Opinions of Sunday, 24 December 2017

Columnist: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

I bet Woyome will cough up his stolen wealth!

Mr Alfred Woyome Mr Alfred Woyome

The caption of this brief column is, of course, a pun on the news article titled “You Will ‘Vomit’ Our Money – KwekuBaako Tells Woyome” GhanaCrusader.com / Ghanaweb.com 11/29/17). About all I can say here is that the Ghana Supreme Court ought to be heartily congratulated for putting the operatives of the so-called African Human Rights Court where they squarely belong, namely, in the realm of human rights, and not criminal justice, where the crimes for which the notorious National Democratic Congress’ thuggish underwriter was convicted.

About my only dissatisfaction here is that anybody who knowingly accepted some of the stolen GH? 51.2 million Woyome Heist money, as the convict himself has publicly hinted several times in the past, needs to be equally prosecuted. Which would make a remarkable percentage of the front-row leadership of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) actionably culpable.

Indeed, it was inexcusably insulting for the Tanzania-based African Human Rights to have presumed to second-guess the moral, intellectual and judicial integrity of the Supreme Court of Ghana. I hope the members of the African Human Rights Court were not strung up on some narcotic contrabands when they scandalously decided to give audience to a case whose contents and details lay well outside their jurisdictional purview.

Mr. Woyome needs to have additional charges brought against him for presuming to cavalierly impugn the integrity and the credibility of the highest court of the Sovereign Republic of Ghana. I, however, don’t agree with the Editor-Publisher of the New Crusading Guide, Mr. Abdul-Malik KwekuBaako, that the criminal convict is “playing delay tactics.” It is quite obvious that Mr. Woyome is fully convinced that he can get away with his crime for a number of quite plausible reasons.

One, the fact that he was staunchly backed in his decision to rob the Ghanaian taxpayer by the key operatives of the Mills-Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress, including then-Attorney-General Betty Mould-Iddrisu, and the latter’s deputy, Mr. Ebo Barton-Odro, seems to have fully convinced our mega-thief that there was absolutely no way that he could be brought to account. Then also, we had then-President John Evans Atta-Mills, late, publicly appear together with Mr. Woyome to caustically castigate those calling for this impudent fraudster to be vigorously and rigorously prosecuted, and even cynically praising Mr. Woyome for being a patriotic Ghanaian citizen who, all he did wrong was to selflessly advance the material development of the country.

And, finally, but by no means exhaustively, 8 years of National Democratic Congress’ occupancy of the helm of our national governance has only served to further convince the criminal convict that, indeed, he has good friends and associates in high places who are willing to disregard the laws of the land and staunchly ensure that he was never brought to book because, clearly, the reputation and freedom of these NDC movers-and-shakers are equally on the line, should Woyome be successfully prosecuted or brought to book.

Now that the proverbial dust has settled, it has become traumatically clear to the mega-scam-artist that, indeed, President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo was not jiving in the lead-up to the 2016 Presidential Election, when he promised the criminally scammed Ghanaian taxpayer that he intended to have Mr. Woyome fully settle accounts with his victims.

That the key operatives of the main opposition National Democratic Congress have decided to maintain a deathly silence on the Woyome Affair, ought to send a loud and clear signal to the Ghanaian voter that the NDC is a party of thieves and mega-scam-artists as, indeed, Justice Jones Dotse poignantly observed, when the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court described the singular agenda of the Mahama Posse as one that squarely entailed the “Creation, Looting and Sharing” of the public wealth.