Editorial: Is President Mills Sheilding Killers Now

For weeks now, it was repeatedly alleged on radio that the Deputy Regional Minister for Brong Ahafo, Eric Opoku, was shielding suspected killers of an evangelist at Sankore, BA. The police took no action and John Atta Mills, who as candidate criticised President J A Kufuor for not acting on newspaper allegations also ignored all the allegations about his appointee.

Just this week, the news is that one of the alleged killers, Kwasi Adu, of the Sankore evangelist, was last Friday, August 28, arrested. And, where was he arrested? He was found hiding in the bedroom and under the bed of the deputy minister’s apartment at Sakumono, near Tema.

Two others Baba Iddrisu and Kwabena Noah, are still on the run. And, all four were known as aides to the deputy minister, who led a group of NDC hoodlums on on rampage in the town recently and allegedly attacked citizens they perceived as New Patriotic Party sympathisers.

The arrest of a suspected killer in the bedroom of the deputy minister should not be taken lightly by the President of the Repulic at all. Just a day before Adu’s arrest, Eric Opoku flatly denied on Peace FM that he had anything to do with the alleged killers, and that he was not even remotely associated with any of the suspects. He went as far as to say that he would not be able to point a single one of them out in an identification parade. This was despite the fact that the names of the three suspects were already out there and they had been declared wanted by the police.

At the time that the minister of state was denying even knowing the suspects, at least one of them had taken refuge in his official residence as MP in Sakumono. Mr Opoku was the Member for Asunafo South constituency until 2008.

President Mills cannot fail to take action. President Mills cannot fail to care with all these cases of impunity growing. We believe it is only fair that he gets the deputy minister to resign and for investigations to continue as to his complicity in the matter. Clearly, Mr Opoku cannot claim not to have known that one of his own boys in the town who allegedly led a mob and shot dead Kwame Nyame, 40, a farmer and evangelist, was hiding in the MP’s house. The fact that the MP denied any knowledge of any of the named suspects should be enough for President Mills to demand his minister’s resignation. Kwasi Adu is the man said to have fired the shot that killed the evangelist and NPP sympathiser.

Surely the news that suspected murderers have fled the town of the crime only to be given refuge by a minister of state cannot be treated lightly by a President considered to be ‘asomdwehene’ (king of peace).

Surely, the news that the official bodyguard and driver of the deputy minister were both protecting the murder suspect and frustrating the police from arresting the suspect should not sit well with the man who promised to President for all Ghanaians.

Consistently, President Mills' government is turning out to be the least respecter of human rights since 1993, if considered that it is only in its ninth month. In February, a man was killed in Agbogbloshie, in an ethno-political violence. The death of the evangelist was also politically motivated in July. The police recently assaulted an NPP activist who joined a demonstration against the arrest of a former Minister, only for the victim to die they very next morning. Just last week, four people, linked to the NPP, were butchered to death in broad daylight, again, at Agbogbloshie.

President Mills, you must act now! Failure to act can easily be interpreted as shielding killers. This does not augur well for your promise of a better Ghana. Many Ghanaians feel under siege and you must act before matters get out of control.