Former United Nations Senior Governance Advisor, Prof Baffour Agyeman-Duah, has backed President John Mahama’s handling of the petition seeking the removal of the Special Prosecutor.
He warned that frequent removals of heads of key institutions could destabilise Ghana’s governance system.
His comments come against the backdrop of heightened political tension following the removal of the Chief Justice last year, and fresh petitions filed this year targeting the Electoral Commission Chair and her deputies, as well as the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
Asked whether Ghana could see more high-profile removals in 2025, Prof Agyeman-Duah said he hoped not, stressing that the impact of last year’s decision was deeply unsettling.
“Well, I pray not because the removal of the Chief Justice really shook the country’s justice system,” he said.
While acknowledging arguments made in support of the removal, he cautioned against normalising such actions.
“The fact is that we can’t have a stable government, as when some key institutions of governance, the heads are changed at will, or because we don’t like the way they behave,” he said.
He warned that campaign promises to remove public office holders risk entrenching a dangerous political culture. According to him, when such promises are kept, they create a cycle in which every incoming government targets officials it finds inconvenient.
“If you are not careful, it becomes part of our political culture where a new, any new government will come and target a particular head of institution who, for some reason, wasn’t liked,” he said.
Prof Agyeman-Duah said Ghana must allow the system to stabilise following the Chief Justice’s removal and assess its impact objectively.
“I hope that now that we’ve done the Chief Justice removal, and things are settling down, and I’m waiting to see if there will be any study that will confirm that, in fact, the public trust in the judiciary is going up because of the changes,” he said.
“If that is the case, well, I will be happy, so we have to let these things settle down,” he added.
Turning to the petition against the Electoral Commission, he recalled that the issue was rooted in political commitments made ahead of the elections. “Regarding the Electoral Commission again, that was a promise the government made when it was competing for power again,” he said.
He criticised the precedent set by former President Nana Akufo-Addo in removing a previous EC Chair. “I’ve said many times the former president Akufo-Addo set a bad precedent for removing Charlotte Osei from that position,” he said, adding that the current government appears determined to follow that path.
However, he urged restraint and alternative approaches. “I hope that they should find a way of managing this without necessarily adding to this needless culture of removing heads of institutions,” he said.
“This is a matter of giving certain safeguards in terms of better regulations and training or whatever. I think that should be the way rather than removing them,” he added.
On the petition seeking the removal of the Special Prosecutor, Prof Agyeman-Duah praised the President’s intervention.
“For the OSP, I think the President has already requested those who wanted him removed to withdraw their petitions, and that, I think, was a very wise decision by the President,” he said.
He said the same approach should guide the handling of other petitions before the government.
“In the same way, I think this President can manage the other request, other petition, in such a way that we can begin to have a sense of stability rather than a sense of retaliation,” he said.
He warned against turning governance into a cycle of political payback. “Or you do me, I do you kind of thing that we are bringing into our politics,” he said, expressing hope that Ghana avoids that path.
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