“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” – Mark Twain
I don’t know Tony Lithur that much, but I know Nana Oye. She is very Ga,and from an influential home in Nungua. Her Mum is well-known as a woman of substance. I don’t also know where the two attorneys met. Somehow, both of these lawyers are National Democratic Congress (NDC) kingpins, who have fallen out of favour with each other. As if that is not enough, they are engrossed in what is becoming an attrition war.
Again, if that is not enough, the poison and litigation and media decibel levels are certainly becoming too much. Indeed, too much for comfort – not just for both family and friends, but also for the political party which they belong to. Intriguingly, one was defence counsel for the NDC during most of its political cases, including the infamous Election Petition a.k.a Clown Petition.
As the litigation rages, however, a common headache among party people and close friends is what the party and its sages and kingpins are doing to smoulder the raging fires.
They have families
Those of us familiar with divorce cases know how embarrassing it can turn when tempers are not moderated by a family or counsels attempting to manage the case in court. It becomes particularly explosive when one side decides that he or she would go down with the whole house, damn what the world says. Nana Oye and Tony know that more than I do, as lawyers.
Unfortunately, that appears to be the stage at which the litigation or, for that matter, attrition war, has reached. It is normal that divorcee applicants fight to the hilt in dog and catfights. When there are kids, however, in the marriage, the litigation may be slightly muted and managed for their sake, with the fight moving to property management layers that ultimately benefit kids and which should obligate any fair-minded Dad to cool down.
I don’t know if there are kids among them or if they met without any of them being man or woman enough to prove a case. Again, I don’t know Tony’s parents and family in the Volta Region and if they believe because Tony may probably not have been going home, he should be left alone to be battered by the Ga lady.
As the media contagiously noted, the ‘wahala’ surrounding the divorce of former President John Dramani Mahama’s legal counsel, Tony Lithur and his ex-wife, Nana Oye Bampoe Addo, is far from over.
The case
Nana Oye Bampoe Addo, formerly known as Nana Oye Lithur, who served as Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection under the erstwhile Mahama administration has taken on her ex-husband Tony Lithur, for tarnishing her image in both Ghana and abroad.
She is, therefore, demanding general damages of US$500,000.00 and exemplary damages, US$1 million.
The legal action has resulted from alleged malicious contents of the divorce petition Mr. Lithur filed on 2 May, 2018 to put an end to their 27-year-old marriage, which Plaintiff says has caused her reputational damage.
This falsehood, according to Nana Oye Banpoe Addo, has maliciously caused hatred, ridicule and public odium against her.
The divorce petition, which was variously reported by the media, said the Plaintiff was lazy, irresponsible mother, adulterous, cruel and violent person, as well as engaged in acts that contradict her professional ethics as a human rights lawyer. These claims, Nana Oye Bampoe Addo says has maliciously injured her image.
Nana Oye (Plaintiff) said Mr. Lithur’s (Defendant) claims could be understood that she is cruel and violent philanderer, adulteress, human rights violator, mean and wicked person and unfit to hold public office.
Below the belt
Without pretending to know too well, I believe at this point, Tony should know what a daughter of Eve anywhere in the world can do and just bow out of the case.
These allegations that include “an act of cruelty and violence” such as “pouring water, beating, slapping and using her fingernails to harm their domestic staff” should be dropped and some settlement made. Again, this clearly political dig at the women whom he had lived with for so long needed not to even have found its way into the media.
By the media report, Tony is reported to have stated that Nana Oye travelled to South Africa with an intention to buy an investment property between US$350,000 and US$500,000.00 as soon as leaving political office in 2017.
Knowing how angry women behave in such situations, Tony, in my humble opinion, should just laugh the whole thing off, unless she wants the lady to begin more theatrical somersaults in court.
Enlarged pussy
But that reminds me of a case that happened on the DeGaulle Park in the mid-70s. There was this Makola woman who went to a farm gate at Adeiso to buy foodstuffs to retail at the Kwasia Dwaso at Agbogbloshie. She appeared to have overstayed her business duties, returning to see another woman cooking on a common veranda with the rival in nightgown and about to serve her husband breakfast.
The scene, according to local gossip was one of an inferno, as the market woman dropped her dress on the football pitch in reply to the barrage of accusations against her.
“After doing this to me, you want me to go where? When the message was not sinking, she explained herself better in obscene language. I say after opening me up like this, who should I take this thing to…?”
That ended the fight. Today, both aging 80, they are ensconced in a modest home along the Aburi road, am told.
Something must give
The elders say when wife and husband fight to such attrition levels, all friends and inner circle need to do is force them into a fight in bed, and everything will be OK.
True Nana Oye may be right in asserting that since those strings of allegations, she has had to deal with answering embarrassing questions and humiliating treatments from strangers, associates, friends, family members, as well as foreigners. Also included are some members of the international community, international acquaintances and colleague attorneys and Honourables. That’s bad enough. However, considering the heat or tension that is building up, it is trite wisdom to put them to a natural cooler.
These threats about destroying reputation and making sure that by the time one was done with the other, there would be no reputation left for one to cling on must move to a level where both forget the past and move on. As they themselves have noted, this saga involves reputation, professional career, family, friends, kids and all – even their health.
Source: The Inquirer