Mahama won't stage a 'terror operation' on Nana Addo - Baako

The Editor-In-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kwaku Baako has noted that President John Dramani Mahama will under no circumstance label NPP’s Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as a ‘terrorist’ or stage a ‘terror operation’ on him as purported.

He made this comment after government denied strongly raiding the offices of the policy think tank Danquah Institute and the home of Capt (rtd) Edmund Koda, the head of security of the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo.

Last Thursday, some national security operatives raided the cantonment Danquah Institute office – a private security officer on duty at the office noted that the men [BNI officers] upon arrival in a Pajero vehicle averred to see one “Hajia.”

“I told them [BNI] that there’s no Hajia, but they insisted I open the gate for them. I refused, but one jumped the wall and opened the gate for the others to enter. They then forced to open the offices and raided the place,” the security man said.

This unfortunate incident happened few days after the Bureau of National Investigation [BNI] arrested three South African ex-cops who were allegedly giving ‘military training’ to some NPP youth ahead of the November 7 polls.

The ransack at the party’s think-tank office by the state security has raised issues as to whether government sees the NPP flagbearer as a ‘terror’.

But veteran journalist Kwaku Baako who was speaking on Joy FM’s news analysis programme, ‘News File’ doubted if the attack on the NPP office was a directive from President John Dramani Mahama.

“This private security for presidential candidates didn’t begin today. The last time I checked all the presidential candidates from 1992 had some form of security arrangements around them that was not sponsored by the state, but not a substitute for what the state can offer.

“The state offers some protection very late so there’s always a certain link and we have to address ourselves on how to go about that. You remember late Professor Mills’ bodyguards crashing with presidential guards at Cape Coast, so it’s a fact that they all have been doing it. We can find ways and means of addressing that problem. That for me is the way forward in this matter,” he said.

Adding that, “This particular issue should not be underestimated. The distortion and the misrepresentations do not help for us to come to this consensus. I don’t believe the president [John Mahama] will preside over a terror operation relative to Nana Addo. I don’t believe that.

"...But that doesn’t mean that there could be no guys there who want to do things to hurt Akufo- Addo or any other presidential candidate in the course of the campaign.”