"Adjei-Boadi saved our lives"

Two witnesses told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) yesterday that the timely intervention of a former PNDC member, WO1 Adjei-Boadi, saved them and five others from being executed by soldiers of the 4BN at Kejetia in Kumasi in 1982.

They said the soldiers had bundled them into a military vehicle at the 4BN and just as they were about to take off to Kejetia, WO1 Adjei-Boadi appeared at the barracks and, after questioning the soldiers, ordered that they be released with immediate effect or the soldier would suffer drastic consequences.

The witnesses, Pastor Hayford Ansere Afriyie and Richard Boateng, both members of the Lord Is My Shepherd Church in Kumasi, were testifying before the commission on the fourth day of its sitting in Kumasi.

According to them, the day after the disturbances at the church in February 1982, they were arrested and sent to the 4BN where they were tortured and placed in a guardroom.

Witnesses said that the soldiers removed them from the guardroom and told them they were going to be executed and burnt, as happened to their leader, Odifo Asare.

They said suddenly, WO1 Adjei-Boadi appeared at the scene and upon questioning, ordered that they be released.

According to them, Adjei-Boadi told the soldiers that the coup was made for young people like them and that if the Major who was killed in the church had not died, he would have killed him for misbehaving.

Witnesses said Adjei-Boadi sent them to the Kumasi Central Prisons and kept in preventive custody, since he feared that if he sent them to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, the soldiers would trace them to the place and kill them.

They said when they were arrested they were given identification haircuts, while soldiers opened several cuts on their bodies with blades.

Pastor Afriyie said he lost ?1,300 during the torture He said all the seven persons who were going to be executed were Asantes and he heard some of the soldiers who were Ewes say that Asantes were “too known people” and they were going to show them what power could do.

Asked by the counsel for the commission how he noticed that the soldiers were Ewes, Pastor Afriyie said he understood the Ewe language they spoke.

Asked to name some of the soldiers he saw at the barracks, he named Corporal Nti and Corporal Abbass. Boateng told the commission that at the Central Prisons where Adjei Boadi sent them, a medical attendant took money from them to buy drugs to treat them until after three weeks when Adjei-Boadi again advised that they be allowed to go and hide in some villages where they would be safe.

Nana Yaw Boakye made his second appearance at the commission to narrate how armed soldiers and police stormed his house on December 6, 1992 to arrest him. Nana Boakye, who was a blacksmith and sculptor, said he exchanged gunfire with the soldiers before he eventually gave himself up.

According to him, he was taken to the BNI Headquarters where he was detained for two weeks in a highly illuminated cell.

Nana Boakye said due to the strong lighting system in the cell, he developed eye problems and eventually lost his sight.

He said one day, he insisted that he wanted to see the BNI Director, Mr Peter Nanfuri, since he did not know why he had been arrested and detained.

Witness said when he eventually saw Mr Nanfuri, he (Nanfuri) promised to contact his officers in Kumasi and the following day he ordered his release from cell. He described the PNDC government as very wicked. Mrs Adwoa Boakye, wife of Nana Boakye, who also testified, said the soldiers who came to arrest her husband were many.

She said a helicopter hovered over their house at the time her husband was resisting arrest.

She said she saw four people, including one woman, hit by a bullet during the siege on their house.

Mrs Boakye said that the soldiers who came to the house said they were looking for arms and ammunition, but they found none during the search.

She also quoted the soldiers as saying that they were arresting her husband over his alleged involvement in the burning of the property of a PNDC member in Kumasi.

Mrs Boakye said since her husband lost his sight, the family has faced a lot of financial problems and appealed to the commission to help them out of their problems.

Another witness, Madam Florence Birago, who was a trader, said personnel of the Civil Defence Organisation (CDO) seized her goods on the Accra-Ho Road for no apparent reason.

She said she nearly developed stroke from the shock and has since been plunged into serious financial problems.