Animal Rights group protest lead to arrest of Dr. Kwabena Adjei
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Ghana:
In Accra, series of protests organized by a local animal rights group has led to the arrest of the Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the party of the ruling administration in the West African country. Animal Friends Association of Ghana (AFAG) hit the streets of the capital in protest against the party chairman a day after he equated members of the country’s judiciary to cats. The unprecedented 15-day protest put police under pressure to arrest Dr. Adjei for what the group described as “treasonable comments that are an affront to the rights of cats and judges”.
Initial attempts by the police to invite the party chairman through a phone call proved futile when he suggested to them to rather arrest the entire NDC party machinery. His claim was that he was speaking on behalf of the party that subscribes to the social democracy ideology. A source close to MaizeBreak says the man is yet to be charged pending a presidential intervention which is likely to be resisted by the police top brass.
Dr. Kwabena Adjei was responding to pressmen at a news conference on how to purge the judiciary after the Attorney General lost a number of high profile cases, “There are many ways of killing a cat, and I am therefore calling on the Chief Justice to clean the judiciary or the NDC will clean it” he said. The statement drew sharp criticisms and condemnation from the opposition New Patriotic Party backed by their affiliate pressure group AFAG.
According to a leading member of the pressure group, the statement makes cats and judges endangered species in Ghana, and that the ruling party cannot be trusted for their safety. This position is also widely held by prominent human rights activists in a country where cats are a delicacy in the Volta Region, a place the party chairman hails from.
In the 1980’s, under the regime of the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), a military junta led by Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, three high court judges together with their pet-cats were mysteriously assassinated under bizarre circumstances. Many social commentators believe, the NDC, after losing power in 2000, is back to finish what it started almost three decades later.
In a related development, our business desk reports that there is currently a high demand for cat meat in the strongholds of the left-leaning party. Market prices have soared upwards for the meat, with incessant pressure on suppliers to meet market demands. Business analysts predict this will affect the October inflation rate, calling on the government to offer subsidies to cat farmers in the 2011 Budget that will be laid before parliament in a couple of months.
By Nii Ayertey Aryeh
