Opinions of Saturday, 29 June 2013

Columnist: Nyarko, Stallone

31 years after the gruesome murder

OF THE THREE SUPREME COURT JUDGES ; FATE OR COINCIDENCE?

Pause, Peruse, Ponder; The Ghana bar Association and Ghanaians as a whole are observing 31 years of the gruesome killing of three Supreme court Justices and an Army General under the PNDC regime. It’s surprising how events unfolding in our country today bore resemblance to the events that led to the murder on 30th, June 1982. Today, the very man who had cases before two of the three Supreme court Judges who were murdered on that day is challenging the validity of an election in the supreme court. The man Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo during the third republic challenged and successfully overturned some arbitrary decisions taken by the AFRC regime which had been deemed immune from legal challenge. Two of such cases, one of Habeas corpus and another involving confiscated assets were before two of the three murdered Judges of June 30,1982, Justice Cecilia Koranteng Addow and K. Agyapong. Akufo-Addo, as fate would have it, left Accra on a scheduled flight to London on the very day the three Judges and a retired Army General were abducted, murdered and buried. A few days later, Ebo Tawiah , a firebrand PNDC operative violently denounced Akufo-Addo on a public platform in Tema.

Today, exactly 31 years after the gruesome killings, the man Akufo-Addo is in the supreme court again challenging the validity of the 2012 elections. In last few days we have heard political actors threatening hell and brimstone should the supreme court overturn the results of the 2012 elections. Some of these actors are defiantly challenging the powers of the court to conclusively determine the case brought before it. It is striking when these political actors who are seeking to impede the work of the supreme court are products of the same PNDC regime whose operatives were found to have gorily murdered the supreme court Judges. The big question is, are the recent happenings mere coincidence or by dint of fate?