Selective Knots and Strange Silences; Elizabeth Ohene, Come Again
Dear Nyaaba,
Time was when I beamed with pride when I heard Elizabeth Ohene on BBC. She was without doubt a journalist par excellence. She made Africa proud and Ghana prouder.
When she returned home, to party politics, I was, at first, glad that the government in which she served had chosen a professional of the highest standards, but that euphoria soon diminished. As the days went by, and with every pronouncement, she steadily chipped away at that hard-earned reputation for objectivity and fair mindedness.
Nyaaba, sadly, her descent into the quagmire of jaundiced perspectives appears not to have abated, and consistent with that unfortunate trend, she very recently penned an opinion on the sacking of former Chief Justice Torkonoo, which opinion I seek to opine on.
Elizabeth Ohene’s latest article, “REMOVING A CHIEF JUSTICE,” attempts to draw a chilling parallel between the gruesome murder of judges in 1982 and the constitutional removal of a sitting Chief Justice in 2025. It is a breathtaking stretch, both in logic and in moral integrity.
She speaks of a “paralysing not” in her stomach—felt in 1982 and now again in 2025. But what should give any reader pause is the selective nature of this moral nausea. The knot appears only when her ideological opponents act—however legally or procedurally. It is mysteriously absent when egregious abuses of power occur under administrations she is sympathetic toward.
Let us not pretend: the removal of Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo—whether one agrees with it or not—followed a constitutional process. If the author has evidence that due process was violated, she ought to present it. But to collapse the distinction between legal removal by a sitting president and the extrajudicial abduction and murder of judges during military rule is intellectually dishonest. It is also an insult to the memory of Justices Cecilia Koranteng-Addow, Kwadwo Agyei Agyapong, and Fred Poku Sarkodee.
Where was the knot, Madam?
Where was this writer’s paralyzing not when:
- The Special Prosecutor was forced to resign under a cloud of institutional sabotage and character assassination?
- A sitting Electoral Commissioner, Charlotte Osei, was removed on tenuous and politically motivated grounds?
- The judiciary, under the last administration, remained embarrassingly silent as constitutional violations occurred, including midnight swearing-in ceremonies and questionable judicial panel compositions in politically charged cases?
Where was her outrage when courts were used as weapons against political opponents, when investigative journalists were threatened or killed, and when key judicial appointments seemed designed less for justice than for political insulation?
Did those not merit a knot?
Or do knots only appear when people the writer is comfortable with are displaced, and when her side loses its grip on the levers of power?
Moral Consistency or Partisan Grief?
Elizabeth Ohene writes movingly about revering judges. Yet, she omits how her preferred party handled judges and the law during their time in office. She avoids any mention of the Anas exposé, which implicated dozens of judges, many of whom were shielded or quietly let go with minimal consequence. She is silent on how the judiciary was treated as a patronage system—with rewards and punishments depending on political loyalty.
She calls attention to a post by Daniel Domelevo, citing a hymn lyric—“The strife is o’er, the battle done”—as proof of some perverse celebration. But she ignores the years Domelevo was maligned, sidelined, and forced out for doing the very job he was constitutionally mandated to do: fighting corruption. Perhaps for him, the battle truly is done—not because of joy in removing a Chief Justice, but because justice, for once, was allowed to take its full course.
History Demands Balance
If the NDC has a dark history with the judiciary, it must own that legacy, no doubt. But the NPP is no stranger to undermining judicial independence when it suits them. Let’s not rewrite history to suggest that Ghana’s courts only came under threat from one side.
If the removal of a Chief Justice is now a constitutional crime, then let us also revisit the opaque processes that led to the exit of Chief Justice Wiredu, and the political orchestration around the rise of Sophia Akuffo, and later Kwasi Anin-Yeboah—both of whom presided over courts accused of shielding government wrongdoings.
A Plea for Intellectual Honesty
Elizabeth Ohene is a seasoned journalist and former government insider. She knows the weight of words. To equate a legally structured removal of a judge with alleged state-sanctioned murder is not just irresponsible—it is dangerous. It fosters a dangerous narrative that delegitimizes lawful democratic processes and vilifies accountability when it doesn’t favour one’s political side.
This is not to say that the removal of a Chief Justice should be treated lightly. It is a serious matter and must be scrutinized thoroughly. But scrutiny must be fair, not flavoured with partisan grief and historical amnesia.
The judiciary belongs to the people of Ghana—not to any party, not to any class, and certainly not to a narrow elite who believe the Constitution must only be respected when it benefits them.
If knots are to mean anything, they must be felt out of conscience, not convenience.
Respectfully yours,
Kasise Ricky Peprah
(The Honourrebel Siriguboy)
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