The case in which hip-shooting Assin-Central New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) Kennedy Ohene Agyapong reportedly used some contemptuous and unflattering words against a Justice of the High Court is quite interesting, if also because while the contempt of court charge or charges against the appellant were allowed to stand, nevertheless, the presiding Justices of the Supreme Court of Ghana (SCG) also made it categorically clear to the concerned High Court Judge, Mr. Amos Wuntah Wuni, that the latter had absolutely no right, whatsoever, to presume to take the great power and influence of the judicial establishment for granted or into his own hands (See “Justice Wuni Biased Towards Ken Agyapong – Supreme Court” Modernghana.com 10/27/20).
Likewise, the presiding jurists of the Apex Court clinically and objectively observed that the fact that Justice Wuni had been inadvisably prejudicial by taking a vengeful and vindictive tack to the fundamental administration of justice, absolutely in no way justified or licensed the accused contemnor to intemperately and cavalierly volley unprintable verbal invectives at Justice Wuni, who also could not play referee and skipper in his own court. We are further informed that the matter at issue, in which the proprietor of the Oman Media Organization or Network sought to impugn the judicial and professional integrity of Justice Wuni, had to do with a landed property acquisition or ownership dispute which had apparently been decided against Mr. Agyapong, who has often behaved as if influential and key operatives of the government of the day had an inalienable constitutional right to selfishly manipulate the third coequal arm of the government, the other two arms being, of course, the executive and the legislature, both of which Mr. Agyapong often appears to be heavily and personally invested, although as a non-cabinet or ministerial appointee, Mr. Agyapong properly belongs to the legislature.
Obviously, his intrusive and obtrusive behavior has everything to do with the established de facto National Democratic Congress’ brassy tradition of “State Capture,” in which the legal and coercive apparatus of the State was cavalierly cannibalized by the Rawlings Posse in ways that often made it appear as if the leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had proprietary rights over the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana. The latter political and administrative anomaly is, of course, a direct carryover from the Chairman Jerry John Rawlings-led bloody and extortionate junta of the erstwhile Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), that effectively and hermetically dominated Ghana’s political landscape from December 31, 1981 to January 7, 1992 or thereabouts. It is a cancerous national political hangover that has yet to be radically and effectively extirpated or remedied. The Assin-Central MP does not help matters the least bit with his dogged and rambunctious pursuit of a decidedly effete political modus operandi that ought to have been abandoned on the eve of the official establishment of our Fourth Republican democratic dispensation.
Indeed, while such vengeful or retaliatory behavior may be very logical and pretty much in keeping with the jaded law of poetic justice, it does not advisably advance the cause of the present demand for a civilized democratic dispensation. Which is not absolutely in any way to suggest the least bit that Christocentric cheek-turning must be the unilateral pursuit of the leadership of the neoliberal New Patriotic Party and the general membership of the latter political establishment. Rather, what this means is that firebrand and influential leaders like Mr. Agyapong need to role-model themselves in such a way as to clearly and positively distinguish the leadership of the New Patriotic Party from that of the politically and philosophically regressive leadership of the faux-socialist and pathologically incurably Social Darwinian National Democratic Congress.
Ultimately, some morally deterrent sanctions may have to be exacted from Mr. Kennedy Agyapong, if the establishment of the judiciary is to be respected by the rich and famous and the politically powerful in Ghanaian society. In the same vein, errant and professionally questionable bench members like Justice Amos Wuntah Wuni may have to be referred for professional counselling and development services and/or refresher courses, if the credibility, respectability and the institutional integrity of our judicial system and establishment is to be assured.
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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
December 19, 2020
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., © 2020
The author has 5413 publications published on Modern Ghana.Column: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr
