COP Kofi Boakye
Three residents of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region have dragged four persons including COP Kofi Boakye, the former Regional Police Commander before a Kumasi High Court for contempt.
The applicants-Adwoa Adowaa, Abusuapanin Ohene Tufour and Abena Mensah want the court to imprison the Police Chief for demolishing and destroying properties on a parcel of land at Santase roundabout which was a subject of litigation before the court as far back as 2004.
The other respondents are: the Regional Lands Officer of the Lands Commission, Akwasi Addai Odike and the Commander, Striking Force, Buffalo Unit, Kumasi.
According to the applicants, the conduct of the respondents was intentionally done to malign and undermine the competence of the judiciary.
Nana Obiri Boahene, lawyer for the three, insists the action of the respondents by willfully, maliciously, intentionally pulling down the structures constructed on the land has prejudiced the case.
He said the act was intentionally done to expose the administration of justice to public ridicule and contempt, thereby undermining the efficacy, the integrity and the potency of the judiciary.
An affidavit in support of the motion, among others indicated that the Police Service was laying claim to the land which had not been allocated to it.
The applicants stated that later they were informed that the Regional Lands Officer and the Lands Commission as a body, have entered into “an unholy alliance and convey same to Addai Odike and some prominent police personalities in order to fraudulently take over the subject matter of litigation.”
Mr. Obiri Boahen who is also the Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) said “in furtherance of the unholy alliance, which is characterized by fraud, personnel of the Ghana Police Service which is a defendant in an action commenced as far back as 2004 took the laws into their hands and in total defiance and abuse of law and order took the laws into their own hands in gross abuse of the legal procedure by unlawfully entering the land.”
The applicant’s lawyer contended that the conduct of the respondents is reprehensible and must not be treated with “kids-gloves” because they were aware of the pendency of the case.
Lawyer Obiri Boahen stated that “for far too long, indiscipline has bedeviled our society such that people like the respondents who are supposed to know better ought to be imprisoned to serve as a lesson to every law abiding citizen.”
Aside the call for the incarceration of the four, the applicants also requested an order directed at the ‘contemnors’ to reconstruct the demolished structures.
By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson