Crackdown On The Reason Sophia Akuffo Resigned From the Council of State - Paul Adom-Otchere

[00:00:00]Okay, let's now come to the, situation.

[00:00:03]Sophia Akuffo, do you have a photograph?

[00:00:05]Sophia Akuffo is a Council of State member. There she is.

[00:00:09]Madam, good evening. Sophia Akuffo is a Council of State member and she's done something that has never happened. Of course, since 2024, Sophia Akuffo has done some unprecedented things. The Justice Sophia Akuffo, you know, gave the NDC campaign a lot of fodder, isn't it? Because she joined the, the the D D D E P, the debt exchange program, D E P. She joined the D E P campaign when the Ministry of Finance had told us at the time that there will be no haircut and eventually they had to go on haircut, something they blame on E-Levy not being passed properly by Parliament, etc., etc. And so, government didn't have money to actually discharge its obligations. The first time it happened, one of the major things that affected the NPP's fortunes in election 2024.

[00:00:59]Sophia Akuffo was a retired Chief Justice appointed by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as Chief Justice amid controversy in the appointment, I have to say.

[00:01:07]But of course, she was accepted by Parliament and she became Chief Justice.

[00:01:11]She had a short time to finish her tenure, so she did finish her tenure and was left the judicial service, was replaced by His Lordship Justice Anin Yeboah.

[00:01:21]Sophia Akuffo gave the NDC some fodder and people thought that she had actually crossed carpets from being what they thought was an NPP sympathizer to an NDC sympathizer.

[00:01:31]When President Mahama became president, he had the responsibility to nominate a former Chief Justice as the, at the Council of State. Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah was available as a former Chief Justice, the immediate past, but of course, Sophia Akuffo was nominated.

[00:01:48]Many people read politics into it saying that President Mahama will naturally choose Sophia Akuffo who had done something, even though what she did was independent, whatever she did give the NDC some mileage in the campaign of 2024. So, Sophia Akuffo was nominated to the Council of State. Now, Sophia Akuffo is doing something that is going to take political mileage away from the NDC because this is the first time in the history of this Fourth Republic that a Council of State member has decided to resign. She didn't just resign as a Council of State member. She is importantly a former Chief Justice and therefore the head of the judicial committee. So, we are now trying to because they have not told us why she resigned, we are now trying to find the reason why she has resigned. Her resignation, they tell us, was in September 2025. Go back to September 2025. Google on your phone, what was the top story in Ghana in September 2025?

[00:02:40]The top story in Ghana in September 2025 was that His Excellency the President had accepted Gabriel Pwamang's committee's report that Justice Sophia Akuffo had failed the interview, which is the the interview that's conducted under Article 146, that I like to call it an interview. She had failed the interview and therefore the petitions against her, particularly by a man called Daniel Ofori, had been successful. This came as a surprise to Justice Sophia Akuffo's legal team because as far as they were concerned, there were three petitions filed against Justice Araba Esaaba Tokornoo. One of them was being dealt with as Daniel Ofori. The others were not being dealt with. In fact, instructively, this was the only Article 146 petition in the Fourth Republic that had gotten Justice Sophia Akuffo to grant a press conference complaining about the processes at the committee stage. We were told that the head of the judicial committee in the Council of State, Sophia Akuffo, had decided to abstain from the final vote of the Council of State railroading Tokornoo into the Article 146 process. That the Council of State had to make a determination whether the applications that had come had survived and succeeded the threshold of the prima facie analysis. Prima facie means that there's a case to answer. That when the application comes to the Council of State, there's a case to answer. It's a Latin word. Don't don't be worried by that if you don't understand. It's Latin, it's not English, it's not Ga, it's not Twi, it's Latin. Prima facie, they say. What it means is that ahead of looking at the matter, we think that the accused person has a question to answer.

[00:04:14]Sometimes they can look at it and make a determination that the accused person has no question to answer. But on this particular one, the reports came out that the Council of State had decided that Justice Tanko Amadu had a case to answer.

[00:04:27]It came out also those days that the Judicial Committee of the Council of State, which was chaired by the former Chief Justice, had made a decision that there was no prima facie.

[00:04:38]But then the question was thrown to the larger Council of State. The Council of State, the larger Council of State can either decide to adopt the committee's work, which is what happens in every situation like that, same with Parliament. They can decide to adopt the committee's work or the plenary can look at it and decide to cast a vote.

[00:04:55]It It would appear that because the committee's work came in a manner that was not palatable to some people, the plenary decided that they should cast a vote on it. It was on this vote casting that Justice Sophia Akuffo is reported to have abstained from the vote. The vote came and the Council of State had voted in favor of Justice Tanko Amadu going to the Article 146 petition process because they had found a reason why she should go, that a substantial case had been made against her.

[00:05:25]Now, sometime after that, in September 2025, it was reported that the committee of Justice Gabriel Pwamang had told the president that they they prima facie they they finished the interview and Tanko Amadu is guilty.

[00:05:38]Now, around that time, if Justice Sophia Akuffo resigned, then it makes sense for political and legal analysts to put it together that it would appear that Sophia Akuffo's resignation in September 2025 was animated by the treatment of Justice Dotse if you like. If you're a Dotse supporter, you can say the unfounded illegal treatment of Justice Dotse. If you are against Dotse, you can say that there was no basis for us to say it's illegal. But the Dotse matter is not dead. One day a government will come to Ghana that will now lay hands on what happened at the Council of State. I am a new viewers. Don't worry about that. A government is going to arrive in Ghana one day that will now publish everything that happened at the Council of State and all the Council of State members will have questions to answer in the court of morality and the court of public opinion. They may not have any question to answer in the Accra High Court which is chaired by Chief Justice Baffour Bonnie about whom a lot has been said tonight based on videos and photographs coming out of Canada. I'll get to that later on. But the Council of State members will have a lot to answer in the court of public opinion and the court of morality. I pray that on that day when the information fully comes, my own father, the honorable right honorable Doe Adjaho, the chairman of the Council of State, will be able to hold his head high. I sincerely hope that nothing has happened at the Council of State that will blemish Doe Adjaho's reputation because the honorable Doe Adjaho has a distinct reputation and I hope that nothing has happened at the Council of State that will blemish his reputation because Doe Adjaho is a good man. But I can assure you viewers that that thing, everything that happened at the Council of State about Dotse's work, it will be public one day. It will be on this touch screen. It will be on Citi FM. It will be on Channel One. It will be on Joy FM. It will be on UTV.

[00:07:35]Somebody is going to come up and say, "Fellow Ghanaians, this is what the Council of State did." It will be there.

[00:07:42]Also, not just that, the the hearings that occurred at the dual launch where Marietta Brew Appiah was summoned to come and speak, and she gets to the committee and she's told that even though you have responded to the summons by the committee, you are not allowed to speak, which happened twice on two occasions at the committee. According to Justice Takonus' lawyers, this happened on two occasions. One day, somebody will come up and pick all of that this is what Gabriel Palma and his colleagues did. This is what the committee did. So, we are waiting for that. On that day, we will know whether Sophia Akuffo has resigned because of something untoward there or that she resigned because of something else. Whatever it is, the National Democratic Congress of President John Dramani Mahama has some moral questions to answer, but they can ignore it because morality is not what is used to govern, it's legality. So, they can ignore the moral question and it will come all the way to the ballot box in 2028. Martin Amidu, however, is not letting sleeping dogs lie. Martin Amidu has published an article that says that, "Look, President Mahama must make Sophia Akuffo's resignation letter public." And it's by Martin Amidu, and it's as follows.

[00:08:57]He says, "Asaase Radio 99.5 reported online on 14th June 2026, the tendering of the resignation of Mrs. Justice Sophia Akuffo from the Council of State since last year. The news report stated inter alia as follows."

[00:09:16]Inter alia just means among other things. It's a Latin phrase. So, when you see inter alia, it means among other things. So, it says, "The news reported states The news report stated among other things as follows.

[00:09:28]Quote, "Former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo has resigned from Ghana's Council of State, according to sources familiar with the matter, ending her tenure on the presidential advisory committee.

[00:09:43]Sophia Akuffo is understood to have tendered her resignation last year and has not attended any meeting of the Council of State since then. Neither Akuffo nor the presidency immediately commented on the resignation and the circumstances surrounding her decision were not publicly disclosed. Unquote.

[00:10:02]Martin Amidu speaking now. He says, "The sovereign people of Ghana, in whose name and for whose welfare the powers of government are to be exercised in the manner and within the limits laid down in the 1992 Constitution, are entitled to the expectation that all governments exercising power pursuant to the Constitution will exhibit the highest degree of probity, accountability, and transparency towards the electorate.

[00:10:33]Consequently, if it is indeed true that Sophia Justice Sophia Akuffo tendered her resignation to the president last year and ceased to perform the duties of a member of the Council of State in her capacity as a former Chief Justice, then the government owes the sovereign people of Ghana an explanation for its refusal or failure to make her resignation public. The information, coming as it does as a scoop from Assase Radio to the public, creates the impression that the government is purposefully withholding the information because a disclosure might damage the image of the government. Now that Assase Radio has let the cat out of the bag, President Mahama should not only confirm the resignation, which he has in fact done through Felix Kwakye Ofosu in a press conference yesterday, but also publicly disclose the contents of her resignation letter to the public to be judged for themselves whether the grounds of her resignation are reasonable and justified. More damage may occasion to the government should it allow the content of the resignation letter to be leaked to the public from some other source, just as Assase Radio report has done with a scoop. Sophia Akuffo was proposed for nomination to the Supreme Court three times within the period of the PNDC and NDC before her name was endorsed as a nominee by the NDC government of President Rawlings for submission to Parliament. Akuffo had zero experience of courtroom advocacy or real public service. The Ghana Bar Association, the NPP, and others opposed her nomination in 1995, and these are available in the media publications of the period. Before then, Sophia Akuffo had been appointed the chairperson of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority by the PNDC in 1989, and she continued to serve in that capacity alongside her position as a Supreme Court Justice until the NDC government exited office in 2001.

[00:12:35]When the public political landscape changed after 7th January 2001, she told me in open court that the Attorney General, Nana Akufo-Addo, is her cousin and questioned why I was not objecting to her sitting on my case.

[00:12:50]Amidu versus John Agyekum Kufuor and others.

[00:12:53]As I was objecting to the then acting Chief Justice sitting on the same case, I ignored the ingratiating family relationship questioned as the grounds of objection I had filed in court against the acting Chief Justice's participation in the hearing were not based on family relations. Nonetheless, when the NDC resumed government in 2009, she went her way to be endorsed by the government to serve on the African Court of Human Rights.

[00:13:21]Upon completion of her tenure and return to Ghana, her cousin, Nana Akufo-Addo, who had become president of Ghana, nominated her over the most senior justice of the Supreme Court as Chief Justice. The president, however, consistently refused to act on petitions for her removal from of her removal from office under Article 146 of the Constitution as Chief Justice as mandated by law. President Mahama knows why he appointed her to the Council of State and who advised him to do so. Mrs. Justice Akufo's behavior since the emergence of the petition to remove her successor, Justice Gertrude, it's not her successor actually. Her successor is Anin-Yeboah, but this is also another Chief Justice. So, I I I I make that intervention and continue. Mrs. Justice Gertrude Tokornoo as Chief Justice at the removal of Tokornoo. And her Sophia Sophia's opinion Sophia's open involvement in political advocacy as a member of the Council of State demonstrate that she lacks the comportment of a former Chief Justice. I criticize Mrs. Akufo's participation in the Constitutional Review Committee meeting organized at the IEA and other fora dealing with the removal of her successors. I had expected her to have resigned on account of her publicized views on the petitions of the removal of her successor also appointed by her cousin Nana Akufo-Addo as Chief Justice.

[00:14:47]In my view Mrs. Tokornoo was unfit for the position of Chief Justice. I however have prob- In my view, Mrs. Tokornoo was unfit for the Is that what he said? Why? Okay. I however have problems with the refusal of or failure by the government to disclose to the public post facto the report of the removal committee justifying her removal from office. The public is entitled to know the reasons that Miss Miss Justice Akufo assigned for her resignation to enable us determine what the government had done to warrant the unprecedented step of a former Chief Justice resigning from the Council of State in the history of the 1992 Constitution. The government also owes the people of Ghana an explanation for the delay in disclosing the information, a delay in disclosing and informing the public of the tendering of her resignation. Okay, we we have we can do with that. But, I think that Amidu's article came before Felix Kwasi Twumasi announcement. So, Felix Kwasi Twumasi, the government communication minister, has held a press conference yesterday in which he said to us that Sophia Akuffo's resignation actually occurred September 2025. The reason why it is now being announced is that the Council of State prevailed on President Mahama to hold on in accepting the resignation because they, the Council of State, were going to talk to Sophia Akuffo. So, they started talking to Sophia Akuffo in September 2025, October, January, February, March, April, May, June, 10 months.

[00:16:30]It's 27 minutes past hour of 10:00. It's still on Good Evening Ghana. I hope you're enjoying the politics. 10 months of Gloria Akuffo and the Council of State trying to speak to Sophia Akuffo didn't work. 10 months. 1 2 3 10 months.

[00:16:45]The Council of State was without a representation of a former Chief Justice for 10 months. And the Council of State in those 10 months were meeting. In those 10 months, they were making judicial decisions. In those 10 months, they were approving nominations and appointments of the president. And in those 10 months, one of the most important functionality at the Council of State, the former Chief Justice chairing the Judicial Committee, one of the most sensitive committees of the Council of State, the chairperson was absent. 10 months.

[00:17:17]>> [snorts] >> Well, well, well.