“You lost ‘Potoor’ the only time we faced off in court” – Godfred Dame responds to Thaddeus Sory

Former Attorney-General Godfred Yeboah Dame has taken his ‘learned friend’ Thaddeus Sory to the cleaners, asserting that he was no match for him during their only court face-off.

Sory, a pro-NDC lawyer, has gone on a tirade on social media, running down the legal capabilities of the younger Dame alleging that he won cases just because he became Attorney-General. Dame kept quiet all the time.

Response
However, on May 24, Dame decided to make his response known, and it was vigorous. He began, “I have always ignored the write-ups you have produced about me. For the first time, however, and hopefully it will be the last, I am compelled to correct a few things you have got fundamentally wrong. I will ignore the rest of the falsehood in your write-up as part of the vile propaganda you regularly engage in against me, which all can see through.”

He then fired salvos: “Oh Thaddeus! Doth ye have such short memory? Have you forgotten that in the only full trial of a case you and I happened to be on opposing sides between 2007 and 2009 when you were at Dery & Co., you lost miserably (potoor, as we say in Ghanaian parlance) when judgment was delivered by Ofosu-Quartey J. in May, 2009? Unperturbed, you led your clients to pursue an appeal at the Court of Appeal and lost again, in a judgment delivered on 25th July, 2013,” he fired.

He queried, “Was I the Attorney-General in those years?”

Dame added, “As they say, when Godfred Dame coughs, the whole NDC catches a cold”.

Jealousy
Additionally, Dame accused Sory of jealousy. “A person who cursorily reads your write-up will be permitted to infer that you suffer pangs of jealousy. This, I cannot help. I can only urge you not to be quick to boast of your ‘legal acumen’ as you put it, or soil the hard-earned reputation of your fellow lawyers.”

“In all humility, I say, as a testament to the strength of Ghana’s judicial system, that the record of the consistent success I enjoyed in the courts in innumerable high-profile cases I conducted between 2003 and 2007 (as a relatively junior lawyer) and between 2009 and 2017 ( when I was not the Attorney-General but a lawyer who was a member of the opposition), is there for all to verify. It is this independence of Ghana’s judiciary that I see is threatened by recent happenings in Ghana, and which I seek to protect. You and the NDC’s desperation to churn out a false narrative now will not change the situation.”