Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Thursday, July 07, 2016
The embattled Montie FM afternoon political programme host
and two members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) Communication
Team, who have been on the public
spotlight for threatening the lives of judges on a live radio show, have dared
the courts to order their arrests and jail them.
On June 23, 2016 - the day the
Supreme Court justices ordered the Electoral Commission (EC) to submit the list
of NHIS card holders whose names were in the voter register - Salifu Maase,
popularly called Mugabe, and his panellists threw caution to the wind and
lambasted the justices on the show, after which they dared the judges to arrest
them.
It was Mugabe, the host of the
political talk show called ‘Pampaso’ on Montie
FM, a pro-NDC radio network and sister station of Radio Gold at Laterbiokoshie, Accra, who first threw the challenge
to the judges.
The panellists, including Alistair Tairo Nelson
and Godwin Ako Gunn, both NDC activists, openly threatened the lives of the
judges when they said they would chase them to their houses.
They
have since been cited for contempt of court, with the Supreme Court summoning
them and the radio owners to appear before the justices.
While
Ako Gunn preferred to run down Justices Sule Gbadegbe, Jones V. Dotse and Chief
Justice (CJ) Georgina Wood, Alistair promised that somebody called Nash of
Mataheko was ready to ‘marry’ the Chief Justice when war broke out. It’s not
clear why Nash would want to marry the Chief Justice, knowing full well that the
CJ is happily married.
CJ As President
Mugabe specifically accused the
CJ of using the Supreme Court to usurp the work of the EC so that there could
be power vacuum to enable her to become President of Ghana. He then roared on
air, “They should come and arrest all of us and jail us.”
He also said the Chief Justice
wanted to set the country on fire.
“Ei, and so now it is the
Supreme Court that is... Ei then they should take the work to the Supreme Court
for them to do it themselves. They should take the register to Georgina Wood
for her to do the work herself. She wants to set fire in the country,” Mugabe
said.
Cocaine Scandal
Alistair said he had always
insisted that the Chief Justice should be removed because she got embroiled in
a cocaine scandal, and accused her of trying to ‘pour oxygen’ in the fire by
directing the EC on what to do.
“If you bring trouble, Justice
Georgina Wood, Nash says I should tell you he's at Mataheko; he says I should
tell you, Georgina, that if you let war break out in this country, he will marry
you,” he said boastfully, repeating, “During war, he will marry you for you to
see. You think you are comfortable. As leaders, you get rewards and benefits
and your position is secure.
“Today you want to sit there and
use your left hands [referring to the judges] to point at things to destroy
this nation. We know your homes. Mugabe, the High Court judges, I can stand at
one junction and tell you where all of them live or most of the influential
ones live. And so their homes are not far-fetched.”
Fallacious Positions
Ako Gunn described some of the
positions taken by the judges at the Supreme Court regarding the orders to the
EC on the voter register as ‘fallacies.’
“Look, three fallacies took
place yesterday. They said from Justice Sule Gbadegbe, he said ‘EC, we will not
sit down for EC to plunge this country into chaos’ and if you wouldn't sit
down, what have you been doing? What interest do you have in it?” he queried.
“He added something else: ‘there
is too much tension in this country.’ Who determines the tension? Is it the
Supreme Court?
“You sit there, and then you
come out and say anything. It means that as you sit there, you are itching that
there is tension so what shows that you aren't the ones who are stoking the
fires that Abu Ramadan should be allowed to come back? How do you determine
that there is tension? And everybody said that this case is a clear case. So
what is your problem again?
“Err, Justice Georgina Theodora
Wood, another fallacious statement that she made.
“You see, Mugabe, that is why I
am telling you that if someone has to travel, the person should wait till next
week. Supreme Court, we are waiting for what they will say. Because you want to
know how they will clean it. Who are you? Since when did Supreme Court direct
EC? If Theodora Wood is going on pension, she should go. Else she should come
to President Mahama with a letter,” Ako Gunn articulated.
Montie FM Begs
Meanwhile, following the
contempt charge slapped on the radio station, management of Montie FM has banned the two panellists
who threatened to eliminate the justices of the Supreme Court until
further notice.
The radio station, in a
statement signed by its General Manager, Mutala Mohammed, also apologised
to the Chief Justice and justices of the Supreme Court over the seemingly
incendiary comments.
“The management of Montie FM wishes to render its sincerest apologies to Her Ladyship
the Chief Justice, Justices of the Supreme Court and the Bench in general, for
the use of its platform by certain panellists recently to make statements that
appear to threaten the safety of the Supreme Court Bench.
“Management condemns
absolutely the said statements which it considers regrettable and dissociates
itself from those statements,” management said.
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