What the Rascally and Hypocritical Ato Dadzie Actually Said About Akufo-Addo
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
The last time that I heard about him, the former Rawlings' Chief-of-Staff was collaborating with Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu, the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice as well as Education, to sue me and several others for supposedly defaming Mrs. Iddrisu. For my part, and I know all my other relatives then being sued together with me could vigorously defend themselves, all that I had done was to fairly and legally comment on an article alleging the former Attorney-General to have collaborated with some other key National Democratic Congress (NDC) operatives to illegally acquire several luxurious real-estate properties in Western Europe.
Now, Nana Ato Dadzie who just finished embarrassing himself before the Atuguba-led panel of Supreme Court judges hearing the Akufo-Addo/New Patriotic Party (NPP) petition challenging the legitimacy of President John Dramani Mahama, is out there pretending to be defending Nana Akufo-Addo against a maliciously defamatory attempt by Mr. Francis Yaonasu Kpegah to strategically sidetrack the 2012 NPP Presidential Candidate (See “Nana Ato Dadzie: Nobody Can Dispute Akufo-Addo's Law Credentials” JoyOnline.com 4/27/13).
In his obviously, deliberately and strategically belated pretense of the defense of Nana Akufo-Addo, Nana Ato Dadzie claims to be the bar-mate of the distinguished Ghanaian legal light. On a television talking-heads recently, this is what Nana Ato Dadzie had to say: “As far as I am concerned he [Nana Akufo-Addo] is a lawyer. He was called to the Bar in 1975. I was also called in 1975, and so was Tsatsu Tsikata.”
What Nana Ato Dadzie could also have honestly added, if he were really capable of honesty, is that in spite of being called to the Bar in the same year as the NPP leader, nevertheless, Nana Akufo-Addo has distinguished himself over and above both Messrs. Ato Dadzie and Tsatsu Tsikata. For instance, it is widely known that Nana Akufo-Addo is the most extensively quoted trial lawyer alive in Ghana in legal textbooks and case law.
Mr. Tsikata, of course, has also achieved for himself the distinctive notoriety of having been the first Oxbridge-educated Ghanaian lawyer to have forged a remarkable career out of ravenously creaming the Ghanaian taxpayer and actually serving jail-time for the same. Nana Ato Dadzie, on the other hand, has spent much of his adult life licking the blood-stained boots of Ghana's longest-serving strongman, the former Chairman Jerry John Rawlings.
This may well explain why Nana Ato Dadzie finds it so extremely hard to put Mr. Kpegah, the Rawlings-gifted appointee to Ghana's Supreme Court and a failed contender for Chief Justice, in his place. Consequently, at the same time that he pretends to be vouching for the legal credentials and credibility of Nana Akufo-Addo, Nana Ato Dadzie has the temerity to chide Mr. Kweku Baako, editor-publisher of The New Crusading Guide, for aptly characterizing Mr. Kpegah's suit as one that is clearly “driven by malice and mischief.”
Reacting to Mr. Baako's spot-on placement of Mr. Kpegah exactly where the latter belongs, on the garbage dump, properly speaking, Nana Ato Dadzie rather outrageously accused The Crusading Guide editor-publisher of being intolerant of the views and actions of other people, “especially when those actions [and views] are within the law.”
In essence, Nana Ato Dadzie's absurdly contradictory assertion here is that Mr. Kpegah has absolutely every legal right to malign and defame the very man that the NDC Abongo Boy claims to have been called to the Bar with in the same year and at the same time. By the way, is Nana Ato Dadzie capable of self-respect? Go figure!
*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
April 28, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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