When the Court of Appeal acquitted and discharged former MASLOC boss Sedina Tamakloe Attionu on 30th July, 2026, after quashing her 10-year sentence for 79 charges, two celebrations broke out in Ghana.
In one corner, the NDC saw vindication. In the other, the NPP saw confirmation of a dangerous pattern.
But for the clearest example of the chess game, Ghanaians do not need to look far. They only need to look at Kumasi.
THE NEW FACE OF THE OLD GAME: CHAIRMAN WONTUMI
As Tamakloe walked out of Nsawam after less than two months in jail following her extradition from the US, NPP Ashanti Regional Chairman Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, walked into detention.
Wontumi, the loud, powerful Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, was arrested and remanded in 2025/2026 by state investigative bodies under the current NDC government on allegations of corruption, illegal mining related offences, and financial irregularities. The details are still before the courts.
The NDC government says it is accountability. Due process. No one is above the law.
The NPP says it is political revenge. Witch-hunting. And they have been explicit about what happens next.
At his solidarity visit to EOCO and later at party rallies in Kumasi and Accra, leading NPP figures including Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin and other party executives openly declared: “When we come back to power in 2028, we will free Wontumi.”
That single sentence has become the unofficial manifesto of Ghana’s justice system.
THE RULE OF THE GAME
It is a rule Ghanaians know too well.
When you are in power, you prosecute them. When they come to power, they free them.
Under President Kufuor’s NPP from 2001, former NDC officials including Dan Abodakpi, Kwame Peprah and Victor Selormey were jailed. The NDC called it witch-hunting.
Under Mills/Mahama from 2009, prosecutions of NPP officials over Ghana@50 stalled.
Under Akufo-Addo’s NPP from 2017, the pendulum swung hard: Dr. Stephen Opuni for the COCOBOD case, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson for the ambulance case, Collins Dauda, Ernest Thompson, and Sedina Tamakloe with her 79 counts for MASLOC.
The NDC cried persecution.
Now under President Mahama’s second administration, the pendulum has swung back. Ato Forson is now Finance Minister after his case was discontinued. Collins Dauda has been acquitted. And Tamakloe, after jumping bail in 2021, forfeiting her sureties in 2023, being convicted in absentia in 2024, extradited from the US on 8th June 2026, has now been acquitted and discharged by a three-member panel led by Justice Emmanuel Ankamah.
The Court did not say MASLOC was clean. It said the prosecution failed. It held that several charges were manifestly defective, that original documents like the GH¢500,000 Obaatanpa refund letter were not produced, that WhatsApp messages were alleged but not tendered, that regional officers were not called to prove sensitisation funds of GH¢1,816,000 were stolen, that a prosecution witness himself admitted Kantamanto fire victim funds of GH¢579,800 were distributed, and crucially, that the High Court reversed the burden of proof by asking Tamakloe to prove she had authority for the GH¢61.7 million vehicle deal.
In law, that is fatal. In politics, that is ammunition.
THE WONTUMI FACTOR – WHY IT MATTERS
Wontumi’s detention completes the cycle.
If Tamakloe’s acquittal allows NDC supporters to say “See, NPP’s cases were frivolous,” then Wontumi’s detention allows NDC supporters to say “See, we are holding NPP accountable.”
And if Wontumi’s detention allows NPP supporters to say “This is political persecution,” then Tamakloe’s acquittal allows them to say “They are clearing their corrupt looters.”
Both parties now campaign not on stopping corruption, but on who will be freed next.
NPP’s promise to free Wontumi when they return is not new. It mirrors NDC’s own history of promising to free its people when they returned – promises that were kept for many.
This creates what political scientists call a “mutual assurance of impunity.” The message to a young DCE, a CEO of a state agency, or a party financier is simple: Loot well, share well with the party, and if they arrest you, hold on. Your party will come and free you.
WHO LOSES?
It is not NDC or NPP who loses.
It is the MASLOC borrower in Tamale who was told there is no money for loans.
It is the rule of law itself.
As long as every conviction is celebrated as a political trophy and every acquittal is celebrated as political vindication – from Tamakloe to Wontumi – Ghana will continue to prosecute headlines instead of crimes, and free individuals instead of fixing institutions.
We do not need fewer trials. We need better investigations, better-drafted charges, original documents, and prosecutions that survive beyond the next election.
Otherwise, the chessboard remains set. NDC clears its own. NPP vows to clear its own. And the Ghanaian taxpayer pays for both the alleged theft and the cost of the game.
Alexander Afriyie, supervising editor, ghanacrimereport.com and ghanatalk.com