Abdul Malik Kweku Baako
Editor-in-chief of the Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako has described the petition for President John Mahama to pardon the Montie 3 contemnors to be a potentially dangerous invitation to enter into a minefield.
Mr Baako who said he was against custodial sentence said such a consideration will be like not only entering the minefield but assured the President will step on a mine.
Speaking on MultiTv/Joy News news analysis program, Newsfile, he called on the President to ignore the calls.
Adding her voice to the calls not to heed to the petitioners’ calls, a law lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) says it is unfair for anyone to petition the Presidents to pardon the trio.
According to Clara Kasser-Tee, the petitioners of the jailed contemnors are putting undue pressure on the President.
Photo: Deputy Education Minister and MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
“If you look at the effect of the perception and effect of it, is this what we really want? We should be mindful as we don’t want the arms of government to be antagonizing, competing for each other to trying to show who is more powerful,” she stressed.
She noted that it is important all the arms cooperate together for effective running of the country.
Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday sentenced a presenter of Montie FM, Salifu Maase popularly known as Mugabe and two presenters, Alistair Nelson and Godwin Ako Gunn for comments that the SC deemed were in contempt of the good name of the court.
A member of the pressure group Ocuppy Ghana, Egbert Faibile Jnr also prayed for the President not to listen to such calls.
Photo: Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Benjamin Dagadu
“It is even shameful that ministers of state working under the President actually ‘colluded’ with people to sign to put pressure on the President,” Mr Faibile said.
He said the President has a duty to upload the constitution and the judiciary is a critical arm when it comes to the dispensation of the Constitution and everything that comes with it.
Lawyers for convicted presenter and two panelists of an Accra-based Montie FM collected one million signatures to petition the President to pardon their clients.
A Deputy Education Minister in charge of tertiary, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Head of the Presidential Delivery Unit, Valerie Sawyerr, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Benjamin Dagadu on Thursday, joined to sign a petition book, opened on the premises of pro-government station Radio Gold, ostensibly to pile pressure on President, to free the Montie FM trio, jailed by the Supreme Court.
Photo: Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare
Nana Ato Dadzie, one of the lawyers, says their aim is not for the President to revert the sentences but to consider the three men regarding the custodial sentence.
A custodial sentence is a judicial sentence imposing a punishment consisting of mandatory custody of the convict in prison.
Nana Ato Dadzie who took the petition to the President said they are against custodial sentence adding, “The President should not only give a remission but move ahead to give that bill that would make it over with a custodial sentence.”
-myjoyonline