What The Papers Say
Catholic Standard, Ghana
Negligence plus what equals impropriety?
Certain developments and judgements are bound to create a confidence crisis for the institution of the Board of Public Tribunals.The most disturbing of such judgements are the Kumasi trial of Mr Kwame Arhin, Chairman of the Ashanti Regional Tribunal and the Accra trial of Nii Amoo-Addy. Already legal practitioners have begun talking, cynically of course, about the 'Arhin Rule' as the latest precedent in the law of stealing. Meanwhile, a section of the Ghanaian media, to the surprise of some, have boldly voiced out their disenchantment with the controversial judgements. Indeed, since Flt-Lt. J.J. Rawlings himself has added his voice to the largely unexpressed concern of the public, we suppress further comments on the issue knowing that the government has taken due notice.
However, the Standard cannot let go unnoticed the official statement offered by the National Investigations Committee on August 20, 1984, attempting to explain away the conduct of some officers whose negligent conduct enabled Public Tribunal convict, Madam Ernestina Buruwaa, to be released LEGALLY from prison.
If ever any official act was a contradiction of the common man's concept of justice, it is this unfortunate statement. Again, if any public statement was an insult to the intelligence of Ghanaians it is this particular lame statement: After its own finding that "combination of NEGLIGENT acts and omissions on the part of various officers", right up to Mr George Agyekum, acting Chairman of the board of Public Tribunals, enabled the legal release of Madam Buruwaa, the NIC in a very strange twist of logic, comes out to pontificate that "no evidence of impropriety was, however, found against any of the NEGLIGENT (emphasis ours) public officers".
The question which the NIC statement immediately raises is: when does one say somebody is negligent but acted correctly? The term 'negligence' in its ordinary sense presumes carelessness or recklessness as a result of which some harm is caused either intentionally or not. In our ordinary civil life negligence is an actionable tort and thus drivers who negligently cause motor accidents are sued for damages. In the case of the Buruwaa episode, the harm caused is the escape of the convict. Also the negligence was in respect of a criminal act.
It is the considered opinion of the Standard that a person who fails to take proper precaution cannot be said to have acted properly. Accordingly, we hold the view that the same person who was negligent cannot be free from a charge of improper conduct or impropriety. We, therefore, find it surprising that the statement admits that the officials were negligent but yet does not want to hold them liable as committing impropriety. If the acts committed, indeed, were proper and for which reason the NIC is refusing to fault them, why then the charge of negligence?...
For a government concerned with the pursuit of "the common man's conception of justice", a breakdown of credibility under this regime is twice as dangerous as under another. Ironically, a proliferation of such face-saving statements and doubtful judgements only tend to reinforce within the public a feeling of political insensitivity. Indeed, justice must not only be done, but "manifestly seen to be done" and on the merit of the issues at stake.
National Concord, Nigeria
Uniformed men and the rest of us
The Punch newspaper in its issues of Tuesday and Thursday last week, reported an alleged assault on three employees of the Inyang Ette Motor Transport Company in Lagos, by an officer of the Nigerian Navy. Sequel to the two publications, a five-member team of armed naval personnel stormed the Punch premises last Friday, demanding to see two members of the newspaper's editorial staff.As the Western Naval Command's Public Relations Officer, Lt. Commander Femi Pearse, was later reported to have said, the reported incident is being investigated and the swoop on the Punch was "to let you know the true story" But whatever may be the outcome of the on-going investigations, certain elements of this episode already seem so well enough settled, that a few appropriate observations can even now be made.
That a journey which was to have been undertaken by the transport company was cancelled, there can be no doubt. The company's explanation that the bus billed for the trip had developed engine trouble is a rather flimsy and anaemic excuse. Such abrupt alterations of travel schedules, a practice common among public transporters all over the country, ought to be roundly condemned by anyone who is acquainted with the inconveniences and hardships inflicted on innocent travellers as a consequence. Transporters obviously deserve to pay penalties for these breaches of understanding.
It seems to have been in the bid to exact such a penalty that the scuffle ensued between a naval officer and the Inyang Ette employees. It may even have been, as the lieutenant who led the siege on the Punch said, that it was the motor company's branch manager who threw the first blow that led to the scuffle. But, however rightfully indignated the naval officer might have been over the abortion of the trip, and however deeply he might have been provoked by the transporters, he should still have maintained his image as a paragon of discipline, particularly these days when the military government is leading a War Against Indiscipline (WAI).
What is even to be more seriously deplored, is the subsequent act of forcibly taking the transporters away from the Sabo Police Station where the police was already handling the matter. The nature of the case, by the very fact that civilians were involved, was well within the province of police responsibility. There was nothing to suggest even remotely, that its resolution rested anywhere beyond the competence of the police. By forcibly removing the transporters from a police station, the naval men acted not only as a class of Nigerians above the law, but in fact as agents of indiscipline.
The forcible seizure of civilians from a police station, a sacred institution whose very essence is to ensure the main- tenance of security in society, constitutes a grave desecration of the law. It is this kind of conduct on the part of our men in uniform that may make it extremely difficult to argue with those who contend that the nation has degenerated into a reign of terror. It may be well in future, for the nation's uniformed men to always bear in mind that while the vestments of power may confer some privileges, it certainly demands the exercise of greater restraint and responsibility in all dealing with the wider society and its statutes.
