#FixTheCountry convener, Oliver Mawusi Barker-Vormawor is accusing the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame of being used by the president to settle personal scores.

Reacting to the High Court judgement in the trial of the Republic vs Gregory Afoko and Asabke Alangdi; Vormawor who is also a private legal practitioner wondered why the government has been hell-bent on seeking a conviction against the first accused.

“Afoko was granted bail. The AG appealed it to a sympathetic judge, the bail was reversed.

“Then he was tried for 4 years; when the AG realized he would lose; he told the judge that he wants to withdraw the case. As soon as Afoko was released, he was immediately re-arrested in front of the Court and charged with the same offence.

“Then he was tried again for the second time. Another 4 years. The AG lost the case (again). Afoko won by 4-3 majority.

“AG says because Afoko didn’t win by 7-0, he will try him again. Despite the AG suggesting that he is bound by law to retry Afoko, ignore his childish inability to take responsibility for his own decisions. No law compels a person to be retried. Prosecutions and retrials are always at the discretion of the AG,” the activist said in a Facebook post in reaction to the 4:3 jury verdict in which the first accused was found not guilty for the offence of conspiracy to commit murder.

A seven-member jury panel on Thursday, April 27, 2023, found both accused persons charged for the murder of the late New Patriotic Party Upper East Regional Chairman, Adams Mahama not guilty.

However, the panel found the second accused guilty of the offence of conspiracy to commit murder while the first accused was not found guilty of the same offence in a 4-3 hung vote.

But reacting to the ruling in his Facebook post, Barker-Vormawor alluded that Gregory is a victim of persecution by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as a result of his feud with brother of the accused, Paul Afoko who is a former national chairman of the NPP.

“No one in our history has ever been tried 3 times for the same murder. I am sure this time, they will bring people from Kyebi, maybe those doing the Galamsey in the President’s garden to be on the jury, so they can secure that guilty verdict once and for all.

“Whatever Paul Afoko did to Nana Addo for him to take it on his brother must be really serious. But this is exactly what our democracy was supposed to protect us against. Democracies do not countenance Persecutions. Sadly our electoral dictatorship thrives on with judicial connivance,” he said.

He pointed that the actions of the government exposes the incompetence of the attorney general and wondered why Ghanaians are not demonstrating over the matter.

“Unfortunately, criminal conspiracy by the crooks that run this town has destroyed the basic morality of law in this town and undermined just aspirations of citizens to the rule of law.

“In democracies, Afoko would have been a cause Celebre for pro democracy activists. 1000’s of people will be picketing at the Attorney Generals office now. Why? Not because they were promised kenkey. But because they recognize that when law fails to protect 1, it fails to protect us all.

“Through Afoko, the moral ineptitude of our Minister of Justice is so plain. I pray very much for Godfred Dame that in the long life he has ahead when they lose power; that he meets an Attorney-General who wields the empathy he currently lacks; and the maturity to not to abuse power the way he seems unable to control,” he added.

Adams Mahama was murdered in May 2015 in a gruesome acid attack at the height of an NPP internal election.

In October of the same year, Paul Afoko was suspended as National Chairman of the party on the accusation of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Nana Addo who was then a flagbearer of the party.



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GA/SARA