Justice Oppong’s Case Painfully Recalls Geoffrey Bing and J B Danquah

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

The unconscionable stampeding of the presiding judge in the trial of the alleged suspects in the murder of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani by frustrated functionaries of the ruling National Democratic Congress, recalls another equally painful episode in Ghana’s postcolonial history some 50 years ago.

In the present case, Justice Anthony Oppong has been publicly accused by Mr. Barton-Oduro, Ghana’s deputy attorney-general, of having recklessly and rather unprofessionally told an audience in a drinking bar that he, Justice Oppong, intended to cavalierly dismiss the case of the prosecution.

Asked to produce corroborative evidence, Monsieur Barton-Oduro reportedly claimed in a radio broadcast that he had in his possession the voice of a female witness staking the foregoing claim on audiotape (See “Leaning the Judicial Cats in Many Ways” Modernghana.com 8/27/10; also, “Justice Oppong Would Have Been Disgraced – Kofi Adams” Modernghana.com 8/27/10). In sum, what the Deputy Attorney-General seems to be telling Ghanaians is that his purportedly incriminating evidence against the now-former presiding judge in the Ya-Na case is what is judicially classified as “Hearsay Evidence.” And for those of our readers who may not be aware of this fact, “Hearsay Evidence” is the weakest form of forensic evidence that anybody, least of all the second most powerful judicial officer in our beloved country, can bring against another citizen in a legitimate court of law.
Mr. Barton-Oduro is also reported to have said that should the need arise, he would be fully prepared to produce some 15 people to substantiate his audiotape “evidence.” On the latter score, there are several factors that Mr. Barton-Oduro, in his zeal to impugning the professional integrity of Justice Oppong, may have woefully neglected to consider. And this has to do with the individual backgrounds of the alleged 15 witnesses. For instance, what frame of mind was/were each of the aforesaid witnesses in at the time that the former presiding judge in the Ya-Na case allegedly made his prejudicial statement, assuming, implicitly, that as Mr. Barton-Oduro rather mischievously wants his audience to believe, Justice Oppong had, indeed, been driven to such irresponsible height by inebriation or intoxication?
Then also, do any of these witnesses have a criminal record or the kind of known behavioral traits that would make any critical thinker question their credibility? Then also, if an implicitly inebriated Justice Oppong, a highly educated and professionally cultivated man, had been so morally lax as to have unguardedly and unwisely undermined his hard-won professional credibility, then what reason do we have not to believe that the 15 witnesses were not even far more compromised in their judgment, and thus their moral integrity, than the subject of obloquy? Unless, of course, Mr. Barton-Oduro also wants his audience to believe that all the alleged 15 witnesses were members of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), or any of our several security agencies expressly dispatched to the drinking bar to catch Justice Oppong in one of his, presumably, well-known moments of professional flippancy or misconduct.
And then also significantly, what is the ideological suasion of these 15 witnesses and their motives for ratting on Justice Oppong precisely at the moment when he was preparing to hand down his long-awaited verdict in the Ya-Na case? Even more significant must be borne in mind the fact that this stampeding of a respectable jurist comes right on the heels of the Attorney-General having resoundingly lost, perhaps, the most epic battle regarding the missionary need of the NDC in convicting as many of the top operatives of the Kufuor-led administration of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as possible on the “Gotchya” charge of causing financial loss to the state. And on the latter score, of course, I am alluding to the Mpiani-Wireko Brobbey case.
What painfully bears recalling here is that the vicious tactic used against Justice Anthony Oppong by highly-positioned operatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is nothing new. (Now, let Atta-Mills impugn the supposed lack of “originality” about the electioneering campaign agenda of Akufo-Addo). To be certain, this Gestapo-like tactic was borrowed right from the Nkrumah-authored CPP Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare; and it was eerily the same tactic that was used by Nkrumah’s British-born Attorney-General and later Presidential Advisor, Sir Geoffrey Bing (See Reap the Whirlwind) in The Party’s systematic attempt to impugn the integrity and patriotism of Dr. Joseph (Kwame Kyeretwie) Boakye-Danquah.
Like Justice Oppong, Mr. Bing (1909-1977), acting at the behest of President Nkrumah, claimed both viciously and preposterously that an unnamed informant had overheard Dr. Danquah telling the American ambassador in Accra that feverish plans were afoot to liquidate the treacherous and notorious ever-scheming defector from the erstwhile United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC). To this day, neither the identity nor any forensically incriminating evidence to the foregoing effect has been produced by any of the fire-spitting CPP adherents to substantiate such outrageous allegation. And yet, sad to say, many a CPP operative continues to self-righteously allude to this palpable intelligence scam-artistry as cocksure evidence to impugn the dignity of the undisputed Doyen of modern Ghanaian politics!
It may also be of significant interest to learn that almost none of the key players engaged in this depraved politics of personal destruction, lived past the age at which Dr. Danquah was brutally assassinated. What is indescribably painful to observe here is the fact that 45 years after Dr. Danquah’s death, truth and honesty continue to be morbidly detested by the very people who have been specially and specifically designated to uphold and defend the same.

*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 a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and the author of 21 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.
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