By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 1, 2014
E-mail: [email protected]
Following the Wood-presided Supreme Court's ruling that mega scam-artist - some choose to call him a businessman - Alfred Agbesi Woyome should return the entire sum of GHC 51.2 million extorted from the government and people of Ghana under fraudulent contractual pretences, a spokesman for the embattled major financier of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) signaled that Mr. Woyome had absolutely no intention, whatsoever, of returning the stolen money to his victims (See "We Respect Supreme Court Ruling, But... - Woyome" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/30/14).
Instead, according to the Woyome wag, Mr. Reginald Dogbe, his boss, who also has a criminal case pending against him at the Accra High Court, intends to take his case to the International Court of Arbitration. Mr. Dogbe, perhaps hopelessly strung up on some narcotic contraband, insisted that the alleged contractual compact initialled between Mr. Woyome and the Ghana Government, purportedly concerning the construction of several stadia facilities, could not be legitimately characterized as an "international transaction." If so, then why would Mr. Dogbe contradict himself by seeking redress in The Hague or Europe?
Well, the fact of the matter is that the Waterville construction firm for whose principals and assigns Mr. Woyome unconscionably fronted, leading up to one of the largest contractual heists in postcolonial Ghanaian history, are none of them bona fide citizens of Ghana. And neither are their companies either headquarted or registered in Ghana. But I am more interested in Mr. Dogbe's pro-forma statement that the latter and his boss respected the decision of the Supreme Court but, nevertheless, intended to fiercely fight the decision of the country's court of last resort in the international arena.
A pro-forma statement, of course, amounts to exactly what that term basically implies, which is that it was uttered purely as a matter of protocol, rather than its being a well-considered statement of grave moral conviction. If so, then, really, the Woyome spokesman was simply thumbing his nose at the highest court of the land when he registered his aforesaid post-decision reaction. We also, of course, recognize the fact that the Supreme Court had earlier on found, or decided, in favor of the culprit.
Then also, we need to fully bear in mind the fact that Mr. Woyome is a key player of the so-called Sogakope Mafia, headed by the globally notorious Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, whose Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) junta summarily executed several senior Ghanaian military officer-politicians by firing squad, for having literally borrowed the relatively meager sums of $50,000 housing loans from some publicly owned and operated banking institutions in the country.
Maybe Messrs. Dogbe and Woyome need to be reminded that the country's Fourth-Republican Constitution could be significantly modified in order to facilitate the special tailoring of the ultimate punishment for an unconscionable Class-A Felon as the culprit, for willfully and criminally conspiring and contracting with foreign principals to destroy the economic and political stability of his own country. If the Woyome heist is not tantamount to the ultimate betrayal of one's patriotism, I don't know what else is.
Once again, must be recalled the fact that Mr. Woyome and his spokesman may be in abject denial of the sobering reality facing them, largely because for the greater span of this epic scandal, Mr. Woyome has had the bloody ruling political machine of the so-called National Democratic Congress at his beck and call, to the flagrant extent of even once having the late President John Evans Atta-Mills publicly hail his protege as a vanguard Ghanaian patriot and philathropist who deserved to be idolized and hero-worshipped than criminally and ungratefully villified.
Well, we will be studiously watching and following Mr. Woyome's high court battle; and we intend to serve up our frank and fearless analysis of the same to our audience. Till then, once again, we take this prime opportunity to congratulate both Mr. Martin Amidu, the former Attorney-General who got rudely and sullenly booted from the erstwhile Mills-Mahama cabinet for standing up to his thoroughgoing corrupt late scam-artist boss of a president, and the latter's lieutenants; as well as the Wood-presided Supreme Court, for refusing to be intimidated by the anti-judicial terrorist track-record of the now-Mahama-led government of the Provisional/National Democratic Congress.
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