Agradaa’s 15‐year imprisonment: “Thunderously harsh or evangelistically justifiable?”
Patricia Asiedua Asiamah, popularly known as Nana Agradaa, has been in the news after the ruling by an Accra Circuit Court, having found her guilty on multiple counts of charlatanic advertisement and defrauding by false pretence. The charges stemmed from a televised broadcast in 2022, during which Agradaa claimed to possess spiritual powers capable of doubling money. This piece is not meant to dissect the concept of defrauding by false pretence, but to place the public uproar on the scale of justice, to find the balance between the sentencing and the applicable laws in determining the harshness or otherwise of the sentencing. There is a long-established principle in Ghanaian jurisprudence that in the absence of mandatory minimum sentences prescribed by statute, the trial judge enjoys wide discretion in sentencing. In the case of Blay v. The Republic , although the appellant was convicted on a count of defrauding by false pretence, the sentencing was subject to review with some rel...