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Opinions of Saturday, 7 July 2018

Columnist: Andy C. Y. Kwawukume

Who Watches the Watchman: The rebuttal

Anas Aremeyaw Anas has come under fierce attacks by Kennedy Agyapong over his investigative work Anas Aremeyaw Anas has come under fierce attacks by Kennedy Agyapong over his investigative work

I didn’t pay much attention to the rantings of Kennedy Agyapong against Anas until it came to my notice that he had struck very close at home again. I then watched the video he released and has since followed developments. I am yet to watch fully Aans’ No 12 video though.

Let me first deal with the observation that Agyapong’s recent rant on “pretrial meeting” with a prosecution witness to be Anas shows how uneducated and ignorant he is.

The prosecutor wrote pretrial meeting twice in her rebuttal and didn’t write “pretrial hearing”, which is held before a judge with both parties to the case present in a courtroom before a trial finally begins later.

The pretrial meeting, on the other hand, can be held by either of the lawyers for the accused or the plaintiff, that’s, the complainant, in their respective chambers and is private to them only. Agyapong misunderstood that to mean pretrial hearing and went on another ranting fit about how they goofed, with none of the journalists restraining him.

I think the journalist interviewing him is also to blame for allowing him to express such crass ignorant statements without correcting him, if he knew any better at all, thereby fostering this halo around him in the eyes of the lesser educated and stark illiterate citizenry he speaks Twi a lot so that they can understand him. (As for this “Twiwinisation” of the Ghanaian airwaves and the public sphere on even national and international matters, it’s another unwholesome development to be tackled later).

Maybe much of his ranting is done in his own TV and radio studios before journalists who are his employees, and so dare not question him but the others? That the prosecutor did not write the rebuttal but rather Anas is such a joke! Is it because he falsely claimed that she was dead, and so incapable of issuing a rebuttal?

Indeed, some people can't think far, with even the education they have. They are therefore unable to see through this farce Agyapong and his cohorts are pandering about.

First of all, the video was a cut and paste job to give the impression they want and that is clear enough for any observer. The "we all need money..." statement cut off too from context was an interjection to Anas' narration of how the money was being blown on all kinds of people, many of whom didn't even know about the source of the money.

Do you think all those northern Ghana chiefs and their large entourages and the bevy of girls knew that it was sakawa money? Nope! But they were happy to enjoy the hospitality of the sakawa men. That remark should be seen within that context. The innocents and crooks all want money in Ghana! That’s just a reflection on a truism, not a demand for money!

Anas mentioning the $100,000 used to purportedly buy his assistance to kill the case was just divulging something that should appear in the court case anyway. Anas' tone clearly shows that he was outraged rather than happy with the money being given to him.

Remember, an attempt was made in court to play the video in which he was given the money but the Judge agreed to the objection of the defence lawyers and it was apparently not played. I won't conjecture further, as the court records are there to prove who is telling the truth sooner than later.

The case wasn't truncated but prosecuted to the end by this particular PROSECUTOR being accused, as she stated. That shows that Agyapong and cohorts lied! Let's check the court records, please. It remained only judgement to be given but, apparently, the accused went to see the judge "in chambers" and he kept on adjourning the case for an awful 20 times and then finally dismissed it two years later after the first Prosecutor had retired.

By then, another Prosecutor was in charge of the case. Was that person also bribed later? The whole AG's Office reputation is on the line here and they must step in to clear certain things too. Someone can claim that they teamed up with the Judge to make the case basaaa! That puts the reputation of the whole Justice system into the gutter, where they don't belong.

But the fact that a completed case with both the prosecutor and defence team completing their submissions can be adjourned 20 times by a judge not ready to give judgement is a big shame on the Chief Justice and the whole Judicial system in Ghana! It stinks to the high heavens, as we all know by now. We the citizens must arise and demand that controls be instituted to specify time limits for cases to be tried and judgement given.

Justice delayed, is justice denied! What Anas did in exposing the rot in the judiciary hasn't cleared the institutional shortcomings that make lapses like that possible, from my organisation theory and state building specialisation perspective. I can do that institutional reforms review on contract for the Justice system. THINGS MUST CHANGE!

We all know of cases which have been in the courts for donkey years, especially if they are chieftaincy cases, as the present straightforward contempt case involving the Awoamefia impostor and some of his henchmen. Some cases took over 20 years! Abominable! And of course, suspects had been kept on remand for over 10 years and getting to 20 years without trial! Atrociously unjust and simply barbaric!!!

Now, dear reader, this writer is a sibling to the State Prosecutor under siege. I grew up with her and know her very well. When she said she doesn't have a dollar account, I don't need any proof to convince me. On the few occasions, they found money to allow her to represent Ghana in Europe at some international events, I had to book her hotel with my credit card. One time she stayed with me.

One booking in Austria I had to cancel at the eleventh hour because they said there was no money for the small per diem she was going to receive, and so Ghana wasn’t represented! Before that, I used to call her to complain about bad judgements and things that happened in Ghana we read or hear about.

Having heard enough from her and others, I stopped doing that and we rather used to count the number of years, then months and then days to her retirement! We're all relieved she retired from the AG's Office as Chief State Prosecutor.

Now, if you know a bit about English pronunciation, you can easily hear her say "… transferred to him", rather [heavily] nasal, instead of "…ransferred to me", which is tonal in sounding, pronounced with the lips. Try it. There is no way my sister would have pronounced "me" like that, as she has a very good, crisp accent. You don't have to be a language expert to get the feel.

I played the video to some Nigerians without giving them any background story. They all got it upon first hearing as “him”, Even after trying to make them to think it was “me”, they laughed me off, claiming Nigerians had better intonation than Ghanaians. So why are the language experts in Ghana not on air telling us what they think?

Anyway, that portion of the video was clearly doctored. It was taken from when Anas was narrating how the money was blown or shared. Unless one argues that Anas was a mobile banker who transferred the $5000 to her while the interviewing was going on, in the full glare of another person in the room who actually took the video, or he transferred it before coming to her office without telling her before how much he was going to transfer to her, and that she indeed has a dollar account and lied about not having one, it'd be hard to prove that the transfer was to her!

If you can't prove any of that, e.g., she has a dollar account, then your case collapses! Knowing what I know, Ken Agyepong is in big trouble for dragging the family name into the mud. This is one Ewe – a true Anlo princess - he can't get the Asantes to kill for him, the uncouth, ill-mannered and uncultured misogynist that he is! He certainly doesn’t know what he is taking on!

The saga is just beginning to unfold. The buffoon don bring himself this time!