Former Speaker of Parliament Professor Mike Aaron Oquaye has criticised the handling of private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), describing the events as a clear indication that Ghana is “not creating strong institutions.”
Reacting to the arrest and detention on TV3’s Ghana Tonight, Prof. Oquaye said the situation highlights ongoing systemic weaknesses.
“We keep on just proliferating and adding, and then we get confused in the process,” he stated. He urged national condemnation of the development, describing it as “very unfortunate.”
He expressed concern about the use of bail as a tool to demonstrate authority. “Bail being used to show people where power lies is not a yesterday matter,” he said.
“There is no principle in law anywhere in a civilised country [that] the bail that must be justified must have landed property in the name of the person who is a suspect. Does that mean that people who don’t have landed properties can never get bail?”
Prof. Oquaye argued that attempts to question Kpebu for granting media interviews amounted to an attack on free expression. “Do you want to suppress his freedom of speech? You cannot question his granting an interview,” he said.
He warned that allowing such actions to continue would undermine Ghana’s legal foundations. “If this arbitrariness is allowed to continue, it will be a fundamental violation of the rule of law in this country,” he stressed.
Kpebu was released after nearly five hours in OSP custody.
