Mr Kwaku Ansa Asare, a lawyer, has appealed to the Council of State to impress upon President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to retract and apologise for his recent utterances in the Akuapem chieftaincy dispute which was currently before the law courts.
It is the contention of Mr Ansa Asare that President Nana Akufo-Addo had given the indication that the Akuapem chieftaincy dispute would be resolved for Oseadeeyo Kwasi Akuffo II, to be accepted and gazetted as the Okuapehene just as he had achieved in Yendi and the Ga Traditional areas.
Addressing a press conference in Koforidua on Monday, he said the Akuapem chieftaincy dispute was in part, at the Koforidua High Court in the Eastern Region, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court to determine the legitimacy of Oseadeeyo Kwasi Akuffo II, and did not lie with the President to make such a pronouncement which was meant to undermine the case.
The matter , he said was also at the National House of Chiefs, adding the Executive has no right to interfere with the judicial process which the President also a lawyer, should not have made such remarks.
Although the President said Akropong was his hometown and as such owed it a duty to bring finality to the chieftaincy dispute in Akuapem, Mr Ansa Aare said, the President’s attention must be drawn to the fact that finality to judicial dispute must be settled by the court.
“ I respect the caliber of a former chair of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), Sam Okudzeto and the former Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood on the Council as well as a former Inspector General of Police (IGP) to intervene and advise him on some of these things”, he said.
According to Mr Ansa Asare, it was unprecedented for a sitting President to attack the judiciary, “I don’t think it is good thing that he should be allowed pass those to comments and go unchallenged.”
It is the duty of the Council of State to counsel him, and my personal advise to the President is that, he should be measured in his utterances, very measured in his language and make sure what he says does not hurt or must not offend the common sense of the ordinary Ghanaian.
“When the President say that he is asking the Adontenhene of Akuapem who is also the Aburihene, Nana Otubour Gyan Kwasi II, to settle the matter to mediate in the Akuapem Chieftaincy dispute, I must say the Aburihene is not an Asona, this is a matter solely for the Asona people”, he added.
“The Aburihene is not an Asona person to mediate in Asona matters.
According to Mr Ansa Asare, it was unfortunate that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo made an allusion to Yendi, the Dagbon chieftaincy crisis, and the Ga State.
“Yendi had been judicially considered by the courts up to the Supreme Court so before President Kufuor, could initiate that peace process, the Supreme Court had already dealt with the matter”, he said stressing, that this one the matter is pending so the two are not the same.
“So the Ga one, the matter is pending so if he tells Ghanaians that he will solve the Okuapeman crisis just as he has done to the Ga State, is the President telling Ghanaians that he has been interfering in the administration of justice? ,Mr Ansa Asare asked.
FROM NORMAN COOPER, KOFORIDUA
