Not only was the hapless cameraman pummeled into pulp, but his camera, which would have provided evidence of any wrongdoing on his part, that is assuming that the act of taking pictures of a public figure in a public place is an offence under the laws of Ghana, was most conveniently destroyed!!!
The cameraman, Baba Hammah, otherwise known as Babs, was left with a head injury for which he had to obtain urgent medical treatment after he was “released on bail”.
In a telephone interview, DCOP Opare Addo, the Ashanti regional Police Commander, confirmed the incident and told this paper that the cameraman was not arrested by Akufo-Addo’s police escort and that it was “admirers of Akufo-Addo” that arrested him and handed him over to the Police.
Asked what was the crime that the cameraman had committed to warrant his arrest, DCOP Opare Addo told this paper that “he was said to be taking photographs of Akufo-Addo and so they arrested him and destroyed his camera.”
“I have instructed that he should be granted bail,” DCOP Opare Addo further told this paper.
Asked what charge(s) are being preferred against the cameraman, since granting him bail implies that there could be a case against him, DCOP Opare Addo replied, “we could charge him for offensive conduct conducive to breach of the peace.”
Narrating how the whole incident unfolded, Mr. Kofi Lawson, a member of the security detail in the entourage of the former President told the Weekly Standard that, “the former President and his entourage, including Babs, who is our videoman, arrived at the Premises of the Golden Tulip Hotel in Kumasi at about 11.50am. On arrival, the former President went to the room booked for him to freshen up and prepare for the Akwasidae festival.”
“Some twenty minutes or so later, we heard the sirens of a Police motorcade approaching the hotel, and thinking that President Kufuor was also coming into that hotel, the security details of the former President quickly took positions in order to be out of the way of the President’s security detail while effectively protecting our boss,” Kofi Lawson narrated.
“When the motorcade of Police outriders and about thirty vehicles finally stopped at the hotel, about fifty heavily armed men in Police uniforms, alighted in combat fashion, cocking their weapons and rushing to take positions. I then saw Mr. Akufo-Addo alight from one of the vehicles and went into the hotel lobby. Soon thereafter, I saw some of the Police detail beating and kicking Babs out from the lobby and they bundled him into one of the vehicles and drove him away,” Mr. Lawson recounted.
“I was able to see them beating him because, as part of my duties, I remained in the former President’s vehicle to ensure its security so I was able to see all that transpired from my vantage position,” Mr. Lawson stated. When this paper contacted Mt. Nish Adu-Darko of the Akufo-Addo campaign team on telephone at about 1248hrs to enquire about what transpired, he promised that “I will get back to you soon”.
A promise he had not kept as at 2130hrs when we were going to bed.
Meanwhile the question that is agitating the minds of many Ghanaians is, since when has it become an offence to photograph or even film a public figure at a public place such as a hotel lobby or a sports stadium?
And, if indeed it is an offence, why destroy the evidence by destroying the camera that might hold the evidence to prove that the crime has been committed.
Significantly, Mr. Akufo-Addo, the man who is touting his self-acclaimed human rights credentials all over the place, did not lift a finger to protect the hapless cameraman, or even protest, when the terror was being unleashed on him by his guards even though the whole incident occurred in his full view.
In any case, why were Akufo-Addo and his people antsy about being captured on film at a public place? Was there something they would rather the Ghanaian people do not know about?
Indeed, given that Akufo-Addo did not spend even five minutes in the hotel, an indication that he may not have had a prior booking, what was it that he was doing that was so secret that it should not be captured on film?
Hmmm!!! Asem sebeh…
An official release on the incident issued by Mr. Kofi Adams, an aide to the former President, states:-
Heavily armed policemen accompanying New Patriotic Party Presidential candidate to the Akwasidae in Kumasi have brutally assaulted a video cameraman belonging to the entourage of former President Jerry John Rawlings and whisked him away. Video cameraman Babs Hammer who always accompanies the former President’s entourage did not know what hit him. He chanced to walk into the reception with his camera at the time the Akufo Addo security detail where taking their positions. On seeing him the policemen pounced on him and gave him a trouncing before carrying him and shoving him into one of the police vehicles in the NPP candidate convoy. Akufo Addo who was reportedly within 12 feet of the incident refused to intervene but rather sat in his vehicle and drove off in the convoy. According to an eyewitness the Rawlings entourage arrived and checked in at the Golden Tulip Hotel around 11.50am. The Akufo Addo entourage then arrived some 20 minutes later with about sixty heavily armed policemen who took position at vantage points at the hotel in a menacing manner.
The eyewitness who was the hotel’s reception said Akufo-Addo and his team moved to the reception of the hotel where some of the policemen asked where the former President and his group where.
It was at that point that Hammer who was loitering in the area waiting for his boss to get ready for the Akwasidae celebrations appeared.
Efforts to reach Hammer have failed. His phone has been ringing of the hook. The entire NPP machinery seems to have descended on Kumasi in a bid to take advantage of the big Ashanti festival as campaigning resumes in earnest for the 28th December Presidential run-off.
It is not too clear why the Akufo Addo’s team were the Golden Tulip because they did not seem to have done anything aside assaulting the Rawlings cameraman.
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