Open Letter To President Mahama

The montie trio

Your Excellency, please accept my greetings.

I am sure you will be very surprised to read this letter from me, more so in the open.

As you know very well, I am a dye in the wool NPP. Nothing can make me join NDC, and I am sure your party has no room for me either, so it is just as well.

But Mr. President, I am writing to you because of FOUR people’s views in the media about whether or not you should exercise your presidential powers of clemency for the jailed loud mouthed reckless NDC pundits, currently in the cooler.

The first person whose views prompted me to write this open, letter is the celebrated former President of the Ghana Bar Association, Mr. Sam Okudzeto. He did not mince words at all when he made it ’emphatically clear that the Montie FM chaps should have been given very harsh
penalties for their reckless unguarded misguided effusions.

Mr President, whether you like it or not, Mr. Sam Okudzeto is one person who commands respect in Ghana. His political associations notwithstanding, remember he is one of the most senior lawyers in Ghana today, and was for more than three years continuously the president of the Ghana Bar Association.

The second person who has prompted me to write you this letter is the Minister of Gender and Women Affairs – Nana Oye Lithur.

She is a lawyer, so I was very surprised when I saw her pictures in the dailies, signing a petition calling on you to exercise your powers of clemency to pardon the Montie boys.

A lawyer and Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection to plead for these guys.

The third person who has prompted me to write you this letter is the respected one time Vice Chancellor of Cape Coast University, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman.

Madam, why did you also sign the Petition?

But the main man who has jabbed me to write is your own lawyer, that famous lawyer’s lawyer, Tony Lithur, who says in the media that Mr President, do NOT disturb the penalty. Allow sleeping dogs to lie.

Mr. President, you know, I was not at all surprised when I heard that Tony Lithur was advising you NOT to disturb the penalty, because I said on one radio station some time ago that all the top lawyers in NDC who are around you will advise you NOT to disturb the penalty imposed upon these boys.

And, you know why?

Mr. President, permit me, with the greatest respect, to ask: would you wish you were the President of SOMALIA? Why not? Because that country is virtually in flames?

How about wishing you were President of Syria? Why not? Because it is a country ravaged by civil war?

Or Afghanistan? Or Iraq?

I have no doubt that you are perfectly happy being President of Ghana – that beautiful peace loving country, where you can just enjoy yourself being President, without fear of any military coup or assassination or rebellion.

Thank God – Mr President.

Your first and only obligation is to hand over to your successor whether in 2016 or 2020 a peaceful country, full of democrats.

But, Mr. President, this can only be done if there is LAW AND ORDER – period!!!

Law and Order. Yes. Mr. President. Law and Order. Guaranteed by the Constitution.

And the Constitution has created a big WATCHDOG, called the JUDICIARY – Judges, all over the country, to SAY what the law is, to enforce the LAW.

Mr. President, in Europe and America, people FEAR the LAW – because the law can make then arrest a sitting Vice President and throw him into jail for tax evasion. Yes. The law can force the President of the USA Richard Nixon to resign. The law??? It is the arbiter of justice, the
harbinger of PEACE.

And you know, Mr. President, I can tell you this -I have been a lawyer for nearly 30 years, by the Grace of God – no lawyer can absolutely predict the verdict in any Court case, because the dynamics are almost endless.

Judges are NOT saints nor angels. They are human beings, just like us, with wives and children, with husbands who are not totally honest to them and have been cheating on them.

Yes, Judges are mortals, and so they can make mistakes, and that is why we have an appellate system. If you are aggrieved, go on appeal.

Show me a peaceful country and I will show you a STRONG Judiciary. Show me a FAILED state and I will show you a weak domiciled judiciary.

All of us, especially those of us in the front ranks of society have a duty to promote the LAW, to enforce the LAW, to respect the LAW – it is the only way that we can guarantee our way of life.

For this reason, if anybody shows disrespect to the LAW, especially Judges, in the name of freedom of speech, please, Mr. President, as you said in a speech to KNUST students when you were Vice President, we must use even caterpillar to CRUSH the person, because we want
absolute PEACE in Ghana.

Now, let me be what lawyers call – the devil’s advocate.

Three irresponsible young men who I dare say are not paying rent from their salaries and are not paying school fees for their wards in senior high school- they seize the air waves and talk very irresponsibly about Justices of the Supreme Court – how dare they? Not even Magistrate in the District Court, not even Circuit Court Judges but JUSTICES of the Supreme Court!!! They are charged with contempt of Court, and they ran away with just four months jail term, and then God forbid – again God forbid – the President says I am the President, these are NDC boys, so I grant them special amnesty, they are free.

Very well, you have the power to do that. Okay.

Then three weeks later we hear in Kpokpokrom that a local serial caller on radio has openly threatened to kill Mr Justice Wolonyogome – is that contempt or libel or threat of death?

Oh, he is NDC – the President would pardon him………………………………………. …..then this……….. then that……..Ghana will slide into chaos…………

Is that what you want? Mr. President?

We may never know, but I am sure the NPP inclined Justices on the panel may have demanded very harsh penalty for these guys, while the NDC sympathizers may have wished a much lesser penalty, but compromises resulted in what we have.

As I said earlier, judges are mortals like us, with feelings. They have collectively spoken, and let us leave it like that.

Mr. President, it is not good at all that anytime there is going to be general elections then there is tension in Ghana – putting fear in people, that this and that,        why? Elections are not do and die business?

Why can’t the Electoral Commission do a clear job, neat, fair, for all? The winner in election 2016 will NOT be a Togolese, Senegalese or Burundian, but a full blooded Ghanaian – so why the fuss?

Please, Mr. President, calm down the tension.

Allow those rogues to pay the price for their recklessness. Thank God this is even from NDC.

Next time if anybody, especially NPP opposition talkers venture, they will check themselves.

You can quietly send some provisions to them to make life in jail a bit tolerable, but for heaven’s sake, DO NOT DISTURB THE PENALTY!!!!

From Nkrabeah Effah-Dartey