Samson Lardy Anyenini has questioned the authority of the Accra minister to instill instant justice
• Host of NewFile, Samson Anyenini, has said that the Accra minister, Henry Quartey, has no right to punish people on the spot
• He has also described persons who support this practice as not thinking
• He explained that the laws of Ghana do not permit such injustices
Journalist and lawyer, Samson Lardy Anyenini, has questioned the continuous motivations behind the Greater Accra minister, Henry Quartey’s unending disregard for the law and his instant-justice policy.
Speaking on Samson’s Take on NewsFile on the JoyNews channel and monitored by GhanaWeb, the host of the news analysis program expressed what he described as his disappointment as a citizen when such matters of injustice are meted out to the citizen, on the instructions of political leaders.
Making specific references to the way the regional minister has gone about instilling discipline at the popular Madina Zongo Junction, exacting instance punishments on people for refusing to either use the footbridge there or not, he said it was all against the laws of the land.
He also described people who support such injustices as not ‘thinking’.
“We have made people to squat on the streets, and we have made them sweep and we look on gleefully; we’re happy about that because we feel that is how we can punish them for refusing to use a footbridge. It doesn’t matter that there is a law that says when someone doesn’t use a footbridge, this is how to deal with them.
“So, the Accra minister, doing a very good job, goes around, gets a few people, they stand around Madina Zongo [Junction], with canes, with whips, to whip who? In a democracy?” he said.
He also wondered how it is that the people who enforce these directives, under the instruction and supervision of the regional minister, Henry Quartey, thought it prudent to exact such gravities of punishments of people, including very elderly people.
He also fumed at the audacity of the regional minister to be giving such orders especially in such a democratic country where the laws are clear on what punishments should be served persons who fall foul of the law.
“And they’re picking people up, some elderly and I look at them and I am ashamed of myself to be a citizen of this country and they make them squat. Think about it before you start your propagandist defense that you do without thinking: if it were your father who made a mistake and was made to squat on the streets while everybody driving past watched him, will you be happy? If it were your mother, who had to squat and made to sweep that dust when they had dressed up going to work, will you be happy?
“Because they erred? And who made the regional minister a judge and a police to pick people and punish them instantly? And who says that is a punishment under our law? You have been clapping for him, that’s fine because you refuse to think that it could be you and that the law doesn’t allow it,” he fumed.