A former Deputy Communications Minister, Felix Kwakye Ofosu has justified former President John Mahama’s assertion that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is packing the courts with NPP-inclined judges.

According to Felix, President Akufo-Addo is deliberately staffing state institutions so he can have his way when out of power.

Mr Mahama while speaking at the NDC Lawyers Conference in Akosombo over the weekend, accused President Akufo-Addo of appointing members of his party to the bench to influence decisions in their favour.

The 2024 NDC presidential candidate thus charged NDC lawyers to prepare themselves to take up positions on the bench to balance out its composition.

• Akufo-Addo has packed the courts with NPP-inclined judges; we must balance it – Mahama to NDC lawyers

“Our lawyers, some of you must be prepared to go onto the bench. I know that some of you have very lucrative legal practices you will not want to leave and go onto the bench. But you can see what the current President has done; he appointed the largest number of judges onto the bench. More than 80 towards hundred and counting."

• Mahama’s ‘balancing judiciary appointments’ comment fair and objective – Edudzi

“He’s packed the courts and we know that they’ve packed the courts because they want to avoid accountability after they have left office. So, all manner of people who have been known to be partisan, to have been executives of their party who are in the legal profession have been leapfrogged onto the Superior courts and other places.”

But his comments have received some condemnation, with the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) in particular calling him out.

• GBA condemns Mahama’s judiciary comments

The Public Relations Officer of the GBA, Saviour Kudze, has said Mr Mahama’s comment is inappropriate and not backed by evidence.

He said while there’s nothing wrong with Mr Mahama advising a group of lawyers who have identified themselves as NDC lawyers to take up appointments on the bench, running down the same judiciary – an important institution that he seeks to superintend as President in the future is wrong.

But Mr Kwakye Ofosu, while speaking in an interview with Citi FM on Monday, September 4, defended the former president's comments.

“It has been a long-standing strategy of the NPP to dominate state institutions so that they can have their way on any matter they deem fit so they go about staffing state institutions with NPP people. It started in the Kufuor era but he used more subtle means, as for President Akufo-Addo, he has adopted the crudest fashion to do this and you recall what he did with the Electoral Commission when he came into office and removed Charlotte Osei on trumped-up charges and promptly appointed someone we know to be NPP and when we thought that he was going to end there, he appointed one Appiahene who is an NPP person as a commissioner,” Mr. Kwakye Ofosu said.