Takoradi Kidnappings: BNI misled CID boss – Security Analyst

The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) misled the Director-General of the Criminal Investigative Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, Mrs Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah with regards to the whereabouts of the three kidnapped Takoradi girls, Mr Emmanuel Kutin, the Executive Director of the African Centre for Security and Counter-terrorism, has said.

Mr Kutin explained that Mrs Addo-Danquah’s pronouncement at a press conference to the effect that the girls have been found, was based on inaccurate information provided her by personnel of the BNI, a situation he said gave the CID boss bad press after her public announcement.

At the press meeting, she said after months of painstaking investigations, together with the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the CID had been able to find the location of the three girls who were all alive and well.

She appealed to the distraught families of the victims to “keep on keeping on”.

Since that announcement, Mrs Addo-Danquah has received a barrage of public backlash.

For instance, Mr Kwasi Prat Jnr., Editor of the Insight newspaper told Accra-based Peace FM that: “...As we sit here, it does appear that the police simply lied. The police don’t know the whereabouts of the kidnapped girls.”

Mr Kutin told Kwabena Prah Jnr (The Don) on Ghana Yensom on Accra 100.5FM, Tuesday, 7 May 2019 that: “The information that Maame Tiwaa spoke confidently to the Ghanaian people about came from the BNI and not the police. She was definitely misled and I expected the government to come out or the police as an administration to come out and let the good people of Ghana know”.

“I think the name of Maame Tiwaa has been in the media for all the wrong reasons. Meanwhile, this is a lady who has been very hard working.

“Her handlers, and I think the police should take a critical look at that. If you remember when the issue of the Takoradi girls came, I pleaded that the blame should be on the public relations department of the service because they didn’t do proper damage control.

“After that information had gone into the public space and they realized that they were misled, I thought there was nothing wrong for them to come back to the good people of Ghana to say that the intelligence they gathered was factually inaccurate, and appropriate actions will be taken to deal with the people who are paid with the taxpayers’ money and have brought this wrong information.”