Twice in just over a year, Andy Appiah-Kubi has walked away from Chairman Wontumi's defence — and once walked back to lead it. His second exit on Thursday, from the Ghanaian opposition figure's illegal mining trial, capped a defence team that has churned for more than a year. It drew in a former attorney-general, fractured in a public quarrel between two senior lawyers, and at times left it unclear who was actually in charge.

The latest departure came at a fraught moment. Judgment in the mining case, in which Wontumi and his company Akonta Mining are accused of facilitating unlicensed operations on a concession at Samreboi, is due on July 3. On the same day Appiah-Kubi quit, the Attorney-General's office told the court that Wontumi had asked to open plea negotiations in a separate case accusing him of defrauding the state-owned Ghana Export-Import Bank. He's, in effect, fighting on one front and bargaining on another just as his lead counsel walks away.

Appiah-Kubi, a former member of parliament, said he'd formally notified both his client and the Accra High Court that he was stepping aside. He cited what he called “unseen influences” around the proceedings that he said were compromising the trial’s integrity.

The man at the centre of it all is Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, the Ashanti regional chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who's universally known as Chairman Wontumi. How his defence got here is a story of star additions, abrupt exits and open feuding.

The turbulence began in late May 2025, after national security operatives raided Wontumi's home and police summoned him. When he reported to the Criminal Investigations Department in Accra on May 26, it wasn't Appiah-Kubi who walked him in but Godfred Dame, attorney-general and justice minister from January 2021 to January 2025 under former President Nana Akufo-Addo. Asked whether he was representing Wontumi, Dame said, “It is obvious,” and declined to elaborate.

Appiah-Kubi never publicly described that first departure as a resignation or gave a single reason for it. But the friction driving the shake-up soon surfaced. As a fight over bail unfolded, he said he'd been blindsided by a court application he hadn't filed. “We encountered a challenge, a legal challenge unknown to me; there was an application that prohibits us,” he said, calling it one “not filed by my good self.” He also said he wanted to keep the defence clear of politics, vowing to “stay out of the politics and the theatrics” and work “within the law.”

Dame's involvement was itself striking. He was now lining up against the prosecuting machinery he once led, by then headed by his successor, Dominic Ayine.

By early June 2025 the team had grown to include Dame, Appiah-Kubi and a new arrival, Gary Nimako Marfo, the NPP's director of legal affairs, who'd been brought in on the instructions of Wontumi's wife as the family pressed for his release from the custody of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO). The strategies collided. While Appiah-Kubi worked to satisfy a 50 million cedi bail bond, Nimako filed a separate motion seeking to vary the terms. Appiah-Kubi blamed that filing for stalling the release; Nimako rejected the explanation. “A variation application isn't an injunction application that could have stopped the ongoing process,” he said, calling his colleague’s account “disingenuous.” He said he'd blocked Appiah-Kubi and wouldn't speak to him again. Appiah-Kubi, in turn, said he was untroubled and hadn't been told of the motion.

Nimako withdrew it on June 2, and Wontumi stayed in custody for a time before his release.

Outside analysts saw a team at war with itself. The confusion, said Kojo Asante of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, pointed to a basic problem: “There's a conflict on who exactly is representing Wontumi, and that's what has complicated the matter.”

Whatever the rancour, Appiah-Kubi was back at the head of the defence by the time the mining cases reached open court. When Wontumi reported to the CID on October 6, 2025, to have his charges read, he arrived with Appiah-Kubi beside him. Through late 2025 and into 2026, Appiah-Kubi led in court.

Now he's gone again. With judgment days away and plea talks underway in a separate case, Wontumi's legal strategy looks as fractured as his defence team.