Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Suspended National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Paul
Afoko has complained about the way Kwabena Agyei Agyepong, the suspended General
Secretary of the party, had declined to stand as witness for him in court.
Mr. Afoko expressed ‘surprise’ through his spokesperson, Nana Yaw
Osei, yesterday when it turned out that Mr. Agyepong would not be testifying at
the instance of the beleaguered chairman in the suit in which he (Afoko) wants
the Human Rights Court to order the NPP to reinstate him.
Court documents showed that Mr. Agyepong was listed as a witness for
Mr. Afoko but the plaintiff’s (Afoko’s) lawyer, Osafo Buaben, announced in
court last Thursday that the suspended General Secretary was unavailable and
therefore the plaintiff was closing his case.
“You will realize that we have Mr. Kwabena Agyepong as part of the
witnesses to be called by the plaintiff but he is unavailable so that will be
the end of the plaintiff’s case,” Mr. Afoko’s lawyer told the court, presided
over by Justice Anthony Yeboah.
The judge then said once Mr. Afoko was closing his case without
bringing Kwabena Agyepong as a witness, his (Agyepong’s) statement would have
to be expunged from the records; and that was done.
As it stands, Mr. Afoko has closed his case after calling only one
witness - Martin Kpebu - who happened to be his lawyer in the initial
preparations when Mr. Afoko was filing the suit against the NPP.
This comes barely two weeks after an Accra High court
had dismissed a suit filed by the second National 2nd Vice Chairman
of the party, Sammy Crabbe, who was also challenging his indefinite suspension.
Crabbe’s case was described as unmeritorious by the
court.
Possible Reason
DAILY
GUIDE learnt that Kwabena Agyepong might have chickened out at the eleventh
hour after realizing that he took part in the decision to suspend Mr. Afoko.
Therefore, he would have possibly suffered
embarrassment if he had mounted the witness box to give testimony.
Afoko’s
Prediction
Nana Yaw Osei told Accra-based Kasapa
FM yesterday that although his boss saw the ‘signs’ ahead of the court proceedings
that Kwabena Agyepong was likely to pull out, Mr. Afoko was expecting that the suspended
General Secretary would have considered staying on as a witness.
“Mr. Agyepong offered to stand as a key witness on his own volition;
nobody forced him to do that and so the question is, what has motivated his
decision to withdraw from the case now? This is where we begin to wonder and we
say we’re surprised with his late actions,” Nana Yaw Osei told the radio
station.
Yaw Osei, who is a lawyer, noted that Mr. Agyepong’s decision “will
not vary the legal course” and promised that Mr. Afoko was going to pursue the
case to its logical conclusion.
The Suit
Mr. Afoko sued the NPP and its acting National Chairman, Freddie
Blay, who is also the First National Vice Chairman, after he was suspended
indefinitely in October last year by the party.
The party’s Disciplinary Committee (DC)
had recommended his suspension from the NPP after a petition by two members of
the party, and Mr. Afoko wants the court to order his re-instatement as the
National Chairman because he claims that the party’s action was
unconstitutional.
Among other things, Afoko is contesting
the issue of whether Gifty Eugenia Kusi, Member of Parliament (MP) for Tarkwa
Nsuaem, was legitimately appointed to the National Disciplinary Committee,
which recommended his suspension to the National Executive Council (NEC).
No comments:
Post a Comment