The Sedina Tamakloe acquittal has opened a sharp legal and political argument over the quality of the prosecution, the independence of the courts and what the ruling means for Ghana’s corruption fight.
National Petroleum Authority CEO Godwin Edudzi Tameklo says former Attorney General Godfred Dame must take responsibility for what he calls a poorly handled case.
Legal practitioners Kofi Bentil and Martin Kpebu are less aligned. Bentil sees a troubling political signal, while Kpebu says the judgment deserves a more careful reading.
On July 30, a three member Court of Appeal panel unanimously overturned the conviction and 10 year prison sentence imposed on former MASLOC CEO Sedina Tamakloe Attionu.
The court acquitted and discharged her on all 78 counts after finding that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
It also criticised the trial court’s treatment of the constitutional presumption of innocence. SweetFM Online reported that the decision was contained in a unanimous judgment.
Tameklo faults Dame’s handling of case
Tameklo, who is also a lawyer, said the appellate judges considered the substance of the allegations before deciding that the conviction could not stand.
He accused Dame, under whose tenure the High Court secured the conviction in April 2024, of failing to handle the prosecution with the required seriousness.
According to him, the freedom of an accused person cannot be taken away simply because a prosecution carries political weight.
“You cannot sacrifice the freedom of an individual based on political expediency,” Tameklo said.
His argument is blunt. Once the Court of Appeal examined the charges and found the evidence insufficient, he said, criticism should be directed at the quality of the case presented by the prosecution.
Bentil fears damage to corruption fight
Bentil took the opposite view. He argued that the acquittal feeds a damaging public perception that people facing corruption cases can leave the country and wait for their political party to return to power.
“We can’t fight corruption when the government is clearing its people,” he said.
That accusation stretches beyond the legal reasoning of the judgment. The acquittal was ordered by the Court of Appeal, not through a withdrawal of charges by the government. Bentil, however, believes the outcome still weakens public confidence in Ghana’s anticorruption campaign.
He maintained that even one properly established charge could have sustained a custodial sentence and suggested the result appeared designed to secure Tamakloe Attionu’s freedom.
Kpebu finds merit on both sides
Kpebu adopted a narrower position. He accepted that the state failed to satisfy the criminal burden of proof on some charges but would not extend that conclusion across the entire case.
“There is some merit in the grounds used by the Appeal Court,” he said. “But I cannot say all the charges are defective.”
He singled out the contract for buses intended for the Ghana Private Road Transport Union. According to Kpebu, former Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta renegotiated the agreement after the New Patriotic Party assumed office.
Kpebu questioned why Tamakloe Attionu should carry the full consequences of a contract that was subsequently accepted in a revised form.
Attorney General turns to Supreme Court
The dispute is far from settled. Attorney General Dr Dominic Ayine has filed a notice of appeal at the Supreme Court and applied for a stay of execution of the Court of Appeal judgment.
The state argues that the decision contains material errors of law and fact and wants its effect suspended until the Supreme Court determines the appeal. The application was filed shortly after the acquittal.
Tamakloe Attionu was convicted in absentia in April 2024 and later extradited from the United States on June 8, 2026, to serve the sentence in Ghana. Her extradition was confirmed by the United States Department of Justice.
The Supreme Court must now determine whether the acquittal corrected an unsafe conviction or wrongly displaced a case the High Court had found proven. Until then, the competing political narratives remain just that.
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