If, indeed, Article 46 of Ghana’s National Democratic Congress-crafted 1992 Republican Constitution expressly calls for all proceedings seeking the removal of the Chief Justice or any Superior Court Jurist, for that matter, is to be strictly held in-camera, or privately, then Mr, Daniel Ofori, one of the widely alleged petitioners who reportedly fabricated bogus allegations of egregious professional misconduct against Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey-Torkornoo, needs to promptly and publicly explain precisely why the Mahama Presidency flagrantly flouted this statutory edict by illegally and unconstitutionally causing the contents of all three petitions, that is, both Mr. Ofori’s petition and those of his apparent partners and collusive and collaborative associates to be published on Social Media, where Mrs. Sackey-Torkornoo has publicly and categorically disclosed she first came across the damning but, so far, forensically unproven allegations of egregious professional misconduct that verges on outright criminality against the Third Ghanaian Woman to have been named to the Highest Seat and Portfolio on the august Supreme Court of Ghana (SCOG) – (See “Suspended CJ Acted in Clear Breach of the 1992 Constitution – A Petitioner Reacts to Presser” Modernghana.com 6/28/25)
You see, if he were as law-abiding as he so unctuously and hypocritically claims, Mr. Ofori would also have promptly acknowledged the readily accessible track record and the reputation of the very top leadership of the National Democratic Congress as criminal scofflaws, the most striking example of which was the late President John Evans “Atta-Woyome” Mills-instigated flat refusal by Messrs. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, the present Mahama-appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Dr. Edward (Kofi) Omane-Boamah, presently, Ghana’s Defense Minister, to promptly return landed and real-estate properties legitimately acquired by the late Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, at the time the National Chairman of the country’s main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), on the express instructions of then Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, Ghana’s First Female Chief Justice and The Longest-Serving Chief Justice in Postcolonial Ghana..
That today, even as I write, Dr. Omane-Boamah and Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa are key cabinet appointees in the Mahama 2.0 government, ought to clearly and eerily inform our Dear Reader and the Overwhelming Majority of Ghanaian Citizens As a Whole about the precise place or position that the key operatives of the second nonconsecutively elected Mahama government has the Entire Judicial Establishment of our Beloved Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana on its list of priorities. Even more significant to both note and underscore here for the indelible public record, is the fact of the leadership of the National Democratic Congress having established a globally infamous track record of assassinating superior court judges with whom they ideologically disagreed.
Then also, President Mahama is globally infamous for having spent at least the last 10 years virulently maligning and verbally attacking superior court judges and calling their common sense and professional integrity into question, and either directly or obliquely using personally hired and taxpayer remunerated sleuths and party-sponsored goons to threaten nearly each and every Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana appointed by their counterparts and main political and ideological opponents of the New Patriotic Party, beginning with Chief Justice Emerita Georgina Theodora Wood, as well as the recently retired Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, whose head an electorally defeated Candidate Mahama literally and expressly demanded to be promptly delivered to him at his private residence in the Township of Bole-Bamboi, in the former President Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region, scarcely four or five years ago.
Then, of course, there was also the long-running public putdown feud, or rather long-running harassment and persecution of Retired Appeals Court Judge, Mrs. Henrietta Abban, for presiding over Mr. Tastsu Tsikata’s prosecution and forensically legitimate and justifiable conviction in the open-and-shut corruption scandal at the then Tsikata-managed Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), under the tenure of the late former President Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings, Founding-Patriarch of the National Democratic Congress and consanguineal cousin of the convicted criminal.
The truth of the matter is that it is actually the very top leadership of the National Democratic Congress who have been rampantly and recklessly breaking the sacred laws of our beloved Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana with abandon and indescribable impunity. In sum, not only do the leaders of the National Democratic Congress have absolutely no regard for the dignity and the integrity of both the individual members of the Judiciary and the entire institutional establishment of the Judiciary, President Mahama has also cavalierly gone on public record as impugning the very credibility and the integrity of our national security establishment, in particular the institutional establishment of the Ghana Police Service (GPS).
Under his previous regime, not only did Mr. Mahama engage taxpayer-financed private investigative services of the Anas Aremeyaw Anas-owned and operated Tiger-Eye PI Company to virtually and effectively undermine the image and the credibility of deliberately and specially targeted members of our judiciary, almost invariably members with ideological leanings towards the main opposition New Patriotic Party, Mr. Mahama did so without seeking parliamentary approval. Now, what the preceding means is that, to-date, Ghanaian taxpayers have absolutely no idea precisely how much was forked up in support of constitutionally unauthorized activities of the collaborative decision of a criminally and thoroughgoing corrupt attempt by Messrs. Mahama and Aremeyaw to effectively destroy law and order in the country.
No civilized democracy around the globe maintains the indispensable rule of checks-and-balances, such as enviably prevails right here and right now in the United States of America, where Ghana’s President John “Ford Expedition SE Payola” Dramani Mahama has visited and stayed, both officially and unofficially, for brief spells on innumerable occasions, would so crudely subordinate the politically and statutorily coordinate establishments of the Judiciary to the institutional establishment of the Executive. This is the one most critical problem and weakness of politically motivated lawyers like Mr. Yaw Anokye Frimpong, who bizarrely supposes the august office of the Chief Justice to be just another infra-presidential cabinet portfolio like that of the Attorney-General and the Minister of Justice, for just the most obvious example. How pathetic!
At any rate, Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey-Torkornoo has publicly and fearlessly signaled to the Mahama 2.0 Jubilee House that she has absolutely nothing to hide from Ghanaian citizens at large; so, what is preventing the President and his corporate board of certified railroaders and self-righteous kleptocrats from taking up her gauntlet?
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]
