Former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has taken aim at his successor, Dr Dominic Ayine, over the decision to discontinue the high-profile criminal prosecution of defunct uniBank founder Dr Kwabena Duffour and seven others.
In a statement issued via Facebook on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, Godfred Dame criticised Dr Ayine’s use of a nolle prosequi, a formal notice to abandon prosecution, insisting that the move lacked transparency and legal grounding.
Dr Ayine, on July 28, 2025, had justified the decision by citing legal hurdles in pursuing the case and suggested that progress had been made in recovering assets belonging to the accused.
But Dame questioned those claims, accusing his successor of misrepresenting the facts.
“Dr Ayine ought not to mislead the public into thinking that through some unprecedented genius, he has recovered assets or money for the State,” Dame stated.
He argued that all relevant assets had already been traced and documented by Receivers appointed by the Bank of Ghana during the initial phase of the financial sector clean-up.
“The Receiver already had a full list and profile of assets owned by them. The record will reflect the fact that, to date, Dr. Ayine has not recovered a single cedi in the Unibank matter,” Godfred Dame claimed.
The former Attorney General further questioned the legality of relying on previously identified assets to offset debts, claiming the strategy lacks statutory backing.
“This arrangement is not pursued under any law. It is only pursuant to the exercise of Ayine’s power of nolle prosequi. He also cannot claim to have recovered for the Republic any money from the accused persons this year,” he pointed out.
Founder of the defunct uniBank and former Finance Minister Dr Kwabena Duffuor, was facing charges related to alleged financial misconduct and regulatory breaches that led to the collapse of the financial institution following a cleanup exercise by the Bank of Ghana in 2018.
The case was among several initiated as part of efforts to hold financial sector actors accountable.
Read Godfred Dame’s full statement below:
The penchant of the Attorney-General, Dr. Dominic Ayine, to peddle untruths in his press conferences is becoming quite alarming.
1. On 28th July, 2025, he stated with some boldness, that it took the Attorney-General six (6) months to file witness statements in the Republic vrs. Ato Forson & 2 Others trial. This is palpably false, just like many other statements by him. The accused persons in the Republic Vrs. Ato Forson & 2 Others case were arraigned before court for the first time on 18th January, 2022. The court, on that day, gave directions for filing of disclosures after the grant of bail to all the accused and adjourned proceedings to 15th February, 2022.
The Prosecution complied with the order of the court and filed all documents to rely on, including all intended exhibits, documents required by the defence and all witness statements of witnesses to be called by the Republic on 14th February, 2022 – within 27 days (less than one month), and not 6 months as wildly claimed by Dr. Ayine. For the sake of banishing falsehoods and exposing the ways of the wicked, I hereby exhibit a copy of the record of proceedings for 18th January, 2022 and the process titled “Documents To Be Relied On” filed by the Attorney-General on 14th February, 2022. The Office of the Attorney-General never, on a single occasion in the “Ato Forson” trial, requested further time to file a witness statement, or indeed, any document at all.
2. The important question is, how can the period of 27 days within which the Attorney-General filed witness statements and documents to be relied on in the “Ato Forson” trial appear to be six (6) months in the mind of Dr. Ayine? Is it sheer recklessness or a deliberate effort to make his predecessor and for that matter the Office he now heads, look bad? The docket on the case is in Dr. Ayine’s office and the facts could easily have been verified. I have said before, that, the tendency of the Attorney-General to publish plain untruths, half-truths and misinformation against the prosecuting team and courts adjudicating cases previously being prosecuted by his Office, is highly unprofessional. Dr. Ayine’s actions constitute an attack on the very Office he now heads.
3. The inescapable reality of Dr. Ayine’s latest act and ex post facto rationalisations (laden with contradictions and inconsistencies as they are) is that, he sought to free his former clients from the clutches of criminal prosecution through the exercise of the power of nolle prosequi. That is the first disclosure he should have made to the public at his press conference. Ghanaians deserve this basic courtesy.
4. Dr. Ayine ought not mislead the public into thinking that through some unprecedented genius, he has recovered assets or money for the State. All the assets of the Duffuors, Unibank and related companies as well as other persons being prosecuted with them, had already been identified by the Receivers of Unibank appointed by Bank of Ghana. The Receiver already had a full list and profile of assets owned by them. Dr. Ayine should indicate to the public when either himself or his team this year discovered any new assets owned by the Duffuors. The record will reflect the fact that, to date, Dr. Ayine has not recovered a single Cedi in the Unibank matter. What he proposes to do, and for which he has already entered nolle prosequi, is to, in future, use some of the assets already identified by the Receiver to defray what he has unilaterally determined to be owed by the accused persons.
Instructively, this arrangement is not pursued under any law. It is only pursuant to the exercise of Ayine’s power of nolle prosequi. Dr. Ayine thus, cannot lay claim to recovering any more assets than what the Receiver already has. He also cannot claim to have recovered for the Republic any money from the accused persons this year. Questions arising include, was any agreement executed with the Republic before the entry of nolle prosequi, and if so, when? Where is that agreement? Has any fair and objective valuation of the properties been done, and if so, when? Where is the valuation report? In the event of default, what is the penalty and how enforceable is it?
5. In Republic Vrs. William Ato Essien – a case arsing out of the collapse of Capital Bank – the amount admitted as owed by Ato Essien himself was GHC27Million. The State in an agreement entered into under section 35 of the Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459), settled on GHC90Million to be paid by the accused person. The accused paid GHC30Million in cash before the settlement was adopted by the court, with the rest to be paid over a period of one year. When he defaulted after paying GHC9million in addition to the GHC30Million deposit, the Attorney-General applied to the court for him to be sentenced to a term in prison. Ato Essien is presently in custody serving a 15 year jail term. I daresay that, on account of the “RESETTING” of prosecution we are witnessing, there is no justification for Ato Essien to be in jail. Free Ato Essien now!
6. I ask, under what circumstance does Dr. Ayine claim that counsel for the accused in the Beige Bank case offered him GHC10Million? I assert that there is no record of this. I challenge Dr. Ayine to produce receipt of such a proposal, and, his official response. Was it a proposal to Ayine in his private capacity?
7. The State lost the Beige Bank case under Dr. Ayine’s watch on an appeal against a ruling on a submission of no case filed by the accused. Alarmingly, instead of exploring means of challenging the correctness of the decision of the Court of Appeal at the Supreme Court, Dr. Ayine seems very satisfied with the development and has already made comments suggestive of a disinclination to appeal.
8. I have been wondering why Ayine paints such a dreary and bleak picture of the prosecution of financial crimes? The facts show that between 2017 and 2025, the only high-profile financial crime case in which the Office failed to secure conviction was Republic vrs. Ato Forson & 2 Others, in which the accused persons were acquitted in a curious 2 – 1 judgment of the Court of Appeal, and in respect of which Dr. Ayine abandoned the conduct of an appeal filed by the Attorney-General and pending at the Supreme Court, at the time he took office as Attorney-General. The Office secured conviction in Republic Vrs. Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie & Others, Republic Vrs. Sedinam Tamakloe Attionu, Republic Vrs. Daniel Duku & Others (the Venture Capital Case), Republic Vrs. William Ato Essien, etc. Indeed, on Sedinam Tamakloe Attionu, Dr. Ayine ought to brief the nation on what he is doing to extradite the lady to serve her sentence in Ghana or to trace her assets. Ayine should simply declare his fundamental aversion to prosecution of financial crimes against a section of the Ghanaian society, and an appetite for cutting deals in lieu of prosecution.
9. The allegation of undue delay in the prosecution of white-collar crime regularly put up by Dr. Ayine as justification for cutting deals in lieu of prosecution, is a sham and ought to be rejected by the nation. The record will again reflect the fact that the inordinate delay in the trial of serious financial crime cases filed against leading members of the erstwhile NDC administration, witnessed in this country the past 8 years, were all a product of the tactics and machinations of defence counsel including Dr. Ayine. Unfortunately, they were aided by the justice system as they filed numerous interlocutory applications, appeals and judicial review applications at the Supreme Court. It is ironic that the first significant action by the Attorney-General, when the NDC assumed power, was to discontinue all of such cases filed against leading members of the NDC, completely impeding accountability and the rule of law.
10. I recall that, to cure the undue delays with the prosecution of criminal cases generally, I laid in Parliament and spearheaded through to near passage, an amendment to the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act, which would eliminate most of the bottlenecks with the criminal procedure laws of the country including a suspension of the filing of interlocutory appeals until the submission of no case stage, and ensure day to day trial of criminal cases. If
Dr. Ayine seeks to speed up the trial of financial cases, he ought to reintroduce that Bill into Parliament (just as he has done with the constitutional instrument on the Removal of Justices of the Superior Courts, which he adopted in full without changing a single clause when he assumed office and has since laid in Parliament).
11. A careful analysis of all the cases discontinued by Dr. Ayine, would show an abandonment of the pursuit of a total of over Seven Billion Ghana Cedis (GHC7,000,000,000), if one were to exclude the deal for GHC2Billion that Ayine claims to have struck in the Unibank case. The Republic, through Dr. Ayine’s decision to discontinue the prosecution of the cases, has automatically lost this gargantuan amount. It calls for an enquiry.
12. As a footnote, I cannot lose sight of the condescending tone in which Dr. Ayine frequently speaks about his predecessors with comments like “… those who started the prosecution did not do this, …. they failed to do this, … but I am doing this”, etc. cannot be lost on all. The record shows that the Attorney-General who commenced prosecution of most of the banking sector cases, that Dr. Ayine treats with disdain, was Miss Gloria Afua Akuffo, who is many years senior to Dr. Ayine both at the Bar and in office. In fact, it goes without saying that all of Ghana’s previous Attorneys-General are Dr. Ayine’s seniors in office. Lol. They deserve utmost respect.
The veiled disparagement of former Attorneys-General by Dr. Ayine departs from the conservative traditions of that high office and is most unfortunate.
LEGALLY SPEAKING …!
Godfred Yeboah Dame, Dame & Partners, Accra. 29/07/25
MA
