13. The Attorney General's Office Again and After

Once more, I was in my old office. Although there had been some improvements in the furniture and fittings in the office, much remained the same. Above all, Patience Dixon-Caesar, my Private Secretary who had been assigned to me in 1962 when I became DPP and I took along with me to the Attorney General's office when I acted in that office, was still the Private Secretary of the Attorney General. This was my greatest delight. She had been the Private Secretary of the various Attorneys General who had held office for the past thirteen years. She was then in a powerful position, having held the secrets of the office of at least four other Attorneys General, Victor Owusu, S. Yaw Adade, E. N. (Fiifi) Moore and Justice G. Koranteng-Addow. As I write today in 1999, she still occupies the same position. I believe the tally of Attorneys General she has served as Private Secretary must have risen to at least ten, with Joe Reindorf, Archie Djabatey, G. E. K. Aikins, Tannor and Obed Asamoah, coming after me. Her experiences would make a most wonderful book on the ways, methods of management, strengths and weaknesses as the efficient dispatch of business of all these different personalities; providing nothing short of a wonderful feast of the comparative biographies of these lawyers.

The Attorney General's Office which I came back to meet was not the same as the Office I had left some twelve years before. In the upper echelons, there has been considerable movement. Aikins, later to become Attorney General and eventually a judge of the Supreme Court, was now DPP. There was no Solicitor General. There was a Legal Class Appointments Board (LCAB), on which I had served as member since the time I was a judge of the Court of Appeal. Its functions included the recommendation for appointment, promotion and discipline of all the legal staff in Government Service. In these matters, therefore, it had come to substitute for the Public Service Commission. The Attorney General was the Chairman, although, his Deputy could preside in his absence. I recall that N. M. Chawe Dodoo, who had been in the Commercial Section practically since its inception in the 1960s, was recommended for the post some years before my return to the Office. That recommendation was accepted by Government. But somehow, no appointment letter was issued to him. Apparently, someone in high office thought that he was not deserving of the post and refused to take the necessary action. No reason for not implementing this Government decision was ever given to the LCAB. Chawe, meanwhile, obtained an appointment for an initial period of some two years as the General Counsel of the Secretariat of the African Caribbean Pacific States (ACP), which represented those States in their dealings with the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU) in Brussels. With the office of Solicitor General still vacant when I came back; and the approval by Government of Chawe for appointment to the office not countermanded, I thought the right thing was to offer the appointment to him. But it would only make sense if he was to return from Brussels in the not too distant future to undertake the duties of the office. I accordingly made this proposal to the SMC to which it agreed. But Chawe did not return from Brussels. His two-year secondment extended to a stay with the ACP of about fifteen years. Eventually, the Solicitor General's post was given to Charles Tettey, who had been acting in the position in Chawe's absence. He held the post for a record of about fifteen years.

I left the Attorney General's Office with Lebrecht (Nii Tete) Chinery Hesse as the Chief Legal Draftsman. I returned to find him in the same position. He had always liked his work as a legal draftsman. But his department was depleted of staff. It then had a complement of eleven draftsmen. There were only five at post and one of them, Dabi, had been assigned to the Constitutional Commission. Indeed, the whole Office was suffering from a certain lack of lustre among its ranks. Prosecutors like Kobina Taylor, Peter Adjetey and Kwesi Zwennes were gone before, some of them even before I left the Office the first time. Gyeke Dako was still advising the Police. There were bright lights, like Amonoo-Money and Badoo around, but I am not sure that they had the recognition that they deserved. One thing the LCAB had done was to introduce an element of temerity in its members as the lawyers in the Public Service, always conscious of their positions in the legal hierarchy, were near enough to the members to embarrass them by complaints personally to them whenever anybody was promoted out of turn. The spate of enquiries into the affairs of people with affiliations or past performances of undesirables to the current powers which had started in the days of the National Liberation Council, after the overthrow of Nkrumah, had not yet ended. Some of the members of the Attorney General's staff were still assigned to these enquiries. As was customary, the cases or files coming to the Office for action were distributed to the officers who were to deal with them by their heads of section. But occasionally, there were matters which I needed to entrust directly to a member of staff. In organising this, I tended to make more use of the members of staff whom I thought had the flair or ability of the particular person chosen rather than follow any routine for distribution of work. One of the persons whom I heavily relied upon was J. E. K. Appiah. He was a mature public servant when he entered the Attorney General's Office, having been one of the most senior officers in the Establishment Secretariat before he qualified as a lawyer. He was, in my view, very good. I, therefore, entrusted a number of difficult court or commission of enquiry work to him. It was after I had left office, that I was shaken by unpleasant news about his personal integrity in the discharge of his office.

My letter of appointment from the Office of the Supreme Military Council dated 1 January 1979, was signed by E. K. Minta, as Secretary to the Council. Minta was an old Achimotan who was about three years ahead of me at the School. I quote it, as it might be of interest for later comparative purposes. It read:

Dear Sir,

I am directed to inform you that in pursuance of the Supreme Military Council (Establishment) Proclamation (Amendment) Decree, 1978 (SMCD.169), the Supreme Military Council has appointed you a member of the National Redemmption Council and assigned to you responsibility for the Ministry of Justice and as Attorney General with effect from 1st January, 1979.

2. The salary attached to the post is c14,856.00 per annum consolidated. In addition you will be paid a non-taxable allowance of 20% of your salary.

3. You will be provided with official accommodation for which you will pay rent at normal rates paid by members of the Civil Service. Except for normal wear and tear, you will be expected to make good any damage to or loss of Government property provided for your use. You will bear the cost of electricity and water consumed in the premises you occupy and pay bills for these services direct to the authorities concerned. If however you reside in your own house you will be paid 20% of your salary as rent allowance.

4. You will normally be provided with a chauffeur-driven official car. Alternatively, you may use your own car on duty, subject to your being provided with a paid chauffeur and drawing appropriate maintenance and mileage allowance. If you use an official car, you are expected to comply with the requirement of a log-book being kept in respect of petrol issues, journeys, mileage, maintenance, major repairs, etc.

5. When travelling on duty outside Accra you will be eligible to draw as night allowance the amount charged by a hotel for bed and breakfast plus c2.00 to meet other expenses. Alternatively, you may draw an unaccountable allowance of c6.00 per night to cover the full cost of your stay with friends or relations.

6. You will be provided with the services of 1 cook, 1 steward, 1 garden boy and 2 drivers.

7. You are eligible to 28 days' vacation leave in a year. In addition, you may take casual or special leave with the approval of the Chairman of the Supreme Military Council. With the approval of the Chairman, you may travel outside Ghana at your own expense during your leave.

8. Please acknowledge receipt that you accept the appointment and on the terms offered.

Yours faithfully,

As I intended to continue staying in my own house during the short time that I contemplated staying on as Attorney General, I had the 20% housing allowance. I was quite satisfied with the one driver, Ebenezer, whom I had and forewent the second driver. In March, 1979, I received a letter from the Secretary of the SMC informing me that the 20% of salary duty allowance had been changed to c4,000 flat per annum. I got soon to declaring my assets and named every property I had got or was interested in. It was a tedious process but I understood the need for such declaration and willingly bore the burden.

The SMC, which was the topmost policy making organ of State at the time was a seven-man body, formed mainly by military officers. General Fred Akuffo was its Chairman and consequently the Head of State. The other members were General Joshua Hamidu, his Deputy, and the others were the heads of the military establishment: General Odartey Wellington (Army), Air Vice Marshall GeorgeYaw Boakye (Air Force), and Rear-Admiral Joy Amedume (Navy); and Inspector General of Police, B. S. Kwakye. Apart from their responsibility for the various arms of the military forces and the Police, each had responsibility for one or more portfolios of government. By invitation, a few Commissioners like Gloria Nikoi, Joe Abbey and myself attended the SMC meetings as advisers.

The membership of the next tier of Government, the National Reformation Council, which was composed of the Commissioners (the terminology adopted by the Military regimes for Ministers) consisted of Abayfa Karboe (Commissioner for Special Duties), Kofi Badu (Commissioner for Sports), J. L. S. (Joe) Abbey (Commissioner for Economic Planning), Kwame Afreh (Commissioner for Information), Professor J. Benneh (Commissioner for Lands & Mineral Resources), Dr. Emmanuel Evans-Anfom (Commissioner for Education, Youth & Culture) J. Harlley (Commissioner for Transport & Communications) Anthony Kobina Woode (Commissioner for Labour & Social Welfare), Alhaji Iddrisu (Commissioner for Local Government) and myself. The civilian Regional Commissioners, who were in charge of some of the regions of the country were E. R. K. Dwemoh (for Greater Accra), J. S. Y. Amenlemah (for Western Region), S. H. Annacy (for Eastern Region) and Dr. K. G. Erbynn (for Central Region). The head of Security, E. K. Buckman, the Commissioner for SMC/NRC Affairs, always attended SMC meetings and gave a report on the current security situation. Gloria Nikoi, Joe Abbey, the Economic Supremo and myself were the other regular attendants. From time to time, others, like particular Commissioners from whom the Council wished to hear, would be invited for the occasion. Rev. Colonel K. A. Quashie, later on to become the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Ghana, was Commissioner of Trade and Tourism. I met him in office but, before I became Attorney General and Commissioner, I had thought of entering the transport business and had obtained a licence from him for the importation of an articulated vehicle. The importation of the vehicle was to be done by UTC as my agents. But by the end of 1978, no letter of credit had been established for the importation. Licences which had not been utilised before the end of the year on account of lack of a letter of credit were being renewed. But when I became Attorney General, I asked for mine to be cancelled. Thus failed my attempt to become a transport entrepreneur. Of my colleagues, George Benneh, was the Professor of Geography at the University of Ghana, of whom much was expected in the politics of the future in the country by followers of the Nkrumah tradition. His father had been a member of Nkrumah's Government, Dr. Erbynn, a lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, later on to have charge of the Cocoa Purchasing Company. Several of the portfolios of government were held by military officers. The Finance portfolio, for example, was held by a shy officer, who was often overshadowed by the brilliance and exuberance of Joe Abbey. That exuberance always riled George Benneh, who probably thought that Joe was unduly interfering in other people's work, as he often entered into argument with Joe.

The NRC was more a Council of Ministers. It was attended by all the members of the SMC together with all Commissioners with responsibility for particular portfolios. At this time, the Chairman of the SMC, presided as the Chairman of the NRC.

The first thing I turned my attention to was the new Constitution. There had been a great deal of constitution drafting activity from 1978. A Constitutional Commission, was originally appointed by General Acheampong on 10 May, 1978 with a Chairman and membership of some 27 members. The Commission was enlarged on 1 August, 1978 to a Chairman and 50 members. Dr. Thomas Mensah, was the chairman of the Commission. Its mandate was limited, in that it was charged with drafting a Constitution on Union Government, taking into consideration the previous Constitutions of Ghana since Independence and the various proposals and circumstances leading to their adoption; the Report and Findings of the Ad Hoc Committee on Union Government and the results of the National Referendum of 1978 on Union Government; and other matters as the Commission my consider appropriate and, in particular, but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, any other institutional arrangements which were not provided for in the previous Constitutions. After the palace coup which replaced Acheampong with General Akuffo, the Constitution Commission was on 1 August 1978 reconstituted into body consisting of a Chairman and fifty seven members but, as it turned out, the Commission had to proceed with the Chairman and fifty one members. Dr. Mensah continued as Chairman. Justice Charles Crabbe was one of the new members added by the reconstituted group. The terms of reference of the Commission were altered from that of drafting a Constitution on Union Government, which was dear to the heart of Acheampong, to drafting a constitution for the establishment of a Transitional (Interim) National Government for Ghana, taking into account the previous constitutional documents, including the Report and Findings of the Ad Hoc Committee on Union Government. The Commission presented its proposals for a Constitution for the Establishment of a Transitional (Interim) Government for Ghana on or about 20 November 1978. All this was before I was recalled to be Attorney General and I had nothing to do with them. Yet another body was subsequently appointed. It was described as a Constituent Assembly, with Justice Charles Crabbe as Chairman. That body reported with its draft Constitution which was to be promulgated by the Assembly on 1 July, 1979, the date scheduled for the Military to hand over the reins of government to an elected civilian regime. It was this draft that I had to deal with. One of the members of the Attorney General's staff in the Drafting Section, Mr. A. K. Dabi, had been assigned since the time of the first appointed Commission to help with drafting matters. I thought I could simplify some of the drafting which had been done by the Constituent Assembly. Indeed, I made a number of non-controversial corrections which were adopted by the Assembly. There was, however, other work to be done. Unfortunately, with the work-pressures on him, Koranteng-Addow left a huge pile of files unattended to. I decided to work systematically through these. The fact that I also had to attend and advise the meetings of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and as Commissioner of Justice and to attend the meetings of the National Redemption Council (NRC) as of right, placed an extra burden on my time.

One provision of apparent insignificance but the most troublesome was the provision that Parliament shall have no power to pass retrospective legislation. In the British system, it has always been possible for the Government to pass retrospective tax legislation. A power that is rarely used but occasionally necessary to redress a serious imbalance, windfall profits made by a small group of persons at the expense of the general public or a palpably unfair distribution of the tax burden. Ghana had, due to obvious historical connections, followed British practices in many ways. Generally, on that account and because the power is useful and salutary if exercised with caution, it was thought that this power should be preserved. Of course, the argument could be made that the British Parliament could pass any law, at will, that it had never operated under a written constitution and, in any event, there were other precedents which could be cited where retrospective legislation was wholly banned and, therefore, the British practice should not be used as a guide because it would only confer a dangerous power which would be abused by government. There were other States, I believe the U.S. is one of them, in which the Constitution denied the legislature the right to enact retrospective legislation. Theirs was the example that many in Ghana thought we should follow. That must have been the argument on which the blanket exclusion of retrospective legislation was based. The matter was, however, not always debated on this high plane.

There was a narrower issue which influenced consideration of this problem. Acheampong, during his regime, had personally given concessions to certain individual businessmen, considered as friends. The usual tax concession conferred on an entrepreneur was of a nature of a tax holiday, exempting him from paying tax on profits or business income over a period of time. Although this practice was opposed by the U.S. on the ground that it infringed the principle of tax equity and equality, many developing countries used it to attract foreign investment, including, incidentally, investment from the U.S. In the exemptions granted by Acheampong, notably to B. A. Mensah, the owner of the Rothmans' cigarette franchise, and Siaw, who built Achimota Brewery, was included an exemption from surrendering the sales taxes collected by them on their products as well. The objection to this concession is that whereas a tax holiday was an exemption from paying tax on one's income, this latter exemption was not allowing them to keep their own money but enabling the concessionaires to keep money constituting a tax imposed on the public which they had collected from the public merely as agents of Government. Some described it as permitting these privileged persons to keep for themselves other people's paid tax money belonging to Government. The matter had obviously been discussed in the SMC before I started attending their meetings. Most of the members were in favour of recovering this sales taxes collected by B. A. Mensah and Siaw on their products from them, though there was the rare dissenting voice. When I joined them, my advice was that the sales tax collected from the public was not a concession on their operations which Government could give as an incentive to the entrepreneurs and agreed that they should be recovered. The amounts recoverable were determined and attempts were made to recover part of it. But it was clear that the whole amount outstanding would not be collected before 1 July, the date on which the Military Government intended to hand over to a civilian Government. Clearly, if the Constitution provided that retrospective legislation could, on no occasion, be enacted, this would make it impossible to collect whatever was outstanding at the time of the handover. The SMC, with my full support, was, therefore anxious that a power to redress inequitable tax situations retrospectively should not be excluded by the complete bar which the Constitution makers intended to have the new Constitution promulgate. Thus Article 89 of the draft of the 1979 Constitution contained the provision that:

"89 (1) Parliament shall have no power to enact a law -

(a) which has the effect of a legislative judgment; or

(b) which is to operate retrospectively either in intent or content."

An exception was made by subsection (2) with respect to matters like the authorisation of expenditure by Parliament, expenditure in advance of appropriation, the contingency fund authorisation of Government loans and the public debt. But this, in my view, was insufficient to deal with the problem. I still have a copy of the draft Constitution to be promulgated which shows Article 89 deleted. This was, no doubt, as a result of my advice. The Constituent Assembly after debating it refused to make the change. But the ultimate power in the enactment of the Constitution lay with the SMC and I advised that in approving the Constitution, it should make this amendment in any case. As will presently be told, the SMC did not have the opportunity to promulgate the Constitution. By May, anyway, the Constitution was ready for approval by the SMC and adoption. There was some argument about how the adoption should be made to give the Constitution validity. Some thought the Constituent Assembly should be given power to promulgate it, as promulgation by the SMC, which was not a representative Government, would not be appropriate. The Constitution published by the Assembly, opens grandly with the words: “We the People of Ghana, by our representatives gathered in this Constituent Assembly .... Do hereby Adopt and Give to Ourselves this Constitution this First day of June 1979.” This grandiose claim seemed to me to ring false. If the SMC was not an appropriate body to promulgate the Constitution on account of it being unelected, neither could the Assembly, which the SMC itself appointed, be described as representative; it was not elected by the people. The SMC stuck to its decision, despite political pressure for change, that it would be the body to promulgate it. The new Constitution was scheduled to be promulgated on 1 July and not 1 June of 1979. I was not much impressed with the argument that this would not give it legitimacy. On that basis, the legitimacy of the Commission itself was, in my view, questionable. The 1979 Constitution was eventually promulgated by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, the Military Government which overthrew the SMC and it came into force on 24 September, 1979.

Party political activity had started when Akuffo took over from Acheampong and was being actively conducted by the time I became Attorney General. The scheme, which was decided upon, was that the election of the President and members of Parliament should be separately held. The Presidential election was to be taken first. The followers of the Nkrumah tradition were, in spite of the fact that a number of their stalwarts were disqualified, full of confidence that this time they would win. The person they would have liked to nominate as their candidate because of his ability to unite all the different factions of the party, was Imoru Egala, who hailed from the north; had been a Senior Prefect at Achimota School; and was a Minister in Nkrumah's Government. But Egala was disqualified. Nevertheless, the party slogan was that if they nominated even a goat as their leader, they were going to win the election. Even though he was not qualified to stand, Egala was interested in retaining and manipulating the reins of power. According to reports, it was he who proposed the person who was eventually chosen as the party candidate. He nominated Dr. Hilla Limann, who had taken a doctorate degree in Economics in France, and was a Foreign Service man in the Research of Intelligence branch, who had served in Geneva and Togo. It is said that Egala nominated him because he was a relative or a former student of his. In any case he hoped that by having Limann elected President, he, Egala, would be the real wielder of power behind the throne. How mistaken he was, was soon to be proved. Limann was eventually elected President.

By March to April, I had managed to reduce substantially the mountain of unattended files which greeted me at the beginning of January. There was one of the last UN Conferences on the Law of the Sea coming on about this time to which I was invited. I asked General Akuffo whether I could go. He thought I had been working hard enough to deserve a break, and he put the matter to the SMC, which agreed to my attending. It was on that occasion that I met the then Attorney General of Tanzania, Joseph Warioba, a simple but very impressive man, who was a Deputy Chairman of the Conference and acted when the Sri Lankan Chairman, Amerasinghi(?),~[* name check? ]~ was absent from the meeting. Warioba handled the Conference with knowledge, humour and skill and, I think, did much to project his country and the African image at that Law Conference.

Not long after my return to Ghana, I was told that I would be in the official delegation travelling with General Akuffo to the OAU Heads of State meeting in Dakar. The meeting was in the about 20 May. But sometime before the delegation left for Dakar, there was an uprising led by a young Air Force Officer by name of J. J. Rawlings in May. He represented a group of dissident members of the Armed Forces who were unhappy about how things were going in the country. The economic situation had not much improved. The Government in the hope of improving exports and reducing the quantities of local currency in circulation, without notice, suddenly changed the currency, giving a short time within which to exchange the old currency for the new. To make matters worse, 1979 saw another huge price hike in the oil price. Oil was selling at over 40 US dollars per barrel. We were relieved to hear that Libya would supply us with oil which we could not get from Nigeria. But the Libyans turned out to be as hard-headed about money as any Western businessman. Oil was to be delivered only on payment of cash. The oil problem was one which the finance people with Commissioner Joe Abbey at the head, were constantly battling with. On one occasion, Ghana was faced with a serious shortage. A boat carrying Libyan oil for which we knew we had paid was in Ghanaian waters and we all thought that relief was at hand. Suddenly, members of the Cabinet which formed the SMC were summoned to an emergency meeting. The boat was in Tema but the Captain refused to discharge the oil because, according to his instructions, Ghana had not paid for it and he had been ordered from Libya not to discharge until payment had been received. At the emergency meeting, Joe Abbey, terribly upset, assured the Cabinet that the money had been paid through Citibank in New York and notice of it must have reached Libya by then. We were saved by the fortuitous circumstance that the Charge d'Affaires at the Danish Embassy was Lisabeth Anderson, a young Danish woman married to Alfred Gaisie, the Ghanaian businessman. Through her, the message was given to the Danish Captain of the boat requesting him to begin to discharge the oil slowly while steps were taken by Joe Abbey's team to find out what had happened to the money paid to the Libyan bank in New York. The Captain agreed and it worked. The sight of the boat discharging the oil, however slowly, reduced the pressure on Government. It turned out later that payment for the oil had, indeed, been made as Joe Abbey had said, and notice of the payment had been sent to Libya. But, it being one of the Moslem holidays, the person to whom it was sent had not been at his desk to read the notice.

The economic situation underwrote the events leading to the handover to civilian rule. Hard times added a dimension to the restlessness of the ordinary soldiers in the barracks. The reports from Buckman, the Security Chief, were that there was disgruntlement among them about the plans for a return to civilian rule. Even if I did not accept their argument, I could understand the possibility of opposition to yielding the power to civilians on the ground that it was an unnecessary surrender. The exercise of power and enjoyment of its perquisites have always been intoxicating, and are not possessions which, even if illegally acquired, a holder willingly surrenders. But apparently the surrender of power was not the main cause of the ordinary soldiers' discontent. The security reports were to the effect that the disgruntled soldiers were opposed to the call for a return to barracks which involved the return also of those military personnel who had held civilian office in Government. These holders of civilian offices who, as a general rule were some of the most senior members of the Armed Forces, were regarded as corrupt, having misconducted themselves by making money while in office, that the soldiers did want them to return to occupy the top positions in a purely military scenario. This objection seemed to have occupied the SMC for some time but now, as the time for handover got closer and there was no resolution of the problem to the satisfaction of the dissatisfied soldiers, their opposition mounted dangerously. That apparently was the reason why Flight-Lieutenant J. J. Rawlings had attempted this uprising of 15 May 1979. When I heard about the uprising, it had already been quelled and Rawlings was in custody.

There was much discussion as to what to do with him. There were those who thought that he should be prosecuted as soon as possible. Others thought that the case needed to be treated with circumspection. As far as I knew, the investigations being done by Security were not complete. I had not seen the docket but the time for us to leave for Dakar was rapidly approaching. As no decision had been taken before we left and as we were staying away for about a week, my advice was that no action should be taken before our return from Dakar. Joshua Hamidu was in charge of Government during Akuffo's absence.

Ghana had occasion at this juncture to entertain General Obasanjo, the Nigerian Military Head of State, who had come to power after the assassination of Murtala Mohammed but in 1979 was in the process of handing over to a civilian regime and who himself in 1999, some twenty years later, was elected to be a civilian Head of State. Obasanjo was also on his way to the OAU meeting in Dakar. It was a time when on account of Ghana's deteriorated economic condition, large numbers of Ghanaians had gone over to Nigeria to work there, to eke out a living often in the most menial jobs or illegally without necessary papers. Obasanjo was met in his ride from the Airport to the Castle at Osu by street-lined school children waving and continuously chanting “Ageege”. Ignoramus as I was, I asked what the significance of the word being chanted was, only to be informed that Agege was the part of Lagos in which there was the heaviest concentration of the Ghanaian community. The sense of humour was subtle.

By the time the Ghana delegation left for Dakar, the parliamentary elections had taken place. The party representing the Nkrumah tradition had won handsomely. The presidential election was to take place in June and the handover to civilian rule was to be on July 1, the anniversary of Ghana turning a republic. At most, we had five to six weeks before the event. By agreement with the Government, my duties as Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice were to end then. I was looking forward to it.

The delegation to Dakar, consisted of Akuffo; Air Force Commander Boakye; Gloria Nikoi; Joe Abbey; myself and; a number of Civil Servants and Security Officers. We travelled by the Presidential jet. Boakye took over the piloting of the plane from the official pilot. By this time, I had grown to admire Akuffo a great deal. He was a master at handling the meetings of the SMC and the NRC. I have seen all kinds of chairmen at work. Some try to impose themselves on the body they are chairing by bullying, cajoling, guiding or otherwise carrying on a solo act, which leads to the conclusion which they desire. At times they manipulate by listening only to those whom they knew or suspected would speak in support of a decision which they had always intended to give. Others are consensus makers; yet others read out the agenda item and let loose the chaos which follows, in the hope that some other member of the body would take command of the proceedings and impose a decision on it. Akuffo's style was to listen to everybody round the table and then say, at the end, all right we shall do this which would be the view in the discussion which had greatest support or appeal. I remember that when moving towards the end of the SMC days, he held a party at Peduasi Lodge in the Akwapim hills for the politicians who had thrown themselves enthusiastically into the fray. Bernard da Rocha, then a power with the Busia tradition of politicians, approached me at the party and asked whom I would like to see as the next President of Ghana. I merely gestured in the direction of Akuffo and replied, “that man.” Bernard rounded on me in disappointment, asking how I could support a military man as President. He did tell me some time after the party that many people he had later asked the question had given the same answer as myself. I had often wondered what Akuffo was going to do after he had handed over power. When he invited me to sit next to him on the plane and some of us took turns at doing this throughout the flight, I put the question to him. He said he was going to retire quietly and lead a life away from the public eye for some time. I regretted that he was not going to be involved in the political governance of the country. But he said he had had enough for the time being.

The journey should have taken about three and a half hours, but the news we received while in the air was that Dakar had been hit by a heavy sandstorm. Visibility was insufficient to permit plane landings. We nevertheless went ahead with the hope that matters would have improved by the time we arrived. We kept listening from time to time to news of the weather from Dakar. After three hours we seemed to be nowhere near Dakar. There was some concern about our whereabouts. On investigation, it turned out that we had been going, not westwards to Dakar but northwestwards towards Mali. With the news of visibility in Dakar not very encouraging and, having regard to our location at the time, the decision was taken that we should spend a night in Bamako, the capital of Mali, and then continue the next day to Dakar. From then on, our efforts were directed at identifying ourselves to the authorities in Bamako, requesting permission to land and suitable accommodation for the night. Fortunately, the President of Mali at the time, who was also going to attend the OAU meeting in Dakar had not yet left Bamako. We were very well received. Akuffo had an audience with him. The whole delegation was given a hastily arranged banquet in the evening and accommodated as privately as possible in a well-appointed Government guesthouse(?).~[* ? question mark, check, uncertainty? ]~ On the following morning, we left Bamako for Dakar, which we reached without further event. The visiting Ghana delegation was, like many other delegations, accommodated at the Tiranga Hotel. The delegation was completed by the Ghana Ambassador, the late George Lamptey, joining us.

This was the second OAU Heads of States meeting that I had attended. It will be remembered that I attended the first during the days of the National Liberation Council in 1968 when Patrick Anin was the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and he had invited me to join the delegation as an adviser. Patrick attended both as the Foreign Minister and the Acting Head of State. It would appear that all these meetings follow, more or less, the same pattern: the preparation by the Civil Servants and other advisers; the meeting of Foreign Ministers supported by their Civil Service and advisers, which settle the agenda and as far as possible the resolutions for adoption by the Heads of States: then the meeting of the Heads of States. By the time we got to Dakar, the meeting of Foreign Ministers was about to start. Civil Servants and advisers were occasionally asked to leave the conference room if the Heads of States wanted to debate a subject in privacy. There may be considerable discussion of an item on the agenda but the resolution proposed by the Foreign Ministers is often adopted by the Heads of State. On occasion when disagreement is deep, the subject is adjourned to the next meeting for further study and consideration to be given to it.

In 1979, one of the most important issues engaging the interest of African States was the Southern Rhodesian crisis. The Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) which Ian Smith declared in 1965 was coming to an end but the problem was still a live one for Africa. Kenneth Kaunda, the President of Zambia, was there to speak. One of the most fluent orators present was Mobutu Sese Seko, already discredited in the eyes of many Africans as a corrupt tyrant, maintained in his position by the western powers, notably the U. S. and Belgium, in the cold war then still raging against the Soviet Union. Apartheid had been ending and was to continue to engage the Heads of State for some time yet to come.

The Ghanaian community was invited and came in their numbers to Ambassador Lamptey's residence to a party to welcome Akuffo. There, Akuffo gave a speech about the return to civilian rule and the steps which were being taken to realise this. I think it was at that same party that I renewed acquaintanceship with the U. S. Ambassador to Senegal, who was no other than Rudolph (Rudi) Aggrey, the son of the famous Ghanaian educationalist, James Egyir Kwegya Aggrey, who with Governor Guggisberg and Fraser had been immortalised as the founders of Achimota School. After his service to Achimota, J. E. K. Aggrey had lived in the U. S., where his son, Rudi, was born. Stella and I had first met Rudi in Washington D.C. in 1973 while we were there on my sabbatical at the Woodrow Wilson Center. He was an American citizen with a long foreign service career. A very shy and cultured man, Rudi, I think, considered himself in some ways as a Ghanaian. He invited and entertained some members of the Ghanaian delegation to his residence.

We returned to Accra in late May, 1979. We were met at the Airport by the usual delegation of Ministers or Commissioners and members of the Diplomatic Corps, which usually sees off and meets the Head of State on his travels abroad. Before we landed, one of the members of the delegation on the plane asked where was the Air Force plane which usually escorted the Head of State when he was about to land at Accra Airport, Akuffo, with his gentle humour, merely replied, the pilot is in custody. The pilot was J. J. Rawlings, then in custody for the failed uprising that he attempted. It occurred to me that the uprising was a problem that I would now have to deal with. I asked Buckman, the Security Chief, what the security situation was like? He said things were well; the disgruntlement of the soldiers over the return to barracks was the only problem.

On reaching my Office, I got the report that the case against Rawlings had begun. The first trial day was held before a Military Tribunal with a packed audience of soldiers. Aikins, the DPP, had opened the case for the prosecution. In his opening, he had done the most unusual thing for a prosecution, by reading in full the statement taken from Rawlings after his arrest. This brought pandemonium to the tribunal, because the apparent feeling of the soldiers was wholly in support of Rawlings' views. Why was he being prosecuted when what he said was exactly what they all felt? The proceedings at that stage had to be adjourned. I was astounded by the decision taken in our absence to bring Rawlings to trial. The decision at the last meeting of the SMC which I attended was that the matter be held over until Akuffo's return from Dakar. What circumstances brought about the change? Who took the decision that proceedings should commence? Apart from everything else, here was a military regime with only one month to go before it handed over to an elected President, why should it get itself entangled in a treason or subversion trial, especially, when the uprising involved had been quelled without much loss of life or damage? I never found out, because as things turned out, I thought it unwise to do so.

On 4 June 1979, there was a coup. It was one military regime replacing another. But it was not of the palace kind. The coup which overthrew Nkrumah was led by top military and Police officers in Kotoka and Harlley with Ankrah brought in as the stabilising force. That was the National Liberation Council (NLC) Government. The coup which overthrew Busia was led by middle ranking officers, with Colonel Acheampong as its head. That led to the National Redemption Council (NRC) Government, which in the course of its existence was superseded by the Supreme Military Council (SMC) under General Acheampong. This present coup seemed to have been an other-ranks affair. Flight-Lieutenant Rawlings who became the Head of State was still in custody when it was staged and was freed by the soldiers to be their head. The most senior officer among the rebelling soldiers was Major Boakye Djan. The battle between the military factions lasted several hours. General Odartey Wellington led the forces of Akuffo's Government. There was general excitement among people, including, surprisingly some young lawyers. I sat by my radio and listened to announcements being made, supplemented by reports by some visiting friends. Late in the day, there was an appeal by Odartey Wellington to Rawlings to surrender. Obviously, this was not heeded, because Akuffo's regime was overthrown. Odartey Wellington himself lost his life that day. By late afternoon, early evening, it was clear that the military faction led by Rawlings had triumphed. There was the usual playing of martial music over the radio, broken by periodic announcements of the new regime. I experienced an eerie feeling. There was late that evening the announcement that all Commissioners of State should report to the nearest Police Station. The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) Government had been formed. As Commissioner for Justice, this applied to me. I decided to spend the night at home and report the next morning, which I did. It was a harrowing night as we did not know what was to happen to us the next day. Throughout the night, there was sporadic gun firing for which one could not assign a cause. Stella was a tower of strength. However much she worried about the future, she never showed it and kept on cheering everybody else. But the disturbed situation had a profound effect on Juliet, who was then eleven.

I duly telephoned the Tesano Police Station where I was well known, as my Orderly, while a judge, and my Police guards in the evening, had come from there. They told me that it was all right for me to stay at home until they informed me otherwise. Two hours after that, a battered car, without Police identification drove into our yard. One of the two persons in it came out, identified himself as a Police Officer from Tesano Station and asked me to come away with them. They had decided that I should not, in view of the call on the radio that all Commissioners should report to the Police, stay at home any longer. But they promised to take me to a quiet Police Station where I should be all right. They drove me to Achimota Police Station, a short distance from our home. Though I had been spent many years as a boy at Achimota School, I had never been to the Station. Its main building was a simple place with one decent sized room which served as the charge office, with the usual bar table behind which the duty officer stood to receive complaints and to charge suspended offenders. Already there were a few persons, one of whom was my Achimota classmate who joined the military and was important in the NLC days but long since retired, Colonel Coker Appiah. I also remember that at the time I was brought in, there was another military officer. Ebenezer, our driver, drove Stella and Ralph round to visit me at the Police Station. There was nothing in particular going on at the time, the main concern was that none of the Police Officers around knew what was going to happen to us. The most senior among them spent most of his day drunk because he had had a nasty encounter with some soldiers earlier on which had resulted in him being beaten. He was, therefore, afraid on his own account. He kept well away from us because, each time we saw him, we asked whether he had any news for us. Of course, he had none. Whoever formed the Government at the time must have had more serious security and diplomatic problems than bothering about us. So we sat there and waited, whiling away the time with the exchange of stories.

From time to time, though not often, there were some additions to our population at the Station. One person brought in whose presence none of us could explain was Guido Locher, a Swiss national, who was one of the managers of Accra Brewery. He was then quite unwell and was brought on a stretcher. Most probably, someone who wanted to get even with him had seized the opportunity at this moment of turmoil to have him arrested. A latter addition put the Ghanaians at the Station into a state of agitation: it was General Kotei. As he came in, there was a general silence. Then somebody muttered under his breath that now we were in danger. He was a prominent member of the ousted Government and carried every bit of the hatred which the other ranks had for that Government. He was brought in by his father-in-law, General Ocran of the NLC Government, who had taken to golf, which he played at the Achimota course nearby, in his retirement days. Ocran had brought Kotei there because he, like the Policemen who brought me, thought it would be a quiet and, therefore, safe place. The level of conversation among those of us at the Station fell after that. True to expectations, shortly after Kotei's arrival, his mother-in-law, the flamboyant and loud-speaking Mrs. Nancy Tsiboe, came to the Station to see how he was. He spoke so loudly as he regretted the amenities in the place that a small group of young boys gathered outside the Station, as if to find out what was happening. After she had left, we observed a military truck coming from the direction of Achimota Village turn to into the Palm Avenue to proceed towards Legon. We saw the vehicle stop. There were some young boys pointing at the direction of the Police Station which was then behind the vehicle. Our spirits sank as we saw the vehicle reverse and turn around and proceed to the Station. We soon found out that it had a number of armed soldiers on it who started jumping down, shouting that we should all come out. Some of us did. One soldier, pointing his gun at me, shouted, “Hands up!” So I meekly put up my hands. He quickly relieved me of the watch which I was wearing. Meanwhile, I could hear shouts from behind me from his colleagues demanding that we should surrender General Kotei whom we were hiding. I was too preoccupied with my own inquisition to find out what had happened to Kotei. My inquisitor then asked me who I was. My position could probably have been ignored if I had said that I was the Commissioner of Justice. But I stupidly, though truthfully, said that I was the Attorney General. “What kind of General is that?” he shouted at me. He then ordered me to get into their vehicle, pointing to the back of the truck where they had been seated before. He was frog-marching me on to the vehicle, when a young man in civilian dress who had been riding in front of their vehicle and who was obviously in some commanding position, got down and told my soldier quietly “Not that man” and advised him to let me go. That advice, he heeded and ordered me to put my hands down and go. With relief I brought down my hands and turned back to walk to the Station building. I was deeply grateful to the young officer who had saved me from the orders of the soldier. I did not know who it was. Several months later, after the memorial service for my friend, Grace Quist Arcton, a young man in civilian clothes approached me in the milling crowd and asked how I was. I dutifully answered, not knowing who he was. He asked me whether I remembered him. I confessed I did not. He just asked, “What kind of General are you?”, and I knew I was facing the person who saved me. But he did not say more to identify himself. It was obvious when I got back into the Achimota Police Station on the day of the coup that the soldiers had not found Kotei. That was a puzzle because Kotei was certainly in the Charge Office with us when their vehicle turned to come to the Station. The dissatisfied soldiers were shouting around; they were clearly inspired by drink or drugs. They threatened that as we refuse to surrender Kotei, they were going to return in the middle of the night and would shoot up the Station to ensure that they got him. I noticed then that the other senior military officer, apart from Coker-Appiah, had blood running down his face. According to those who saw it, he had been severely beaten up and hit in the face with the butt of a gun. They left us to ponder our fate.

After they had left, Kotei came out of his hiding place. At the corner of the Charge Office, I had noticed when I first came in that there was a pile of very large vehicle tyres, like those used by articulated trucks, piled up on top of each other. I took these to be some exhibits which the Police were keeping for a case. The pile went up higher than the height of the tallest man. It was this pile of tyres which provided refuge for Kotei. I recalled that he had been a high jumper in his younger days. That would have helped. We decided that whatever happened, we should not spend the night at the Achimota Police Station when the drunken soldiers returned. We went to find the Officer in Charge of the Station. He was still drunk. He tried to cheer us up with some story about some expectation that we would be allowed to go home before evening. The truth of the matter was that all the Police Stations in the country which were holding the Commissioners and military officers had no instructions on what to do to them and they were understandably afraid of releasing anyone on their own initiative for fear of punitive consequences to themselves. But this time my colleagues were insistent that he should arrange to have us transferred to another Station as we could not, in view of the threat issued by the departed soldiers, afford to spend the night at Achimota. They were also insistent that some other detention place be found for Kotei because, as long as he remained with us, so long would we be in danger from disorderly soldiers~[* check grammer ]~ who were prepared to deal with him in their own way. Eventually, the Officer in Charge came to tell us that we were being transferred to Tesano Police Station. When the truck which had been arranged for us appeared, Kotei was the first to jump on it. No one had the inclination or nerve to ask him to step down.

I had so many friends in Tesano Police Station that they allowed me to telephone to Justice Apaloo to tell him where I would be spending the night. He, in turn, must have informed Stella, because she appeared there with my little travelling short-wave radio, a pillow and some blankets for me to use in making my bed on the floor. Without asking for it, the Police brought me an unfixed door and invited me to make my bed on it. Thus, we spent the night. I could hear some of the Policemen giving a lecture on who I was. I could hear my Orderly as a Judge and later as a Commissioner, the late Sergeant Atugba, giving a whispered lecture in the middle of the night on how I came to leave the Judiciary. He thought I left because of unfair treatment accorded me by Chief Justice Azu Crabbe. I thought of joining in to set the record straight, by pointing out that there were more important reasons, such as my reaching my position too early in life and trying to make enough money in private life for the education of my children, which contributed to my leaving the Bench. But on reflection, I thought this was not the place or time for such discussion and that, in any case, my intervention would complicate a straight forward story even further. So I desisted.

Early next morning, two things happened. Just before we got up, some men, obviously military service men, came in and asked all who were serving or past military officers to come with them. We got up to see our military colleagues being taken away in a truck. Kotei was among them. As I looked on, I had no anxiety over my old classmate, Coker-Appiah, or the other senior officer who was injured by the soldiers the afternoon before but I had a premonition that this was the last time that I was seeing Kotei. It was not too long after this had happened that I had a visitor in the form of Father, now Monsignor, Senoo, a Roman Catholic priest whom I had often met at the home of Fred Apaloo. He said he had come to invite me and the rest of my civilian colleagues to come with him to Burma Camp, where Rawlings was holding court. Burma Camp was the last place which I wanted to visit at this time. But Father Senoo's argument was simple and compelling. If we did not come with him now, we would spend a long time at Tesano Police Station with no one paying any attention to us, as the soldiers had far greater problems to deal with than considering what to do with detained Commissioners and others. But if we came to Burma Camp, Rawlings would be forced to take a decision on what to do with us. We really had no alternative than to do what the Father said. He assured us that he had been in and out of Burma Camp several times since the coup and there was no need to fear. We went with him.

The sight at Burma Camp as one went in was unsettling: groups of soldiers drilling civilians, some old, some women and forcing them to do difficult exercises for what appeared to be taken as fun. We were led to a kind of ante-room where our personal possessions were taken from us and entered into a document and then, we were shown an inner room. There I saw quite a number of my Commissioner colleagues who obviously had been assembled there like us to find out our fate. We were told that Rawlings was at that time meeting the diplomatic corps. That was encouraging, because if he had got to the stage of talking to the corps, he would not want to do things to offend the international community. We sat for what we thought was a long time without anything happening on our front. Those of us who could carry on a conversation with a friend did so in undertones, exchanging our experiences of the previous night. I think it was there that I heard that Amon Nikoi had reported to the Cantonments Police Station with his wife, Gloria, who was Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, bringing along a camp bed with them. Then, suddenly, a soldier came in and announced that Commissioner Joe Abbey was wanted. At last some movement had begun. Another long break, then came the soldier again to read out a list of some four Commissioners, including myself, with the request that we should go back to our offices.

I was glad to leave the place. But I was not going to my office. I needed to have proper sleep. Outside I met a number of soldiers, who appeared quite friendly. One of them was an officer who had been an old student of mine at the Law Faculty. He asked whether I needed transport to go to my office. Obviously, he knew the decision which had been taken on me. I replied that I did need transport but I was not going to my office; I was going home to sleep. He smiled appreciatively, ordered a car and sent me home. By now, it was getting to the middle of the day. I was pleased to get back home, as was my family. After having something to eat, I went to sleep. But it was not for long. A battered military truck soon drove in with some soldiers carrying guns. They said I was wanted by Rawlings in Burma Camp. There was no way of confirming the genuineness of the message. But I took the chance and went with them. We raced through the Achimota Road to the Military hospital in the open truck and did indeed go to Burma Camp. In the conference room, I was taken to where Rawlings was sitting at the head of the table, with some of his men around. I was invited to join them. We sat for some time waiting, during which time Rawlings asked me in a confidential manner whether I knew that he had visited my house before. I was flabbergasted because I thought this was the first time of my seeing him and could not recall an earlier meeting. To put me at ease he quickly followed by saying that he had come with Anthony Gbeho while we were away. Tony Gbeho was one of the sons of my old music teacher at Achimota School with whom I travelled to England in the MV. Accra. We liked Tony. He had taken to tuning pianos, among his many accomplishments, and was free to come at any time to our house to look at the old piano which our children, especially Tossan, played. It was a good English piano which had been reconditioned, and Tony had said that anytime we thought of getting rid of it, he would be prepared to take it off us. We did not know it, but Tony and Rawlings were very good friends. Rawlings told me that Tony was the bestman at his wedding. That line of common interest established between us made me a bit more comfortable. I learnt that we were waiting for Gloria Nikoi. That made me even more comfortable.

When the meeting was fully assembled, Rawlings tried to explain to us what had happened. He thought that matters would have turned out much worse if the coup had not taken place at the time it did. He stated that they, the coup-makers were interested in correcting a few things with the military before returning the government to civilian rule. He described their mission as a house-cleaning exercise. By now, I was feeling quite relaxed. So that when he asked Gloria and me what we thought they should do, there was no hesitation on our part. We strongly urged that they should keep to their limited programme, allow the programme for a return to civilian rule to continue on its course and return the country in the shortest possible time to civilian rule. This was not the unanimous view of all those round the table. But Rawlings undertook then to return the country to constitutional government within three or four months. He, thereafter, summoned a meeting of all the recognised political parties held at Burma Camp to explain the objectives of the coup and their intention to leave the scene once the house-cleaning exercise was over. Those who continued in their positions as Commissioners, like Gloria Nikoi (Foreign Affairs), Joe Abbey (Finance) and myself (Justice), were invited to the meeting. After Rawlings had told the meeting of the intention of the Military to return the country to constitutional government after the house-cleaning exercise which they estimated would take three to four months, he invited contributions from the audience. To my dismay, I heard Professor Mawusi Dake, a maverick politician who, to my recollection, had never held political office in a constitutional administration, ask why the Military wanted to leave the government so soon. According to him, there was a huge task ahead of the Military to do. The purge, he argued, should not be confined to the soldier-politicians alone. How about the civilians who helped those Military officers to plunder the country? “The gallant Rawlings and his men” should stay on as long as it takes to clean the whole country of corruption. Others took up this theme. By the end of the meeting, I was thoroughly depressed. People like Victor Owusu, the great lawyer of the Busia faction, did not seem unduly worried by this event; looking at me, he said in his usual jovial manner, “Austin, you do not look happy”. Indeed, I was not, knowing what Gloria and I had advised and the work ahead to try to keep Rawlings and his men to the commitment we had earlier extracted from them.

I had a curious relationship with the Military at this time. Rawlings seemed to want Gloria and myself to advise him on some matters. He would, therefore, call on us from time to time to ask our views. Sometimes the method of summons would be unnerving: a radio announcement that the Attorney General and the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs were wanted in Burma Camp immediately. One did not know before and whether this was because they had done anything wrong or it was only because their services were required. I remember an evening when members of the Lebanese community had been attacked and they had naturally taken fright and were meeting in the Greek Orthodox Church near the Cantonments Road. Rawlings wanted to meet them there and to reassure them that the Government was not against them as a community. Possibly, it was thought that the presence of Gloria and myself would give some credibility to the process. We were summoned by radio. I often spent time with Rawlings on his own in his office. He was always courteous to me, often apologising for the situation that he had put me in, because he knew I was not enjoying it. But he had a volatile temperament and one was not sure when he would next explode, so I sat on tenterhooks wondering when he would suddenly turn angry with some other subordinate who had done or said something which irritated him.

One of the earliest acts of the soldiers was the public execution by firing squad of General Acheampong and the head of the Border Guard during the Achempong regime, Brigadier Utuka. This was not preceded by any legal process of which I, as Attorney General, knew.

I continued with my responsibility for ensuring a smooth transition to civilian rule. I had always held the view that the Constitutions we had devised from 1969 and built on further in 1979 were far too detailed and cumbersome. I knew that a number of provisions had been put in those documents because of past experiences. But I thought that a simpler Constitution drafted in broad terms, which could be broadly interpreted, with the detailed and more mechanical material being dealt with in additional constitutional enactments which were easier to amend, as was the case with the 1960 Constitution, was much better. Perhaps, being hooked on the style developed while I was a young lawyer in the Attorney General's Chambers, made the detailed constitutions unattractive to me. Of course, the one point on which I had thought there should be a departure was in altering the fundamental principles in the 1960 Constitution, which were vague declarations of intent should be changed to a firm bill of rights conferring constitutional guarantees of rights and privileges, enforceable by the courts. I will always remember the Baffour Akoto Case, where the State put forward the argument, which prevailed with the Supreme Court, that those principles in 1960 merely imposed a moral obligation on the President, and likened the principles to the British Coronation Oath, taken “not to enable the courts to hold back an Act of Parliament which violated it as illegal but to provide a moral and political yardstick by which the conduct of the Crown could be judged. The sanction, if the oath was violated, was the extra-legal one that the monarch might lose his throne as a result.” It will be recalled that Attorney General Geoffrey Bing led me as Counsel for the State in the presentation of this argument. Having seen the shortcomings of the fundamental principles, I thought the country should not go through that route again. There might have been other firming up changes which I would have adopted. But, by and large, I thought that an over-detailed Constitution would lack flexibility for meeting changing political-social conditions in the society. I once mentioned to Rawlings my thoughts that the draft Constitution was too detailed for my liking. His reaction was immediate. “Why don't you change it?” he asked. I had not expected that reaction. The Constitution-making body had worked on this Constitution for months. Their product was quite ready for promulgation by this time. For me to make the radical changes that I would have liked to see, all by myself, would have caused endless trouble. The fact that I knew that Rawlings, in his revolutionary zeal, would have liked me to change the almost completed Constitution into what I thought a constitution should be, made me say, in a panic, that the process had gone too far for me to do anything about it. I knew that it would have taken me more than the time that I hoped they would stay in power to make the changes, which would in fact had meant a completely new constitutional document. I managed to calm him down.

But I thought that in taxation matters, the rigid provision against retrospective legislation ought to be changed. Especially as the draftsmen in the Attorney General's Department thought that concessions had been granted to certain entrepreneurs, like Siaw, for the building of his brewery, and B. A. Mensah, with respect to sales taxes which ought to be recovered by the State. Akuffo's regime had already had this matter in hand and had managed to recover some of the monies derived from these concessions from Siaw. It was more difficult with respect to Mensah, because he always had powerful friends at court. In Akuffo's time, it was Kwakye, the IGP. In Rawlings's time it was ***.~[* missing name ]~ Thus began a tug of war between me and those in Rawlings's Cabinet who thought, for their own reasons, that no such change in the Constitution should be made. The whole thing came to be characterised as a struggle between the Ewes and the Ashantis in the Cabinet. There was a perception that Ashantis were too fond of the acquisition of money and that there were more, among them, who were corrupt than people from other tribes. So the provision in the Constitution on retroactive legislation was changed forward and backward, depending on the support which was paramount in the Cabinet at time. Eventually, those who wanted a blanket ban on retroactive legislation won.

The other debate on the Constitution was on the authority to promulgate it. The terms of reference of the Constitution making body did not include a power to promulgate the Constitution developed by it. This was a deliberate policy of the Akuffo Government, which reserved to itself the final authority to decide when and, perhaps, the final content of the document. This policy was taken over by the Rawlings regime. The Constitution making body wanted this changed so that it could have the power. Part of this problem must have been due to the fact that the body wanted to be the final body to decide on the contents of the Constitution before its promulgation. The argument generated a lot of heat, some of it fuelled by pure sentiment and not logical argument. Eventually, the 1979 Constitution was promulgated by a decree made by the AFRC.

My experience in advising on constitutional matters at this time was the most intriguing. Right from the start, Rawlings made it clear that the cabinet of the AFRC was not constituted by the soldiers that we met at what were supposed to be the ordinary meetings of the AFRC. He always insisted that there were those among them who did not attend meetings. Those who attended were enough for me to cope with. The meetings were the most unstructured governmental body that I had ever come across. The meetings started with some people of unknown rank gathering without identification to the civilian advisers who had been summoned to attend. In the course of the meeting, some new faces would wander in and sit down and participate. Others merely walked out if they had other things to do or were bored by the proceedings. On legal and constitutional matters, most of the participants had their own relatives or friends who were lawyers who advised them about what positions to take. It was the most difficult task to argue legal or constitutional principles with someone, whose appreciation of law was obviously limited and who was obviously speaking on advice without wanting to disclose the identity of his adviser. Of course, those carrying such advice could be the most tenacious of their views.

As time went by, I began to wonder whether the Military Government would keep to their promise to hand-over after the few months required for house-cleaning.