Host of Good Evening Ghana, Paul Adom-Otchere, has chastised private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu, for his recent comments against the president and former Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah.
In his critique of President Akufo-Addo, Mr Kpebu said the president has personally been accused of corruption and will be prosecuted when he leaves office.
According to him, President Akufo-Addo will not be allowed to avoid accountability.
“Let’s come to the president’s own involvement in corruption, the reason why last year I said he was part of a criminal syndicate. Don’t forget Manasseh Awuni did a documentary in which the president personally asked for fumigation of schools, etc by Zoomlion at a cost of over ¢500 million and he is yet to bring his response.”
“That is what the Manasseh investigation found about him personally. All the assemblies all the way to the ministries all said it was the president and even the assemblies showed that they could have done it at a cheaper cost yet President Akufo-Addo personally supervised that fumigation at over ¢500 million and he thinks we have forgotten?
“He should wait until he leaves office, we will drag him. We will ask for him to be prosecuted. He shouldn’t forget. He will be prosecuted in this country,” he told host, Kojo Yankson.
With regards to Cecilia Dapaah and her case with the Office of the Special Prosecutor, the legal practitioner has supported the seizure of the former Minister’s money as part of a probe into corruption-related activities by the OSP after it was revealed that millions of cedis and dollars in the home of Madam Dapaah are unaccounted for.
He has proposed the search of the residences of all government ministers and appointees as part of the anti-corruption efforts.
“Let’s search the officers at the Jubilee House, let’s search the Ministers, let’s search them…the monies are in their homes. If we don’t do this we are not fighting corruption. If we don’t search all the ministers forget it we are just playing.”
But according to Mr Paul Adom-Otchere, Mr Kpebu lacks the moral right to chastise these individuals as he has failed to be upright in the past.
He made reference to the Fred Kusim. A. Windaogo (Plaintiff) vs Martin Luther Kpebu (the 1st defendant) in 2020, where both lawyers went before the court over who has the ownership and copyright of a book titled “Annotated Evidence Law of Ghana”.
Martin Kpebu told the court he re-wrote all the work done by Fred and therefore the final work is his handiwork alone and not a joint authorship.
But the court ruled against Martin Kpebu, describing his actions as unjust and unlawful.
“In dealing with the issues, I do not wish to rehash the facts further. Consequently, based on the aforementioned analysis and conclusion, it is my opinion that the general conduct of Martin Kpebu in the subject matter project with the Plaintiff was unjust and unlawful. One clear instance is Martin Kpebu’s decision to unilaterally change the order of the names on the book. That was unjust and unfair because the agreement he signed clearly stated how the names were to be on the book,” the judge is quoted to have ruled.
Referencing the case, Mr Adom-Otchere said Martin Kpebu cannot call out individuals as he has stolen the work of a colleague once.
“I really don’t like getting into that but when Martin Kpebu continues to call other people names when he, the practitioner of the deviant behaviour, then he is calling other people names. Then I am concerned to put this out in the public domain to see the kind of person – there is the message and messenger.
“The message can be said by anyone but if it is said by the wrong person the message will not go anywhere.
So he is coming to say Cecilia Dapaah is a thief. Do this to her. Nana Akufo-Addo is this. He is stealing people’s work and saying he is smart and popular,” he said on the show.
Meanwhile, Mr Kpebu is nowhere on record to have called Madam Cecilia Dapaah a thief.
The two individuals on October 11, had an engagement following the High Court’s consideration of arguments for expediting the confirmation of the freezing and seizure orders.
Earlier reports suggested that there was a confrontation between the duo, but that has been refuted by the legal practitioner.
But Mr Kpebu in an interview on TV3, said Madam Dapaah was polite to him. He explained that Madam Dapaah only asked about the “commentaries I have been running.”
“To be very honest with you, considering what she is going through, as against the conversation we had, she was very cordial. She was a bit very polite. Polite is a better word. No, she wasn’t fighting me,” he added.
theindependentghana