On Indemnity, Prof. Oquaye is Mistaken

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.



In the wake of the submission of the findings of the unconstitutionally constituted National Constitution Review Commission, Prof. Mike Oquaye, the second-deputy speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, was widely reported to be vehemently railing against those who have called for the immediate expunging of the Indemnity Clause from the 1992 Constitution that ushered in the country’s Fourth Republic as a constitutional democracy (See “Don’t Touch Indemnity Clause” The Chronicle 12/3/11).



In the opinion of the highly respected Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabeya, in the Greater-Accra Region, the motive of those calling for the proscription of the Indemnity Clause is squarely predicated on the remorseless annual celebration of the military putsches that brought untold suffering and sorrow to the relatives, friends and associates of the victims of these acts of political criminality. The unmistakable allusion here, of course, is to former President Jerry John Rawlings and his teeming disciples among the rank-and-file membership of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).



The problem with this sort of analysis is that the former dean of the University of Ghana’s Faculty of Law squarely, and egregiously, ignore the fact that, by and large, the stentorian call for the expunging of the Indemnity Clause is more ethically/morally based than it is a sheer act of retribution. In essence, as long as the Indemnity clause is recklessly, and unconscionably, allowed to blight and hobble the 1992 Constitution, the unintended import of exceptionalism, or the unsavory implication of some Ghanaian citizens standing way over and above the law and all else, for that matter, cannot be lightly ignored.



As a compromise, Prof. Oquaye would instead have the Indemnity Clause continue to blight our collective national sense of justice, while merely allowing for the passage of a parliamentary edict or law to expressly and summarily ban the annual celebrations of both the so-called June 4th Revolution and its December 31st offspring. Well, on the preceding score, nobody ought to remind the erudite scion of the Azu Mate-Korle family that a Supreme Court proscription of June 4th and December 31st did not prevent the likes of Messrs. Rawlings, Quainoo, Mills and Vanderpuje from periodically lighting up the proverbial eternal flame at the Flagstaff House in order to sprightly glorify their “auspicious” participation in the barbaric bloodbaths occasioned by these two morally reprehensible events in our national political history and collective civic memory.



And, indeed, while what is primarily sought by those of us who want the Indemnity Clause expunged has more to do with the moral integrity of this sacred instrument of our sovereignty, rather than sheer retribution, nonetheless, the expurgation of the Indemnity Clause would send a serious signal to those who presume to make abject mockery of the value of the lives and destinies of their fellow citizens that their day of reckoning may just be around the corner.



It may also be recalled here that prior to the auspicious cleansing of North Africa and parts of the Middle-East by the so-called Arab Spring, Prof. Oquaye’s argument had hinged on the cautionary note of pre-mollifying any prospective coup plotters into mercifully surrendering usurped, democratic power. In the wake of the Arab Spring, it appears as if Prof. Oquaye has come to the practical realization that no individual citizen or megalomaniacal adventurist is likely to lightly escape with any assay at political mischief, either presently or in the near future.



We also take umbrage at Prof. Albert Fiadjoe’s rather cynical attempt to legitimize the unconstitutional presidential edict that caused the establishment of the Constitution Review Commission. For the chairman of the CRC, what makes the activities of his commission warrantable is the fact that “Parliament, like most institutions[,] is under-resourced, so those who were quick to volunteer Parliament for the commission’s work had a duty to indicate that Parliament has the capacity for Human [sic] resource, the inclination, the financial resources and the willingness to undertake such a massive task, in addition to its regular duties.”



In other words, what Prof. Fiadjoe is implying by the foregoing is that the least qualified group of Ghanaian citizens appears to have constitutionally, albeit erroneously, been entrusted with the rather mentally taxing duty of the Constitution Review Commission. And this group, of course, is our present Parliament, in the opinion of Prof. Fiadjoe. In effect and by logical extension, what the CRC chairman really means to imply here is that the Ghanaian electorate, woefully lacking in wisdom and good judgment, elected a bevy of parliamentarians who neither had the cognitive capacity nor diligence to undertake the “epic” work of the CRC.



And, by the way, does Prof. Fiadjoe also mean to tell the Ghanaian public that the financial and material resources committed to the work of the Constitution Review Commission come out of the chairman’s own pocket? And also, precisely what does Prof. Fiadjoe mean by Parliament being too lethargic, or lazy, to have acquitted itself creditably with the work of the CRC? How presumptuous! Somebody tell me?!



*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###