CID chase Ken Ofori-Atta

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service is dusting up plans to pick up Ken Ofori-Atta for interrogation for purportedly inciting civil unrest in the country.

This plan is borne out of a warning by Mr. Ofori-Atta that “Ghanaians can cause a revolution with our lack of outrage at the current dire socio-economic situation in the country, Daily Guide has learnt.

Ken Ofori-Atta, an investment banker and co-founder of leading investment bank, Data-Bank, is incidentally the cousin of the flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo Addo Dankwa.

Communicating via e-mail, Mr. Ofori-Atta told Daily Guide that he is currently out of the country.

“I am out of town, and therefore have not met with the CID yet for the purported interrogation,” he told the paper.

A CID operative was said to have been dispatched to Ken’s office last week but he was told that the man was out of town.

The operative therefore left a statement form and newspaper containing the publication of his lecture at the British Council Hall.

Mr. Ofori-Atta made those remarks on March 12, 2013 at the British Council Hall where he was the guest speaker for the second quarterly Integrity in Governance lecture organized by the William Ofori-Atta Institute of Integrity at the Central University Collage.

During his presentation under the theme, Ghana’s future: Integrity, Rights, and Responsibilities of Citizens,’ Mr. Ofori-Atta accused clerics, civil society groups, journalists, Ghana’s middle-class and other important organisations such as the National Peace Council and the Ghana Bar Association of “cowardice and hypocrisy” for not standing up to the wanton decimation of the country’s resources.

He accused Ghana’s growing middle class of becoming “silent accomplices to the culture of impunity and the assault on integrity within our governance space.”

“For me we can cause a revolution with our lack of outrage, with what Rawlings did in 1979, you will realize that this is not merely hyperbolic,” he said, citing the 1979 revolution of then Flt Lt. Jerry John Rawlings.

In what he described as “growing integrity deficit” in the Ghanaian society, he said, “Poverty of scrutiny in our media, in our civil society that we appear to have walked backwards into that culture of silence without being prodded by the butt of an AK47.”

“We are simply unprepared to rock the boat and would rather stay in as the water sips slowly but surely through the cracks we pretend do not exist. We have gone to the market of character and impressions and decided to trade in substance for form.”

Witch Hunting

Apparently, these strong views have made the higher echelon of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) uncomfortable causing the CID’s planned interrogation.

This will be yet another invitation in the string of interrogation of people believed to have sympathies for the opposition NPP.

Last week, retired army Captain Budu Koomson was invited by the CID. They grilled him for several hours, ostensibly for comments he made about the potential for the military to stage a Coup d’état in protest against the socio-political situation in the country.

The opposition NPP has decried these “harassment” from security agencies and has described it as a political witch-hunt.

According to the largest opposition political party, several members of the ruling government made similar utterances but have not been cautioned.

Recently, a member of the NDC Communication team, Kakra Asamoah made serious comments about his readiness to support and finance a Coup d’état if the Supreme Court rules against the NDC in the ongoing election petition in the court.

He has been left to walk freely without an invitation from the police.