You Are Not The Prez; Stop Using Motorcade - Oko Vanderpuije Told

Nene O. A. Amegatcher, National President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), has stated that Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, Accra Metropolitan Assembly Chief Executive, is not the President of the Republic to be throwing his weight about in a motorcade, blowing his siren and weaving his way through traffic.

According to him, as per the 1992 Constitution, it is only the President of Ghana, his Vice, the Speaker of Parliament and Chief Justice who have the authority to use sirens in traffic to ease their passage.

The GBA President has, therefore, called on well-meaning Ghanaians to condemn all such persons, including the Accra Mayor, who have made it their business to put on their sirens anytime there is heavy traffic to enable them pass easily.

“The police bodyguard to the Mayor of Accra, Alfred Vanderpuije, coming out of the Mayor’s official car to fire a shot into the car tyre of a lawyer who was testing the breach of traffic regulation by the Mayor weaving through traffic with a siren when he is not the President, Vice President, Speaker of Parliament or the Chief Justice must be condemned by all adherents to the rule of law. That was an abuse of power.

“Leadership in this country are yet to come to terms with the fact that everybody, the rich, poor, government and the governed are all subject to the same law and equal before the law,” Nene Amegatcher explained.

The GBA President made the statement at the 33rd Anniversary Remembrance Service organised by the GBA, in collaboration with the Judiciary, for the murder of the three honourable justices of the High Court of Justice in Accra yesterday, Tuesday.

Nene Amegatcher also descended on some officials of other state institutions, including the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), National Security, Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) among others, who use their influence to settle unnecessary scores.

He noted: “The influence of individuals in the misuse of the BNI, National Security and Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), among other such state institutions to settle scores is obvious, even to the most casual observer. Such acts must be condemned by all democratically-minded and peace loving Ghanaians. Perhaps, the rule of law should be understood as demanding accountability for the exercise of state power by those on who it is conferred,” he noted.

Continuing, Nene Amegatcher said the wide powers arrogated to itself in this country by some officials of the BNI, even to insignificant issues such as making themselves the watchdogs of Students Representative Council (SRC) elections at the campus of the University of Ghana, and arresting the software developer on the complaint by the losing candidate for an alleged manipulation of the electronic voting system, is worrisome.

He explained that the university has a police station to handle criminal matters, as well as time-honoured internal statutory arrangements for resolving its election disputes, and, therefore, could not understand why some officials of the above-mentioned institutions continue to use their positions to intimidate peace-loving Ghanaians.

The GBA also took the opportunity to remember Chief Superintendent Jacob Jebuni Yidana of blessed memory, who was the main investigator in the case of the three justices who were gruesomely executed by some unknown assassins in 1982.

According to him, the courage and the professional expertise exhibited by Chief Superintendent Jebuni Yidana, an officer of the Ghana Police Service, will go down in the history of Ghana as the qualities that helped produce one of the best criminal investigations ever undertaken in this country.

In appreciation of the work done by Chief Superintendent Jebuni during the period, the GBA awarded full scholarship to the last son of the late Mr. Jebuni, who is currently studying a programme at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

They also presented an undisclosed amount of money and a citation to the family of the gallant investigator, who laid his life to dig into what the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) publicly declared as a horrific crime.

Finally, the GBA has asked the family of the late Mr. Jebuni to locate a place for them to erect a bust in honour of the man they so much revered as an individual, who, even at the time of fear and trepidation, stood in to investigate what others dared not.

Chief Superintendent Jacob Jebuni Yidana, after the 1982 debacle, fled into exile and returned in 2001, when Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor became President of the country.

Source: The Chronicle