, his readers, all the more suspicious of Mr. Ayenini's stance and motive. He clearly has a vested interest; and such interest is clearly not in favor of objectivity. Indeed, there is a globally recognizable maxim that runs as follows: "One does not defecate where one eats." In sum, the critic cannot be envisaged in any other objective manner than as a shameless and smug pleader of his own cause.
Mr. Ayenini's major premise is that in legitimately, and democratically, presuming to impugn the inexcusably tendentious verdicts of Justices Atuguba, Akoto-Bamfo and Gbadegbe, the petitioners' partisans are simply being petty and one-sided, because the respondents' attorneys, or counsel, put up and equally formidable and impressive argument vis-a-vis the validity of the declaration of President John Dramani Mahama by Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, as winner of the 2012 presidential election.
And, oh, Mr. Ayenini also claims, rather lamely, that since the official written statements backing up their individual verdicts have not been released, invested Ghanaian voters and electors cannot engage in any meaningful discussion and/or debate over the open-court verdicts rendered by the nine judges that constituted the Atuguba-presided Supreme Court panel that heard the Election 2012 presidential petition.
Here, of course, the critic significantly ignores the fact that the entire proceedings were televised and globally winessed; then also, there was widely published a bar chart containing the five categories of grievances presented the court, and the way and manner in which each of the nine justices voted. The aforesaid bar chart, it ought to be significantly pointed out, included the "forensically sustained" categories of "over-voting" and "voting without biometric verification," which both Dr. Afari-Gyan and the nine judges, including the President of the Panel, admitted in open court flagrantly violated constitutionally stipulated electoral protocol.
We must also significantly observe here that Justice William Atuguba, the panel president, categorically carped Dr. Afari-Gyan, in open court, for mischievously blaming his minions for such criminal breach of constitutional stipulation. And yet, Justices Atuguba, Akoto-Bamfo and Gbadegbe went ahead and blindly voted against the imperative need to rectify such breach, thereby curiously presuming the entire patently blighted conduct of Election 2012 to have been clear of any violations.
This is what rambunctiously activist lawyers like Mr. Ayenini ought to be concerned about, and not such patent frivolities as whether the full statements backing the justices' clearly gratuitous and capricious individual verdicts have been published.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Sept. 4, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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