The “Kakai” Bail Tactics: How Political Arrests Are Burying Freedoms In Whimsical Clauses
By J. A. Sarbah
The entire Chapter 5 of our Constitution (Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms) is under siege!
The saddest part is that the legal fraternity is dead silent.
In the face of rising political tension, and an increasing resort to arrests as tools of statecraft mimicking the AFRC/PNDC era, I restate in the strongest tone, an inviolable truth:
Liberty is not a privilege bestowed at the pleasure of power; and certainly not under John Mahama and his lawless administration. It is a right guaranteed by the constitution.
Recent events are not merely disturbing; they cast a long shadow over that right.
Barely a month ago, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of NPP, Bernard Antwi-Boasiako (Wontumi), was arrested by EOCO in a manner more befitting a narcotics bust than a lawful summons. After hours in custody, he was granted bail, but on terms no reasonable court should bless:
GHS 50 million, secured by two landed properties in Accra, both of equal value.
He remained in custody for over a week – not for lack of legal standing, but because the bail was technically impossible.
It was a show of raw power, and it succeeded.
Just days ago, journalist Paul Adom-Otchere suffered a similar fate. He was arrested under the directive of the Special Prosecutor. Bail was granted, only on condition that he should surrender two landed properties in his name. He passed the night in the NIB bunker because he wasn’t able to meet the bail terms. Freedom came, but only after intense lobbying forced a variation of those punitive terms by Kissi Agyebeng.
These are not isolated incidents; they are calculated and serialised. They are part of a creeping pattern in which bail conditions are coded as instruments of repression, circumventing presumption of innocence and punishing dissent under the veneer of a new-normal as due process.
But bail is not punishment. Article 14(4) of the 1992 Constitution demands that any person arrested for a non-capital offence be brought before court within 48 hours. Unless the State can show compelling grounds, such a person must be released unconditionally – or on reasonable terms.
The Constitution knows no such thing as “political bail” or “selective liberty.” The law must apply equally, or it collapses entirely.
This Court of the Concerned Ghanaian hereby rejects the growing practice of setting “Kakai” bail conditions – monstrous, excessive, inherently unreasonable, and insane.
Bail must reflect the principle that justice is not a function of force, but of fairness. Any deviation from this undermines the very legitimacy of the prosecutorial process.
This ruling is not an indulgence; it is a safeguard.
The suspect or the accused may be controversial – regardless. The charges may be politically sensitive – regardless. But the Constitution is blind to status and immune to partisanship.
In this country, the rule of law, not political convenience, shall prevail.
Postscript:
Two weeks ago, the Attorney General Dominic Ayine directed EOCO to investigate NDC National Organiser Joseph Yamin and other party officials over illegal mining (galamsey) infractions – the very same allegations leveled against Chairman Wontumi for which he was subjected to a humiliating arrest and slapped with a monstrous bail term.
To date, Ghanaians have not witnessed any such Rambo-style arrests or the slapping of kakai bail conditions on Yamin and his comrades.
They’re walking free because they, unlike others, are above the law. New Ghana indeed!
This is the administration John Mahama is shamelessly presiding over – a creeping culture of lawlessness, selective justice, and discretionary impunity. The bench, in particular, must be called out for their complicity and tacit endorsement of politically crafted unwritten rules in the administration of justice that is unblind to partisanship.
Ghana is not just at a constitutional crossroads; it is a few steps away from full-blown kleptocratic failed state.
J. A. Sarbah | PP Firebrand | VoNC
WHAT IS JOHN MAHAMA AND HIS LAWLESS ADMINISTRATION UP TO?
