The 1st Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei-Owusu, affectionately called Joe Wise, stated in an interview with investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni that a justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana called him and told him that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo wanted him to become the Speaker of Ghana’s 8th Parliament.
Joe Wise said that the judge, whose name he withheld, told him Akufo-Addo wanted him to be the speaker nominee of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) because of the hung nature of the 8th Parliament, which had 137 NPP parliamentarians, 137 National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentarians, and one independent member of parliament.
The first deputy speaker indicated that the president instructed him to support and guide the judge through the process for the speakership election.
“A Supreme Court judge actually called me and said the President had asked him to contact me, and that the President wanted to retain the speakership in Parliament, and because of how close the numbers were, he decided to present that particular person (the Supreme Court judge who called),” he is quoted to have said.
When Manasseh Azure asked him whether the said judge was Justice Jones Mawulorm Dotse, Joe Wise retorted, “Well, I said a Supreme Court judge,” after a brief hesitation and chuckle.
Joe Wise, the Member of Parliament for Ashanti Bekwai, went on to say that he informed the then Speaker of Parliament, Prof Aaron Mike Ocquaye, of what was happening, and the rest is history.
“When he told me, I spoke to the leadership, and I spoke to Prof. Mike Oquaye himself, and it appears that Prof. Mike Oquaye upped his lobbying skills. I was surprised when he was re-nominated.”
Details of the interview were published in Manasseh Azure’s latest publication, “The President Ghana Never Got”.
The journalist indicated that leading members of the NPP confirmed that the said judge was Justice Dotse.
He said that President Akufo-Addo had assured Justice Dotse that he was going to be the NPP Speaker of Parliament nominee until the judge was dropped at the last minute for former Speaker Prof Aaron Mike Ocquaye to seek re-election.
“Multiple highly-placed sources confirmed to me that Akufo-Addo had nominated Justice Jones Dotse in late December 2020. The nomination was communicated to him with the instruction to resign as a justice of the Supreme Court and prepare for the January 6 election and swearing-in. The judge accepted the nomination but asked for an official letter on which to base his resignation. He argued that he could not act without a letter in hand, but the letter was yet to be sent to him when he heard in the first week of January that Prof. Mike Oquaye had been retained as the President’s nominee for Speaker.”
