Legal practitioner Edudzi Kudzo Tameklo has explained why former Attorney-General Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong and Lawyer Fui Tsikata failed to accept National Honours from President Akufo-Addo on March 14, 2023.
The president celebrated three groups of people at the National Honours and Awards event, from the COVID-19 heroes and heroines through to eminent Ghanaians and the group of lawyers, but his recognition was not accepted by all.
In a Facebook post on March 14, Mr Edudzi Kudzo Tameklo stated that the former A-G and lawyer Fui Tsikata asked that some individuals be included in the list of those to be awarded as they contributed to the international boundary dispute case for which they were being honored
According to Mr Edudzi Kudzo Tameklo, the duo’s request was not granted by the government, thus their inability to accept the honours.
“The above mentioned individuals did ask the Award Committee to include the people they worked with during the litigation as part of the awardees. Mr Akufo Addo refused to include those individuals,” Edudzi wrote in reaction to a post by presidential staffer Charles Nii Teiko Tagoe.
In honouring the two women, the president said these are “men and women who made sure that the maritime boundary dispute with our immediate, western neighbour, the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire ended favourably for the Republic of Ghana, thereby, ensuring that our western maritime resources, including its oil and gas potential, rightfully remained in our possession.”
In 2007, Ghana discovered oil and gas in commercial quantities, and this was followed by Côte d’Ivoire staking its claim to portions of the West Cape Three Points.
The Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) was petitioned to look into the matter and in a unanimous decision of Saturday, September 23, 2017 it ruled that there has not been any violation on the part of Ghana on Côte d’Ivoire’s maritime boundary.
The Chamber rejected Côte d’Ivoire’s argument that Ghana’s coastal lines were unstable.
Justice Boualem Bouguetaia from Algeria, President of the Special Chamber in reading the judgement accepted Ghana’s argument of adoption of the equidistant method of delineation of the maritime boundary.
About Marietta Brew:
She became the 23rd Attorney General of Ghana and Minister for Justice of the Republic in 2013.
Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong was appointed by former president Mahama in 2013 and she served in the role throughout the first term of the Mahama administration.
She is also the second woman to hold this position after Betty Mould-Iddrisu.
She served on the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce from 1 July 2018 for a three-year term.
About Fui Tsikata
The Africa Arbitration Association, wrote of Fui: “Mr Fui Tsikata is senior partner at Reindorf Chambers, the Ghana member firm of the DLA Piper Africa Group of law firms.
He has been a member of the Ghana Bar since January 1975.
He was one of Ghana’s advocates in the proceedings at the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) relating to the maritime boundary between Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire conducted between December 2014 and September 2017.