74
JASON THATCHER
such items are not displayed lightly, and I suppose are kept in a secret
room at the Ghana Cultural Center.
Two months later a grab-bag treason trial opened in Accra with five
defendants: Tawia Adamafio; Ako Adjei, former Foreign Minister and
an old chum of Dr. Nkrumah's from university days in Pennsylvania and
London; the former executive-secretary of the C.P.P.; a rather hysterical
former member of Parliament for the U .P.; and a curious civil servant
who claimed to have been in the pay of innumerable intelligence outfits,
including Ghana's.
One piece of evidence against Adamafio was that he had opposed
the strike of September, 1961; another was that he had once borrowed
two pounds from his girl friend. When Ako Adjei was accused of
borrowing and not repaying £25,000 from the Ghana Commercial
Bank in order to finance the plot, he claimed he had merely given the
money to the spirit Zebus of the kingdom of Uranus and that Zebus had
kept those five thousand £5 notes, plus an additional ten percent the
Minister had offered him, instead of doubling the money as he had
promised. (On this matter I have a theory based on the sheerest specula–
tion: that unknown to the police, the money went not to Uranus, but to
Angola, a destination which could never be declared openly.) The
multiple-spy testified that Geoffrey Bing, the President's English legal
advisor, had come to his cell and offered him a lessened sentence if he
would implicate Adamafio, but he had refused.
The Chief Justice, Sir Arku Korsah, inquired if the defendant
believed that Geoffrey Bing could influence the Court, and the defendant
stated that Bing had said he would do so through the President.
"Did you believe Geoffrey Bing when he said that?"
"Yes," the defendant said, "because anything can happen in Ghana."
"Standing here in this court today, do you believe that?"
"Anyway I do."
He was sentenced to hang, as was the United Party man, but
Adamafio, Adjei, and the other C.P.P. man were acquitted in a verdict
handed down in December, 1963. That was the end of tranquillity.
The three judges had been U .P. men when the President appointed
them to the Supreme Court to get them out of politics, and within three
days of their unexpected decision the Chief Justice was forced out of the
judiciary. "Enemies of the people"-notably the three judges, the other
two of whom left the judiciary shortly after Sir Arku Korsah-were
indicted daily by the three Government papers and by Radio Ghana.
Parliament thereupon voted the President supreme powers over the
judiciary, a move which was overlooked a day or so later when the
