Dear Legal Luminaries,
It had, and has always been my intention to consult you for free legal advice with regard to the ongoing Kumawu chieftaincy wrangling and particularly, on a role the Chief Justice has played that makes me doubt her integrity.
Procrastination is said to be the thief of time. If I do not seek the advice now, it will be very difficult for me to contact especially, Brother Martin Amidu, for any such future advice once he is offered any ministerial post in the government of the NPP by President-elect Nana Akufo Addo. I expect him to be part of President Nana Akufo Addo’s NPP government.
I have immense respect for both of you when it comes to legal discourses in relation to being of selfless service to your people and country Ghana hence my long desire to drink from your overflowing fountain of legal wisdom.
You might have heard or read about the ongoing Kumawu chieftaincy dispute with all the attendant breaches of both constitutional and traditional laws. I shall not go into details but will rather restrict myself to a role the Chief Justice seems to have played that has unsettled my mind and since kept me fuming.
The supposed paramount chief of Kumawu, Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua who in private life is Dr. Yaw Sarfo, untraditionally, unconventionally and unconstitutionally removed four Kumawu sub-chiefs from office when he was fraudulently sworn in as Kumawu Omanhene. They were Kumawu Akwamuhene Nana Akwasi Bafo II, Kumawu Aduanahene Nana Sarfo Agyekum, the late Kumawu Akyempemhene Nana Okyere Krapa and Kumawu Sumankwaahene Nana Okyere Darko Fordwuor.
The below web links are references to their illegal destoolment and other committed malpractices surrounding the enstoolment of Dr. Yaw Sarfo as Kumawuhene going by the stool name Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua.
After a few failed attempts to get justice done to the sub-chiefs as the Kumasi lawyers and judges were probably being influenced by a powerful overlord, a Mampong High Court judge, a professional and a man of integrity, finally sat on the case and determined it according to the stipulations of the Chieftaincy Act and the 1992 Ghana Constitution.
The destoolment of the sub-chiefs by “Kumawuhene” Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua was declared null and void by the judge. The sub-chiefs were declared victorious in their suit against their illegal destoolment.
While the case was still pending in court, Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua enthroned another person as the Kumawu Akwamuhene in the person of one Nana Kwarteng Amanin. This newly-installed Akwamuhene went to the house where the stool regalia and other properties belonging to the Akwamuhene stool are kept, forced himself into the room, helped himself and started behaving in the capacity as the new or the replacement Akwamuhene.
When the Mampong High Court judge made a ruling in favour of Nana Akwasi Bafo II, the supposedly deposed Kumawu Akwamuhene, he returned to the court to seek “orders”. The issuance of the would-be “orders” is understood by me, a layman in the law profession, to have given an extra legal backing that could have authorised the police to accompany Nana Akwasi Bafo II to access the stool room.
When he had served the court notice of request for the “orders”, he returned a week or two later only to be informed of a letter coming from the Chief Justice, Mrs. Theodora Georgina Wood ,subsequent upon which proceedings were adjourned sine die. She had directed the case to be transferred to a Kumasi High Court. In a follow up letter, she had directed the case to be heard by a particular High Court judge at a particular branch of the Kumasi High Court.
From my inquiries, the registrars of both the Kumawu Traditional Council and Ashanti Regional House of Chiefs had petitioned the Chief Justice that the judge was biased in his ruling so they could see him to be biased in the next case pending before him in which they had been issued a mandamus to produce a true certified copy of the forms filled out by Dr. Yaw Sarfo upon the authenticity and acceptance of which he was gazetted as Kumawu Omanhene.
Following their petition and failure to produce the said document in which the sub-chiefs and many a Kumawuman subject suspected a foul play, the Chief Justice for reasons only best known to her, took the action she did and also, has since transferred the judge from Mampong to Bolgatanga.
Being a subject of Kumawuman, I have vested interest to ensure that nothing, but absolute justice prevails in the ongoing Kumawuman chieftaincy dispute to help bring peace and tranquility and essential infrastructural development to Kumawuman.
Are the actions so far taken by the Chief Justice to presumably forestall the acceleration of processes to creditably bring the Kumawu chieftaincy dispute to a closure, legal and devoid of any selfish interest, collusions, corruption and malpractices? I mean no malice but I want to understand the legal implications of her actions.
I shall be happy if you could volunteer advice before I publish my layman’s views about the Chief Justice as regards her interventions in the Kumawu chieftaincy dispute with its attendant legal wrangling.
I can be contacted on email address [email protected]
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