Leaders of De-Eye group must be prosecuted – Ace Ankomah

Private legal practitioner, Ace Ankomah has called for the arrest and prosecution of leaders of the pro-NPP militia group De-Eye.

This follows the release of a documentary by JoyNews which revealed that the group has been using the Osu castle, an extension of the seat of government as a training ground.

Speaking on the back of developments relating to the militia group’s illegal use of the facility on JoyNews’ news analysis programme Newsfile, Mr. Ankomah noted that, per the remits of the Criminal Offenses Act 29, though the documentary does not seem to provide much information about the group’s operations, the admission of the group that they have been providing some security services and are being trained by former military officers when they have not been licensed to do so is an act of criminality.

He maintained that the Attorney-General must bring leaders of the group to book since the group has already admitted to conducting activities contrary to the provisions of the constitution of Ghana.

Government’s reaction

The Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, addressing the press on Friday said the documentary “carried a number of significant misrepresentations and misleading impressions.”

“Surprisingly, the 20-minute documentary does not show any evidence of such a militia or a vigilante group training or operating at a security zone. Rather it shows a group of young men and women dressed up in white shirts and black suits converging at the Christianborg Castle in Osu in the belief that jobs will be found for them,” the Minister said.

The Minister also said: “government is of the view that this is most unprofessional and very misleading, and we can only urge the producer and Joy News to avoid such misrepresentations in the future.”

He said the final product also “deliberately failed to highlight the fact that that office had been closed down since October 2018.”



Joy News’ Response

Manasseh said “When we started this documentary, we looked at the history of this group and first we decided to film their activities. Anytime we went there we saw them doing military drills. Their trainers are ex-military officers and their salutations “aho, ahoya” and everything is like that of a security agency. Their leaders are called and respond to security terms: the head is called a Commander, below him a Chief of Staff and other Warrant Officers (WOs) who are also in the training.

“Beyond that, we tried to look at what this group is about. In August 2018, Fraser Owireku Kegya who is the Chief of Staff of the group granted an interview to TV3 and that interview was on party militias and his group was identified as one of them and he was trying to describe what his group was about.”

In that interview, Owireku Kegya told the interviewer that “De-Eye group is all over the 10 regions of this country and we have over 5,000 members. De-Eye group is made up of the youth of this country who believe in the ideas and policies of the Akufo-Addo government.”

Manasseh referred to a story written by the Daily Guide in 2012 titled “Vigilante Group vows to protect ballot box’, which gives credence to the Joy News documentary, only that the story describes the group as a ‘vigilante group’ not a militia, the term Joy News uses to describe such groups after one of the Commissioners of the Commission of Inquiry investigating the violence that characterised the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election, recommended the change in name.

Indeed, if members of the group are not a militia but job seekers as the government said, why are the people not being trained on how to write CVs or anything of that nature but are rather taken through military drills, Manasseh questioned.

The government statement said the young men and women converge at the Castle, Osu in search of jobs, but on their website – de-eyegroup.com - it is stated clearly that they provide security services in Ghana.



Background

The ‘Militia in the heart of the Nation’ undercover work carried out by Manasseh Azure Awuni, exposes a pro-NPP militia group, De-Eye training at the Christiansborg Castle in Osu.

The group, according to the report, is being led by a former bodyguard of President Akufo-Addo and has been operating for the past two years.

Manasseh found that the group had already provided security for a number of government functions of which the president had taken part in, a claim that has been denied by government.

In a Facebook post, Franklin Cudjoe who may have come to accept that the two undercover journalists can help government fight corruption, does not see the need for the existence of the EOCO, National Security and the office of prosecutions.

According to him, “We should shut down EOCO and the National Security and outsource their work to these two men. And then privatise the office of Prosecutions/ Ministry of Justice.”