NPP threatens Supreme Court justices

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has done the most disgusting thing by putting a death mark on the Supreme Court Justices who threw out Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo’s election petition and declared John Mahama as validly elected president of Ghana.

According to some elements of the party, the nine Supreme Court justices last Thursday endorsed thievery of the highest order, by declaring Mr. Mahama as the elected president.

The NPP’s Central Regional Chairman, Ekow Dankwa Smith, said the Supreme Court’s declaration, has made him see the justification of the murder of many Ghanaians, including the three High Court judges, who were callously abducted, cruelly shot and burnt under the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) era, led by Chairman Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings.

“I now understand why Rawlings killed many people in this country because there is no justice in this country. The reason why am saying this is that when I look at the many foreign materials that were identified in the ballot boxes, and they have been accepted as right, I have come to realize that we have a long way to go,” he said.

Mr. Smith, alias Buttey opined that it was most unfortunate for the nine judges to have arrived at a decision that nothing untoward happened at the December polls, when in the full glare of Ghanaians, the petitioners had identified and proved irregularities, such as over-voting which were admitted by the respondents as “foreign material”, suggested that these were some of the reasons why colleagues of the justices were allegedly murdered in cold blood by Mr. Rawlings during his military junta.

Speaking impeccable Twi, Mr. Smith, last Friday many times declared on an Accra based radio station Hot FM’s morning show programme “Adieakyiabia”, hosted by Ekuorba Gyasi that “I now understand why Rawlings killed many people”, adding the Supreme Court justices must be ashamed of themselves for endorsing what he kept saying was daylight thievery in the face of clear “foreign materials” identified in the ballot boxes.

On June 30 1982, some three High Court judges, Kwadwo Adjei Agyepong, Justice Fred Opoku Sarkodie, Justice Cecilia Koranteng Addow and a retired Army Officer, Major (Rtd) Sam Acquah were killed by operatives of the PNDC administration. Since then and deservingly so, their killing has been marked by members of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) and the Bench with solemn church services dubbed “Martyrs’ Day Celebration”.

Even a bust has been erected in front of the Supreme Court building in memory of the three High Court Justices and the retired Army officer at Bundase Military Training Range in the Dangbe West District of Greater Accra Region, six months into Mr. Rawlings’ PNDC regime. This was done after an expensive National Reconciliation exercise pivoted by President John Kufuor.

Though Chairman Rawlings has denied knowledge of that barbaric episode in the history of Ghana, the NPP led by the ex-press secretary to former President John Kufuor, and son of Justice Agyapong, one of the murdered judges, Kwabena Agyapong and their allies have consistently accused Mr. Rawlings of masterminding the murders.

This is not the first time that NPP elements have justified the highly condemned heinous murders of the four persons, especially the judges.

Few months ago when an errand boy for ex-First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, Ernest Kofi Owusu Bempah, was heard on an NPP sponsored platform “Let My Vote Count Alliance” (LMVCA) at Taifa, threatening the same justices, to ensure that they ruled in favour of the NPP as he repeatedly reminded them of the fates of the three murdered judges.

Owusu Bempah, kept repeating same the death threats on Kennedy Agyapong’s Oman FM, until Kofi Adams, spokesperson for ex-President Rawlings, stepped in, saying that his boss had been seriously angered by the threats served on the respected justices.

The Central Regional NPP Chairman, had specifically called into Hot FM’s “Adieakyiabia” programme to react to last Thursday’s Supreme Court verdict by registering his disappointment on the outcome of the case, and to express his admiration of the many murders that occurred under Mr. Rawlings’ regime.

“If stealing can be accepted in elections, then in 2016, we shall advice ourselves by adding more foreign materials and we shall see who will raise objection. It will get to a time when nobody will go and vote, we shall sit in our homes and invite foreign materials into ballot boxes, and nobody can say anything.

“Ghana is the only place we have, we shall not fight; the [judges] have been disgraced. Whatever that happened, we have accepted it, they should take it”, he said.

He sternly warned the justices, “But they should be rest assured that in 2016 more of the foreign materials will be added, because no one will sit there for him to be cheated, nobody is a woman here”.

The obviously disappointed chairman who described the work of the nine judges who dismissed the petitioners’ claims as very appalling, adding that even a Magistrate Court could have done a better job than what the nine judges led by Justice William Atuguba did.

“This case could have been adjudicated by even a magistrate court judge, am disappointed in them.“We are endorsing stealing in this country. The same way people allowed foreign materials into the boxes, the same way foreign moneys have gone into people’s pocket”. If foreign materials will be counted as valid votes, then it means we are endorsing stealing in this country.

“And for the judges to have endorsed foreign materials as valid votes, it is the same way I know foreign moneys will be put into people’s accounts,” he warned.

The dumbfound host of the programme, Ekuorba Gyasi, many times pushed Mr. Smith to explain the aspersions and what he meant that Mr. Rawlings was right in killing people, but he refused, but insisted that the killings were justified in the face of the Supreme Court judgment making Mr. Mahama, the winner of the 2012 presidential election.

He rather went on and served notice on Ghanaians that since a so-called “foreign materials” meant nothing to the Court and judges, the NPP would ensure that in the 2016 general elections, the party will stash the ballot boxes with “foreign materials”.

“There will be more foreign materials, we shall also do same..Nobody is a woman, and we will see who will say they are foreign materials,” he ventured.