..... Tasks Police to show even-handed application of justice

The Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, has commended the judiciary for upholding the rule of law and not doing the will of President Mills in the ongoing saga involving the Assin-North Member of Parliament, Kennedy Ohene Agyepong, but rather proceeding to grant him bail.

In a statement issued by the NPP Chairman, he noted that the Attorney General, knowing well that the magistrate’s court had no jurisdiction to hear the matter, took Ken Agyepong to that court only to request for the court to remand him in police custody for an additional two weeks.

“It was merely to seek to keep the Member of the Parliamentary in custody in order to ‘teach him a lesson’”, Jake noted, describing the treason charges levelled against Mr. Agyapong “only as a mockery of the law being perpetrated for reckless partisan advantage.”

Jake maintained that had the magistrate done the will of the President and his appointees and remanded Hon. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong for two (2) weeks, “no one could have answered for the reaction of those showing him [Kennedy] support in Accra, Cape Coast, Takoradi, Kumasi and other cities and towns across Ghana.”

According to the NPP Chairman, since the police had shown by their arrest of Hon. Kennedy Agyapong “that they are not fearful of taking action against a senior NPP politician”, they must also show their even handed application of justice by taking action against NDC orchestrated violence and or incitement to violence, during and before the ongoing registration exercise.

Jake recounted statements made by Mr. Amatepe, deputy Volta Regional Minister, who called on Ewes in the Region at Aflao and elsewhere, at the time of the visit to the region by President Mills, “to beat NPP Akan registration monitors.” The NPP Chairman also cited the example, for police action, of NDC thugs photographed going through the Odododiodio Constituency with guns, shovels, pickaxes, cutlasses and clubs wreaking havoc and terrorising residents.

“Let the Ghana Police meet this challenge,” Jake charged.

According to the NPP Chairman, the ongoing brouhaha surrounding NPP firebrand Kennedy Agyepong is a deliberate ploy by President Mills to intimidate and cow the entire leadership of the NPP into submission.

Jake noted that President Mills in deploying state resources against political opponents is “prepared to sacrifice the rule of law and the national interest to satisfy his desire for his own political gain, by the use of violence and cheap propaganda.”

The NPP chairman noted that the primary aim of arresting, detaining and prosecuting Ken Agyepong is first and foremost “to put the fear of the ‘Asomdwehene’ in the NPP” and secondly to punish Ken for leading the crusade on the GH¢51 million Woyomegate scandal and other dubious multi-million dollar judgment debts made by his government mainly to his major financiers.

“It is obvious that President Mills and his administration have been rocked by Kennedy Agyapong’s exposé on the judgment debt scandals, in which GH¢51.8 million was doled-out to Mr Woyome, and arbitration settlements of €35 million and €94 million were given to Waterville and CP Construction Ltd, respectively.

“These payments were illicit because no evidence was proffered to support the claims. On the contrary, government ignored all the glaring evidence that the claims were fraudulent,” Jake added.

Jake noted that President Mills’ agenda of seeking to discredit the character of Ken Agyepong will not whitewash the criminal wrongdoing of his administration.

Mr Obetsebi-Lapmptey reaffirmed the NPP’s backing of Hon Ken Agyepong adding that “the NPP remains firmly behind the Hon. Kennedy Agyepong in his quest for justice in the unfounded accusations of treason made against him.”

Jake continued, “We would not sit by and allow the rule of law to be transformed into the misrule of Mills.”