• And will knock him out on May 2

Runaway retired Supreme Court Justice, Francis Yaonasu Kpegah, seems to be winning the bragging rights to his impending legal heavyweight match with the 2012 Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, despite failing to turn out for their first meeting in court Tuesday.

According to the former judge, who says the court battle will remind Ghanaians of the “thrilla in Manila” third boxing rematch between Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier, his writ has already left the NPP flagberearer and his legal team confused about his motive and what he has up his sleeves.

And when the real fight begins, he is hopeful of securing a knock-out against one of Ghana’s most decorated legal luminaries, whom he has labeled an impersonator.

“You wait for my motion for summary judgement and affidavit in support to see if they can match them. I’ve bamboozled them enough” he said, in an interview aired on radio yesterday, saying he would knock out the NPP flagbearer in round one when the two meet in court next week Thursday, May 2nd for the legal battle over Nana Addo’s true status as a lawyer to begin.

In Kpegah’s view, the legal team of the NPP flagbearer committed judicial sacrilege when they sought to move an application to strike out the writ he filed at the Fast Track High Court Tuesday.

For the former Supreme Court justice, all that has been happening at the moment has been shuffling and shifting of feet.

The legal battle “has not yet started.” We are just shadow boxing. We are just in training session. I will knock him out in Round 1 and if he survives Round 2 he’ll be dead. We have not gone into the meat of the case yet... The main case is coming later on. My motion for summary judgment under Order 40 has not been taken yet; it’s been fixed for 2nd May,” he noted.

For the controversial retiree, he is on the way to a knock-out victory. “Were you not surprised when he came out to say his qualifying certificate was lost” he asked. “That is enough for me…” he said, claiming that Akufo-Addo has not cited one single principle in law to support his case so far but I have based my case on acute law.”

Justice Kpegah, who pledged to personally herald his case in court next week with a selected team of lawyers, said his non-appearance in court two days ago had to do with health challenges.

“I had to see my consultant for review. That is why I sent the solicitor; a counsel to represent me, a lawyer to argue for the motion.”

He claimed his mission to stop Akufo-Addo from practicing law has to do with ensuring that “no non-qualified professional should hide...and be practicing illegally.”

He blamed the Fast Track High Court Judge for granting audience to Lawyer Godfred Yeboah Dame, lead counsel of the NPP flagbearer, to move an “ill conceived application” to strike out the case in the matter involving himself and his client with suit number AP 94/2013.

He argued that the application by Akufo-Addo to have his (Kpegah) writ struck out for being frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of the court process was misplaced and erroneous in law. This is because Order 11, Rule 18 of CI 47 deals with 'striking out pleadings' and not 'striking out action', in his view.

In Kpegah’s estimation, the application by the defendant to strike out the action is unknown to the rules of court in the circumstances.

“The defendant through his solicitors Davies and Davies entered a normal appearance to the writ and therefore cannot move to set aside the writ. having realised their monumental procedural error of not entering a conditional appearance which would have clothed them with an unfettered right to move to set aside the writ they have attempted to reinvent the rules of court by attempting to strike out the action which is improper and rather the real abuse of the court process.”

"My claim is that I have an iron cast and unimpeachable claim against the defendant, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who has no defence in law and in fact to the case against him that his name is not on the roll of lawyers in Ghana and that he is impersonating one WAD Akufo-Addo who is number 1190 on the Roll of Lawyers in Ghana".

He also teased Nana Addo in his latest write–up unleashed Wednesday.

“If Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has nothing to hide why is he conniving with agents and cronies to strike out the action as frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of the court process? He should defend himself if he still has any bit of integrity left in him. How can a man who wants to be president of this dear country of ours have so many question marks all over him? He should pray to God for the strength he apparently lacks to confront his personal demons squarely.”

Lawyers for Nana Akufo-Addo have however described Kpegah’s action as media gimmickry with no substance and have vowed to meet him in court.