...Gov?t?s failure to respond to petition against C.J.

More than a month after Francis Dzanku Kofi Asase petitioned the President and copied the petition to five others including the Chief Justice he has not had the courtesy of giving acknowledgement. According to Francis Dzanku Kofi Asase since he was expecting a response to his petition detailing why Justice E.K. Wiredu should be removed as Chief Justice, he has been visiting the post office to get a response as to what action the government intends to take.

This has not happened. ?I am surprised that this should be the case because I thought I had revealed enough for the President to set up a forum to go into the merits and demerits of my petition? ?In fact I was very happy when the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice E.K. Wiredu, in a press statement said that he had received the petition albeit belatedly and that he was prepared to cooperate with the commission that would be set up to go into the petition which he described as mischievous and libelous.

?I thought this is a commitment enough on the part of the Chief Justice that he is prepared to appear before a commission to clear the dark clouds surrounding his fitness to be the Chief Justice of Ghana. Readers might recall that in our edition no. 01007 ? 174 x 1006 dated 26th ? 28th August, 2002 we carried the whole petition unedited with exhibits of Admission Register when Justice Wiredu enrolled at the Primary School. We further published the C.V. of Justice Wiredu presented at the Parliamentary Appointment Committee when he was being vetted.

And as the saying goes ?If the mountains will not go to Mohammed , Mohammed will go to the Mountains.? So Francis Dzanku Asaase Kofi has chosen the second option ? he has engaged the services of a crack team of senior lawyers to handle his Petition for him. This, he has done with a power of attorney which we have published on this page blotting out the leading name in the document for the meantime.

According to Francis Dzanku, he has taken this line of action because the President who has taken the road of zero tolerance has not set up a commission to go into his petition. He said in an interview that, at the end of it all if Justice E.K. Wiredu is found to have lied before the Parliamentary Appointment Committee, he would be removed immediately without further delay. ?The Judiciary which is made up of honourable judges are supposed to tell the Truth and nothing else but the Truth,? adding that ?there is a parallel in Nigeria when the President of the Nigerian House of Representatives who was found to have lied about his age was forced to resign when President Obasanjo took office.

There is also an instance in the US when Vice President Spiro Agnew was found incompetent to be the Vice President of the United States when he was found to have done something which did not warrant him to be a Vice-President. According to Dzanku?s key Counsel, ?We have found out since the petition was filed, that Justice E.K. Wiredu did not attend the Adisadel School straight from the elementary school and that he was admitted at the Achimota school and had to leave due to an incident.

He got into Accra Academy and eventually the Adesidel School. So he lied before the Parliamentary Appointments Vetting Committee when he did not include in his C.V.? The leading Counsel also told the ?Ghanaian Voice? that the case would be taken both to local and international courts specifically in London where Justice E.K. Wiredu was called to the bar at the MIDDLE TEMPEL from where he started his practice before coming to Ghana. ?I laughed when the Majority leader in Parliament Paapa Owusu Ankomah said in Luv FM Radio Programme in Kumasi when the news first broke out in the Ghanaian Voice that Chief Justice has cheated in his age? that the petition is belated and mischievous and that why was this petition was not brought to the notice of the Appointments Committee when the Chief Justice was being vetted.

?I find this piece of news not only ridiculous, insulting but also shameful. I thought Paapa Osusu Ankomah should have known better and not try lamely to throw dust into the eyes of the public to make the truth look the other way round.? For people like Paapa Ankoma and those who think like him, I want to ask him or them just once question. ?If somebody murders some one and he is not found out immediately and the facts came out in future to incriminate the real killer what has he got to say about that?

?At a point in time Paapa Owusu Ankoma was the Acting Minister for Information and I happened to know that in the journalistic ethics when the truth is discovered after some years that becomes an instant hit news and not dead news, and that it did surface at that time is no excuse at all. ?I was expecting the Speaker of Parliament Mr. Peter Ala Adjetey, Mr. Alban Bagbin the Minority Leader in Parliament and Paapa Owusu Ankomah all who are recipients of my petition to raise the issue. If they didn?t do it my team of Lawyers will do it.