Two versions of political truth in Ghana!
Ever wonder what constitutes truth in our appreciation of public events and news? The current confusion over the limited voter registration between our two major political parties should warn anybody with a modicum of engaged interest in our politics that things are not what they seem. The utterly cynical would think everything is contrived and unreal and fake for the benefit of the bemused public. But then the serious injuries, acid baths and deaths, assaults and free slaps which accompany such seemingly contrived agitation must act as a break on our cynicism.
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The Wontumi current brouhaha reminds me forcefully of the incident in 2000, also in the selfsame Ashanti Region involving Okumkom Nana Akwasi Agyeman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and then plain Dr Richard Anane, the Member of Parliament for the opposition then, the New Patriotic Party (NPP). I believe the former, a royal and a fixture at the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly since the days of General Kutu Ach
There is a slight but important difference though. Nana Agyeman and Dr Anane belonged to two different parties. The current case involving the MP for Manhyia North, Mr Collins Owusu Amankwaah and Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, NPP Ashanti Regional Chairman, involves members of the same party! It is such as this that emboldens the cynics to believe everything is contrived, artificial and unreal. I would not be surprised if the much-anticipated re-run of the primary vote in that constituency never takes place!
Some such change of mind for prosecution happened in the KKD rape case and nothing came out of it. These stories, the direct result of invidious legal and political advice only end up sowing and watering the seeds of cynicism in our public affairs. Not to talk about the impunity that they so loudly signify.
Let me give another example involving the vexed issue of the rule of law so-called in this country as between what happened in a military regime on one hand and a democratic constitutional regime on the other. Both were extreme miscarriages of justice. Both had and still have their champions completely oblivious of the fact that personal liberty must not be toyed with by the state under any circumstance.
I was in court in July 1985 when Mr Appiah-Menkah provided through the prosecutor, CO Lamptey, a receipt for the payment into PNDC Account 48 at the Bank of Ghana of C4 million then a very respectable sum as refund in a weird land compensation case before the George Agyekum Public Tribunal. This should have settled the matter and concluded the proceedings against my senior brother Apino. But it was not to be.
The case proceeded the following week and he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. If this was a good reason to abhor military regimes and revolutionary justice as its version of the rule of law was dubbed, you would be advised to retain your cynicism about what the rule of law means even in democratic, constitutional regimes.
Former Trade Minister Dan Abodakpi was prosecuted successfully in this country for the loss of a sum of $400,000, which amount was at all material times sitting comfortably at Ecobank in the time of President Kufuor. We had some of our best and brightest legal minds defending this rank injustice. Why? But Abodakpi was among those pardoned at the 11th hour on the eve of the Kufuor presidency on January 6, 2009.
It is not enough to claim that the rules were scrupulously observed in both cases in keeping with the different versions of the rule of law at play. The question which cries out for answer in both cases is what is the truth? Both Appiah-Mekah and Abodakpi were targeted by the respective regimes for condign punishment to teach them where power lies.
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Luckily for the moral health of this republic, President Atta Mills decided that no prosecution should ensue after appropriate reparations in the case involving the former Speaker of Parliament, the Right Honourable Ebenezer Sekyi-Hughes. There are thus, differences in approach for similar rules of law in the period of democratic or constitutional rule, something that Abodakpi did not enjoy.
The other day, I heard my friend Kweku Baako claiming that the suspended NPP national chairman, Paul Afoko, was party to the importation of Serbians to train party members. It was one of my professors at Legon who forcefully said that anything which sounds like a lie as a general rule is a lie. Afoko rejoined forcefully daring Baako to prove this monstrous assertion designed to not only make Afoko guilty by association, but also link the party to possible breaches of the constitutional order. Was this allegation intended to advance the view that the Serbians were here for completely legal purposes and that nothing unconstitutional was planned by their presence in Ghana?
Like the Apino and Abodakpi cases, now joined in ignominy by the Anane case of 2000 cited above and the Wontumi case, these matters and their handling by the powers that be are designed to deaden our sense of justifiable outrage and increase our sense of cynicism which in turn fuel purposeless lamentations and gripes at the kind of society we are constructing for ourselves with the happy and willing connivance of the best and brightest among us.
One of the things that struck me at the beginning of the Kufuor presidency was his statement when he visited the outgoing President Rawlings, that we treat ourselves savagely in our politics, and yet we expect justice when the shoe is on the other foot.
Exactly what drives some of us to twist the course of justice and yet expect justice from others? And how do they feel screaming that they are champions of the rule of law to the exclusion of others? Is the administration of justice as heavily-laden with human frailty as to make nonsense of the confidence we must have in our pursuit of a just society?
The media happily gets into the act by glamourising and placarding obvious breaches of our laws. I must hurriedly add that I myself defended the decision by the journalist Daniel Kenu to settle a similar assault case against him in you guessed right, the same Ashanti Region in the aftermath of our botched performance at the Brazil World Cup tournament two years ago. I was roasted by the shameless media men who imagined I cared less about the rights of members of their profession.
There is no comparison between acts of lawlessness perpetrated by journalists on one hand and serious and senior political officeholders on the other. The latter endangers our nation and that is where we must draw the line in our outrage at the impunity.
Or all is meaningless and a farce? Which brings me back to the question, what is the truth? The answer Jesus sought in the Bible was enigmatically sidelined. But then, the fate of the Christ was predetermined by prophecy. As long as we praise and champion the coarsening of the concept of truth and justice in our politics, we shall continue to enjoy an unjust society no matter the political ends such twists and turns are meant to serve.
aburaepistle@hotmail.com