* NDC’s Prejudiced Position On Ya Na’s Case – Threats to Rule of Law and Peace in Ghana*

*NPP-USA*

NDC’s biased and provocative response to the acquittal of the 15 accused persons in the Ya Na’s case by a legitimate court of the land is troubling, it threatens the basic fundamental principles of Ghana’s nascent democracy, peace and stability. NDC’s infantile politicization, personalization and trivialization of the Ya Na’s case is mischievously heightening tensions between the parties and undermining the possibility of peaceful resolution of the conflict, as evident in the NDC youth’s violence in Tamale following the judgment.

Rather than brooding over the incompetence of the NDC government and its so-called legal team, party functionaries are castigating the Judiciary as flawed, incompetent, biased, corrupt and politicized. They are also disgracefully and maliciously incriminating and implicating the NPP and Nana Akufo -Addo with claims of influencing the Ya-Na ruling. What happened to the rule of law, separation of powers, due process of law and judicial independence in Ghana? NDC‘s diabolical agenda of paralyzing the Judiciary, goaded by political expediency is mediocre with suicidal consequences for Ghana’s democracy. Their desperation and bias are manifested in the Andanis’ threat to withdraw their support for them if the government fails to act urgently to seek “justice”. In pursuit of their clouded politically imperative “justice” at all cost to honor their deceitful campaign promise to the Andanis, the NDC intends to jettison the Wuaku commission’s report and establish a new commission packed with their cohorts. Ironically, the NDC hauled these 15 suspects before the court on the basis of the same Wuaku report validating the legitimacy, objectivity, honesty and competence of both the Wuaku commission and the court.

Legally, retrial of the 15 suspects exonerated by the legitimate Court of the land for the same offense is tantamount to double jeopardy prohibited by our local legal and international legal instruments. Article 14(7) of the * ICCPR* provides that “[no one shall be liable to be tried or punished again for an offence for which he has already been finally convicted or acquitted in accordance with the law and penal procedure of each country”.

The NDC has impaired its credibility as an honest and objective broker of peace with President Mills’ myopic and selective invitation of the Andanis to the castle to discuss means of pursuing “justice” in the wake of the court’s judgment to acquit the suspects. President Mills felt “frustrated and anguished by the High Court’s ruling acquitting the 15 persons in the Ya Na case”. The NDC has childishly taken a position in the conflict and has deservedly incurred the distrust and displeasure of the Abudus thereby undermining peaceful resolution of the conflict with the NDC as the peace broker.

Rawlings, the mysterious and self-proclaimed “justice advocate-in-chief”, suddenly holds the information to unlock the mystery surrounding the Ya Na case. He has noisily touted to seek justice in the Ya Na case but he mysteriously refused to seek justice for the late army captain and three judges, including a nursing mother, murdered under his regime. Rawlings’ ignorant claim that justice is unattainable because the superior courts are packed with “Kufour’s corrupt judges” is fallacious with the revelation that 11 of the 14 Supreme Court judges were inherited from Rawlings PNDC/NDC regimes and only 3 were appointed by the NPP.

Evidently, Rawlings’ schemes and manipulations of the Ya Na case is politically motivated to capture power at all cost and settle personal scores as evident in his daily rhetoric against the NPP and even President Mills. The tension between the two conflict parties is invigorated by Rawlings’ justification and support of violence by the NDC youth in Tamale in the wake of the ruling. Undoubtedly, Tamale’s NDC youth spurred on by the rhetoric of the murderous “pretender in Chief”, are demanding the “Head of the Chief Justice”.

We reiterate the position of our leaders and call on both parties to the conflict, the Abudu and Andani royal gates to ignore the deceitful promises of Rawlings and the NDC, rise beyond reproach and find strength in their common ancestry and proud heritage to forge a peaceful resolution to the issue. We call also on the government to jettison political mediocrity of selectivity and pursue objective policies to peacefully resolve the impasse. Finally, Ghana’s democracy, peace and stability is under the marauding siege of NDC’s mischievous politicization and personalization of sensitive national issues for short term myopic political gains and we must resist it for the sake of a peaceful future.