Nation remembers murdered judges

By William Yaw Owusu.

Saturday, July1,2006.
A solemn Remembrance Day service was yesterday held in memory of the three High Court judges and a retired military officer who were murdered in the heat of the revolution in 1982.

The annual event was instituted by the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) to honour the late Justices Frederick Poku Sarkodie Addo, Cecilia Koranteng-Addow (Mrs.) and Kwadwo Agyei Agyapong as well as Major Retired Sam Acquah who were killed at the Bundase Military range in the Accra Plains in the curfew hours of June 30, 1982.

In his sermon titled “Forgiveness”, Rev. Dr. Paul Kofi Fynn, Chairman of the Christian Council and president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ghana, said although the churches continued to preach forgiveness the same entities had failed to practice it.

He said, “we preach, eat and teach forgiveness but there is no forgiveness. Chritians think the church is a museum for saints but the reality is that it is supposed to be a hospital for sinners”.

Rev. Fynn said lack of forgiveness in the homes and the country at large had hampered the nation’s effort to develop rapidly saying, “it takes a man of God to forgive people”.

He noted that in quest to forgive one another offenders had taken advantage of forgiveness and had refused to repent to ensure total reconciliation.

“People were not bold to go to the National Reconciliation Commission to testify and reconcile but rather continue to heap blame on others but this cannot help”.

Mr. Solomon Kwami Tetteh, GBA president called on Ghanaians to “speak and stand by the truth and behave responsibly at all times”.

“We shall continue to celebrate the Martyrs Day lest we forget the need for vigilance against any utterance by any person or group of persons that may destabilize the democratic dispensation or undermine human rights in Ghana”.