After a rather strained conversation with a friend one Saturday afternoon (7th February, 2009) it suddenly dawned on me that he was right in saying that the new Mills administration faces a potential danger that many Ghanaians are unaware of.
The post-election regime-change euphoria generated amongst many Ghanaians, including even some of those in the media who truly love mother Ghana, has blinded many of us too, to a clear and present danger facing our nation.
It is important that those in the media who take their watchdog role in society seriously (and have never allowed their consciences to be bought by members of our political class – from across the spectrum of Ghanaian politics) act to alert the nation to what is one of the biggest dangers now facing the enterprise Ghana.
Our nation’s march towards progress, the transformation of our society into Africa’s equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia, could be halted in its tracks – if the new administration is held hostage: by an alliance between those who benefited so mightily from the patronage of the powerful tribal-supremacist cabal that dominated the previous regime and some of the members of a supposedly-independent judiciary: who were apparently sympathetic to the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime.
For Ghana’s independent-minded patriots, including the so-called “floating-voters” (the discerning, non-partisan and non-tribalistic Ghanaians, whose crucial votes gave President Mills victory in eight out of Ghana’s ten regions), it is vital that Professor Mills’ administration succeeds. Consequently, it is important that the dark forces of the past are not allowed to sabotage his regime, by stealth, under any circumstances.
Initially, I was appalled by the thrust of my friend’s argument – as I saw it as an attack on an independent judiciary. However, upon reflection, it suddenly occurred to me that what my friend was saying was indeed profound. An alliance between the anti-democratic elements in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and those judges who were apparently being relied on by the Maxwell Kofi Jumahs and the Atta Akeas, to overturn the 2008 presidential and parliamentary election results in a number of key constituencies is indeed a distinct possibility.
It will be recalled that both Maxwell Kofi Jumah and Atta Akyea, in recorded conversations broadcast on Radio Gold FM’s “Election Forensics” programme, made statements that made it clear that both knew their party could always rely on certain judges to deliver favourable judgments for the NPP government, in cases in which the previous regime had an interest.
No one who listened to those recordings could have failed to understand that the Maxwell Kofi Jumahs, the Atta Akyeas and the Malik Yakubu Alhassans (who were obviously having what they all thought were secret conversations being held behind closed doors) were working feverishly to subvert the will of ordinary Ghanaians – and steal the election by stealth: in the immediate aftermath of the December 2008 elections.
A key part of their strategy was the role that members of the judiciary, whom they referred to as the “right” judges, were expected to play in their attempt to deny Ghanaians the change they so obviously desired – as those cynical oligarchs masquerading as believers in democracy and the rule of law, sought to manipulate the judiciary in what in effect was a rolling coup attempt: which their recourse to using a section of what in reality is an unelected and unaccountable judiciary, represented.
It is also instructive that just recently, a key figure amongst those who only yesterday sought to deny Ghanaians the change they so clearly wanted, the newly-elected member of parliament for Abuakwa South, Atta Akyea, conveniently forgot his own anti-democratic utterances and disgraceful attempt to manipulate the legal process and help the NPP steal an election, when he made an intervention during the sitting of the parliamentary committee vetting the president’s nominees for ministerial appointments.
During the vetting by the parliamentary committee responsible for vetting those nominated by the president for ministerial positions, Atta Akeyea (who in the infamous “Election Forensics” tape-recordings broadcast by Radio Gold was heard saying in Twi: “…saa democracy nonsense yii…”) sought to pose what many saw as a most absurd question – which made reference to the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) era when Ghana was ruled by a military dictatorship.
There are some who wondered what Atta Akyea’s real motive was for posing what on the surface seemed an innocuous question. Was the idea to possibly evoke in the minds of some of those listening to the committee’s hearings, the positive picture of a member of the party apparently dedicated to freedom in Ghana, the NPP, questioning a former cadre of yesteryear’s dictatorial PNDC regime – now about to become a minister in the new Mills administration, perhaps?
Clearly, one of the tactics in the strategy adopted by those who benefitted materially from the previous regime and consequently now wish the new Mills administration to fail, is to define it as a natural successor to the PNDC military dictatorship – which Maxwell Kofi Jumah made an oblique reference to when he was recorded giving a pep-talk to the myrmidon-types (the “Macho-men”) that his party had recruited to snatch ballot boxes and to help them successfully rig the December 2008 election.
Are the verbal-sleights-of-hand of the Atta Akyeas of Ghanaian politics a pointer to the future – and part of the propaganda tactics in the strategy adopted by those powerful anti-democratic and elitist Akan tribal-supremacist elements in the NPP: who apparently thought Ghanaians had no right to vote their party out of power and sought to use all possible means (fair and foul), to achieve their aim of staying in power regardless of the national mood, perhaps?
If the new Mills administration is to succeed it must clip the wings of the dangerous tribal supremacist cabal that dominated the previous regime – and hijacked virtually the whole machinery of state for their personal benefit as well as that of their family clans and cronies.
To checkmate those enemies of our nation, it is in the national interest that the new Mills administration investigates what was a clear coup attempt by those who tried to rig the December 2008 polls. There is enough evidence to prosecute some of those who sought to deny Ghanaians the change they wanted – such as the shocking things heard in the “Election Forensics” programme tape-recordings played by Raymond Archer and broadcast by Radio Gold FM during the December 2008 elections.
The government must prosecute all those who were part of what clearly was a conspiracy to subvert Ghanaian democracy, during, and in the immediate aftermath, of the December 2008 – and whose outrageous plans, thank God, were thwarted by the vigilance of those Ghanaians whose heroic actions that day showed the wisdom in the popular saying: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
The new administration must also do what all US administrations do to ensure that their political agenda is not frustrated by the judiciary – make sure that they promote people who share their worldview to the US Supreme Court whenever vacancies occur amongst the justices of the US Supreme Court.
It is clear from those infamous Maxwell Kofi Jumah and Atta Akyea tape-recordings that the NPP was able to pack the judiciary with judges, whom it was obvious, they could manipulate at will. Professor Mills’ regime must do all it can to help protect Ghanaian democracy by finding a way to get all such compromised judges to retire from the bench quickly, on their own accord.
If the NDC regime fails to do so because they fear being accused (by those who probably wish them ill, in any case) of interfering with the judiciary, they will wake up to find, four years hence, that their regime had effectively been held hostage by a few corrupt, unelected and unaccountable judges loyal to the crooks who gang-raped mother Ghana so brutally, during the tenure of the NPP.
We must not allow those who when presented with a historic opportunity by Providence to set new standards of morality in our public life and deepen the roots of Ghanaian democracy by committing themselves to the rule of law, failed our nation, to stop the new administration from implementing the manifesto it presented to Ghanaians and which eventually won them the December 2008 elections.
If President Mills wants his regime and our country to succeed, he must act boldly to rid the judiciary of all those judges who chose to collaborate with the previous regime in pursing its selective-justice agenda.
If the president fails to do so his regime risks being held to ransom by those selfsame judges – who for all we know may still be loyal to those amoral men (and women) of yesterday, who held power not too long ago and abused it with total impunity: and who now wish to get away with their crimes against the ordinary people of Ghana and their nation, by manipulating the members of the judiciary whom they referred to once upon a time as the “right” judges, to frustrate the work of the new administration. A word to the wise…
May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
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