What can I tell you about the Ghanaian plight with the abuse of prosecutorial powers, oh wait a minute, that’s at the office of special prosecutor (OSP) and Kissi Agyebeng flippantly engaging in ultra vires. Hey dude, you have no jurisdiction to prosecute anyone in the case already tried in the UK court. OSP must stop subjecting dignified Ghanaians to public obloquy and opprobrium. Hey, let me quote what Brett Paescal described how her son was being bullied at school and how she confronted the bully in her book, What Grown-Ups Do, “I know what you did, I say bringing her hand up and jabbing two fingers in his direction like as hex sigh as she warns him ominously, I am watching you.” The OSP must not be used as the trojan horse to incumbency abuse. Per my novice commonsensical analysis, the creation of OSP was very unnecessary. History bears unfavorable testimony to independent offices like OSP.
Morrison V. Olson (1988). Amid the Watergate Scandal, US Congress adopted the independent counsel statute. The statute established an independent counsel appointed by a special court and he could be axed from office only for a good cause, to investigate alleged ethical violations by high-profile government officials. The government attorney, Theodore Olson, who was being investigated by the independent counsel argued that the statute creating the independent counsel was a rebuke to separation of powers. The court, however, held that the law and its protections of the independent counsel from removal did not violate the separation of powers.
I believe the Act that established the OSP unduly trammels the fundamental human rights shrouded in the Puritan egalitarian ideals and enshrined in the 1992 constitution. Is the conduct of a criminal prosecution (and of an investigation to decide whether to prosecute the exercise of purely executive power under the behest of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) and the appendage agencies like EOCO and C.I.D.? Is the purpose of OSP to relegate political opponents to public derision? In an economy, almost invariably heading to a tailspin, what is the usefulness of OSP? Attorney General already has prosecutorial powers. An economist, Thomas Sowell, observed that “If you give the government enough power to create social justice; you have given it enough power to create despotism. Millions of people around the world have paid with their lives for overlooking that simple fact.” The OSP could easily be used by any President to terrorize political opponents. OSP is a rebuke to the doctrine of separation of powers. Ghana must scrap OSP and channel the funds to resource GPS. OSP could also be used to whitewash serious political crimes. The thoroughgoing growing powers of the executive must be a source of consternation to well-meaning Ghanaians. OSP is a duplication of the functions of EOCO, C.I.D, and CHRAJ. Leave Mahama Alone! God bless our homeland Ghana.
By Nana Yaw Osei, PhD, Minnesota
