North Tongu Member of Parliament, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa says he is not afraid to be incarcerated for undertaking his constitutional oversight mandate.
In a social media post on Thursday, Ablakwa contended that a state where lawmakers discharging their oversight role “become victims of state sponsored harassment, strange court injunctions and judicial threats of imprisonment even as double identity charlatans are protected and pampered is definitely a nation in the dark abyss.”
He stressed:”I am ever ready to be a political prisoner of conscience than to be coerced and compromised into a behind the scenes deal with the corrosive enemies of the Republic.”
The opposition frontbench has rallied behind the MP following attempts by the Secretary to the Board of the National Cathedral Secretariat, Rev Kusi Boateng to move the court to punish the MP for contempt, on grounds of evading service of a court process.
In a press statement issued by Minority Leader, Cassiel Ato Forson, the Minority described the suit as cowardly and a desperate effort to stifle parliamentary scrutiny and pervert justice.
The Clergyman, Rev Kusi Boateng has secured a ten-day injunction barring the North Tongu lawmaker from making further “public disclosures of private documents, correspondence, communication and property belonging to the applicant”.
Ablakwa’s Post published below
I wish to express heartfelt appreciation and profound gratitude for the overwhelming solidarity and words of encouragement I have received since the series of cathedral exposés in the pursuit of my constitutional mandate of oversight, and in the face of the current fascist machinations to use the judiciary and other state institutions to silence and intimidate me.
I am eternally indebted to the good people of Ghana, my dearest family, former President H.E. John Mahama, the NDC executive led by Chairman Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, the NDC Council of Elders chaired by Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang, my beloved North Tongu constituents, the rank and file of NDC comrades across the country, Civil Society Organisations, activists, genuine pastors, the media, my dedicated staff, gallant and dependable colleagues of the NDC Caucus in Parliament led by Dr. Cassiel Ato Baah Forson.
A country where parliamentarians carrying out their constitutional oversight mandate become victims of state sponsored harassment, strange court injunctions and judicial threats of imprisonment even as double identity charlatans are protected and pampered is definitely a nation in the dark abyss.
Let the cowardly forces of tyranny be told that I am not one to be frightened with imprisonment.
I am ever ready to be a political prisoner of conscience than to be coerced and compromised into a behind the scenes deal with the corrosive enemies of the Republic.
Nkrumah, Rawlings, Mandela, Kenyatta, Sisulu, Motlanthe, Desmond Tutu, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jnr., Thomas Mapfumo, Andrei Sakharov, Antonia Gramsci and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have all taught us to overcome the fear of prison and be constantly of the indomitable belief that Truth and Justice cannot be imprisoned.
Silence and Surrender cannot be options!
