Tsikata, Rule of Law, and Democracy
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong

The rejection of national honour for his contribution to the growth of Ghana’s security by Kojo Tsikata, fondly called Kojo-T, a retired military captain and former National Security Adviser in both the military and civilian regimes of Jerry Rawlings’ Provisional National Defence Congress (PNDC) and National Democratic Congress (NDC), reveals the struggles of Ghana’s nascent democracy.

The Kojo-T rejection (of the National Order of the Volta – Companion Category) is based on his feverish complains that his cousin, Tsatsu Tsikata, former CEO of the state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, has been jailed 5 years for financial crimes to the state. For almost 6 years, Tsatsu, spoken of privately as a gambler, trial has been going on, testing Ghana’s 16-year-old nascent democratic dispensation, of which the rule of law, for long trodden upon especially under the almost 20-year regimes of Rawlings-Kojo-T, is a tall part.

As much as Ghana’s long efforts for democracy and rule of law go, Kojo-T, almost 70 years old, has been a complicated figure, practically projecting disbelief in democracy/rule of law and giant belief in some sort of a dictatorial Marxist-Socialist Ghana. In some of sort of strange ways, Kojo-T has come to embody the dark recesses of Ghana’s culture – some superstitious Ghanaians believe Kojo-T has occult powers and is heavily mired in juju-marabout rituals to the extent that he can vanish into thin air or transform himself into any animal. This is not good for democratic growth and rule of law in a Ghana part of which culture, as Kojo-T is alleged to exemplify, have been inhibiting its progress.

For a good part of Ghana’s existence Kojo-T has been implicated in one coup detat or another. As National Security Adviser, he was so feared that he held sway not only over life and death but also manipulation of rule of law and effectively fostered the long-running “culture of silence,” where Ghanaians were very afraid to speak their minds for fear of being killed or disappearing. An avowed Marxist-Socialist and former guerrilla fighter in Angola, Kojo-T’s accusation of the President John Kufour’s democratic regime of engaging “in the manipulation of the judicial system” following the conviction of Tsatsu, reveal the on-going difficult attempts to grow democracy, the rule of law and free the overburdened judiciary from the clutches of tribalism, excessive emotions against sound reasoning, and politicization.

As Kojo-T exemplifies, anytime any of the former ruling PNDC/NDC members are indicted for any wrong doing, they instantly read it as politically motivated despite contrary behaviour (just compare their lifestyles before they came to power and after). By rejecting the national award on the allegation that the Kufour administration has manipulated the jailing of his cousin Tsatsu, Kojo-T opens the old wound between Ghana’s “democracy constituency” and its “socialist constituency,” where the likes of Kojo-T do not believe in the tenets of democracy, despite some of their recent claims of transforming themselves into social democrats, and with the slightest mishap, throw juju into the democratic process. In Kojo-T, the central issue isn’t his National Order of the Volta award, of which he has the right to reject or accept; the central issue is the wisdom of being named as honouree for his security services to the state – this is despite some serious grumbling in certain quarters that Kojo-T doesn’t deserve any award since he is alleged to have been engaged in extra-judicial killings and disappearance of some Ghanaians.

But in the name of reconciliation and healing such accusations against Kojo-T become fertilizer to further consolidate Ghana, and award Kojo-T a national honour for his security services to a Ghana that has for a good part of its 51-year corporate existence suffered bumps of insecurities to the detriment of its progress. Still, Kojo-T doesn’t need to reject the national award but help his cousin Tsatsu appeal his conviction in a court of law if he finds Tsatsu’s conviction unfair and deeply belief in the rule of law and not any threatening, tribalistic and emotional outburst. And it is in this sense that the Chief Justice, Mrs. Georgina Theodora Wood, advised Tsatsu to “seek redress in a court of competent jurisdiction” to resolve his conviction.

The fact that Tsatsu has been jailed and not killed, as had been the case during the good part of Kojo-T and associates’ rule, doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be an award for Kojo-T - despite Kojo-T’s emotional attempts to blend the two. Tsatsu’s encounter with the law for financial crimes is diametrically different from Kojo-T being awarded national honour, whether they are from the same family or ethnic group or political party. The law is blind to all these differences, and is unwavering with its application to wrong doing.

This is against Kojo-T’s PNDC/NDC rule where the rule of law was turned upside down and some Ghanaians were subject to extra-judicial threats, harassment, and deaths including public executions.

Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, Canada, June 29, 2008