NPP HQ raids: Police must report on last year's incident – Baako

Veteran Journalist and Social Commentator Kwaku Baako Jnr has urged the Police service to update Ghanaians on the status of its investigations into the dawn raid at the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Headquarters in November last year.

According to him, the deafening silence of the police service on this matter which raised tensions at the time it happened is most worrying.

Some men dressed in military uniforms and other attires reportedly ransacked the NPP headquarters at dawn. They were said to have searched the offices after locking up the security guards on duty.

There were reports that military uniforms and a sack full of AK 47 weapons were retrieved at the party headquarters following which 11 persons who were arrested where standing trial at the court.

The Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Cephas Arthur in an interview with the media when the incident happened was tight lipped on whether some weapons were found at the place when the Police got to the scene.

“Official accounts now is still sketchy. Police received a distress call that a group of persons have raided the NPP headquarters and so the Police aptly responded to the call to ensure that calm was restored. Eventually when everything had come down, other aspect of policing was set into motion, that is, personnel from the crimes department were dispatched to the place to conduct investigations on the scene of crime to pick pieces of evidence.” – “As I speak, that is what we are still doing; we are still investigating the incident. The Police are proceeding with our investigation, and at the appropriate time, if there is any signal of weapons, we will put it in the public domain,” he added.

But speaking on Joy FM’s News analysis show News File Saturday, Kwaku Baako Jnr stated that in the wake of last week’s arrest of three South African ex cops while training some NPP youth in various military drills, during which government claims some military uniforms were retrieved just as in the case of the NPP headquarters incident, it is important that the police let Ghanaians in on what the latest is on that case.

“This is a recent case involving a particular political party which is also part of this unfolding saga. As we sit here ammunitions including AK 47 rifles were supposed to have been seized at the NPP headquarters, I’m asking for situational report because you will remember that the issue of military uniforms also came up.

“There were allegations that the people who came in first were police officers… denied, the people who came in second were police people, what at all is the status of that investigations, so we are talking confidence in these institutions” Baako noted.