Arrest, detain, disgrace and deport

By: Eric Bawah

It is becoming funnier and funnier everyday as the General Election comes closer and closer everyday. It started with the president of the Republic of Ghana, Mr. John Dramani Mahama fidgeting for a lost page of his speech when he was delivering a speech at an AU meeting. Then he went to parliament to deliver his last State of the Nation Address, and the bad omen followed him there. There he stood with a prepared speech to deliver but half way during his delivery, he realized that one page had gone missing. To salvage the situation, the president had to quickly adopt what he called “evidence-based approach.”

Fifty nine years of independence is worth celebrating. And so the government of President John Dramani Mahama set out to celebrate the occasion in a grand style. Presidents were invited to grace the occasion and they responded and came along with their retinues in full force to join Ghanaians celebrate our hard won independence.

Huge sums of money were voted to prepare a brochure which would be distributed to invited guests. The brochure was supposed to contain much information, including a brief history of Ghana. Until I had a copy of the brochure I did not know that Ghana was “sitting on the Equator” which is located in the high seas. All along I used to think Ghana is the lone star of Africa, hence the black star that we see embossed on our Coat of Arms (or is it Coat of Arm?) and flag.

The brochure taught me a great lesson and as such I have to revise my notes. So after all, Ghana is rather the “Lodstar of Africa” The disgrace that this ill-fated brochure has brought to the good people of this country should be documented for generations yet unborn to read and see the mess that a government which once ruled this country caused when we celebrated our 59th Anniversary as an independent nation.

Before we could uncoil ourselves from the international disgrace that we suffered as people living in a country in this 21st Century, the mother of all disgraces came knocking on our door. Unlike other jurisdictions where opposition flagbearers are given police protection, the same cannot be said of Ghana. The handlers of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo knew their man will be exposed to danger in this election year since the NDC will do everything to maintain power so they decided to bring in some three South African ex-police experts who are good at training bodyguards of VIPs to train the bodyguards of Nana Addo.

These men shipped their equipment to Ghana and paid the required duties to the government of Ghana. The equipment did not include any weapons or any harmful chemicals. The irony of the whole mess is that when the men were arrested they were kept in the BNI cells for more than the stipulated 48 hours, thereby deliberately breaching the constitution of Ghana. Then they were hooded and hauled before a court of competent jurisdiction and slapped some funny charges on them.

The judge read the charge sheet and decided to give them bail because the offense they were alleged to have committed did not warrant any remand. In the full glare of the media, lawyers and well wishers, these BNI operatives defied the order of the court, re-arrested the South Africans and took them back to BNI cells. Then the lawyers of the South Africans threatened to go to court and file for contempt. Before they could even prepare the court documents, we woke up one morning to hear that the government had deported the poor South Africans. Funny!!!

When the BNI leaked the arrest of the South Africans to pro-government newspapers, they said the South Africans were mercenaries. Later they said they were suspected terrorists. At court, they said the three gentlemen were engaged in illegal training. Whatever that means can only be explained by the BNI.

From the days of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah through the days of General Afrifa and Dr. Hilla Limann, we used to have what was called Special Branch (SB) of the Ghana Police Service. These were well-trained officers whose activities could be likened to those of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) of the United States of America. You could not identify a Special Branch operative because they were secret agents who worked undercover.

When Flt. Lieutenant Rawlings was planning his 1981 coup; the SB trailed him cautiously. He was able to elude their surveillance and did strike on 31st December 1981. When Rawlings succeeded, he quickly disbanded the SB which was a thorn in his flesh. In its place, Rawlings established the BNI.

In those days, the BNI operatives were very professional and hardly did we see the face of any BNI operative. They did a covert operation to thwart the efforts of any soldier who planned any coup. During the National Reconciliation Commission sittings, it was revealed that about thirty foiled coups took place when Rawlings was in power from 1981 to 1992

Today, the BNI has become a branch of the NDC. They do not hesitate to introduce themselves to anyone who cares to know. Some of them are not well trained so they act like ordinary policemen. Some people even use some of them to collect debts and also harass their opponents.

The truth is that the BNI that Rawlings established is a pale figure of itself under the John Mahama administration. They act like zombies, always at the beck and call of their masters and ready to do the work of politicians instead of putting the interest of the nation above any other consideration. Espionage, which should be their guard post has been thrown to the dogs.

COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS

For the umpteenth time I had cause to write that historians always look back. That is not to say historians don’t care about the future. Historians look back in order to know what went wrong so that the wrong could be corrected as they move forward. The sages say when a person is drowning, he or she will even grab a snake, thinking that it is a rope in his attempt to survive.

The same can be said of the NDC. In the run-up to the 2000 General Election then candidate Kufuor invited some Italians to Ghana. These Italians stayed in the country for some few days and decided to leave to their country. Candidate Kufour accompanied them to the Kotoka International Airport to see them off as courtesy demanded.

Unknown to candidate Kufuor, the BNI operatives were trailing them. Before the Italians could embark and fly out of the country, BNI operatives arrested them and detained them. Candidate Kufour had to sleep at the airport that night because he could not have left them there alone since they were his guests. The following day when news of the arrest of the Italians went viral, the BNI who came under pressure from the good people of Ghana released the Italians without any charge preferred against them.

This too happened in an election year. Such intimidation did not lower the moral of candidate Kufour who put everything behind him and went all out to win the 2000 General Election. Mr. Mahama has come to realize that from the way he has mismanaged the economy, with stinking corruption engulfing his administration, Ghanaian voters will show him the way, come November 7th and so he is adopting intimidation as a weapon to cow down the NPP. This will not work because God is in control.

What the NPP should do is to fly the security details of Nana Addo and Dr, Bawumia outside the country to receive the needed training. The NDC is desperate and will do everything to survive. We cannot toy with the lives of these two gentlemen and their spouses.

Just imagine what will happen in this country if Nana or Bawumia is assassinated! (May God forbid). You see, if the country is driven into turmoil Mahama and his family have nothing to lose. All what they will have to do is to jump into the private jet of his brother, Ibrahim Mahama and fly outside the country to enjoy their booty.

PROSPER BANI’S IGNORANCE

When I read the reasons given by the Minister of Interior, Mr. Prosper Bani concerning the arrest of Captain Koda, I cursed the day I was born in Ghana. How can a whole Interior Minister expose himself to public ridicule? Captain Koda broke jail thirty-seven years ago and so what?

The man has been living in this country all this while, but nobody arrested him until the South Africans came into the country. Is Mr. Bani telling Ghanaians that Rawlings, who also broke jail at the Burma Camp guardroom to launch his June 4th Revolution, should be arrested?

Seriously, if such a person is in charge of internal security of Ghana, then cry the beloved country. Politics under NDC is gradually destroying hitherto fine gentlemen. I used to admire Mr. Bani but sadly his actions these days have eroded all the respect I have for him. It looks as if anyone who becomes an Interior Minister under the Mahama administration tries to open the Pandora Box. When Mark Woyongo was the Interior Minister, and we went to Talensi for the by-election, he too vomited rot. When violence was visited on NPP supporters at Talensi, it was Woyongo who said ‘violence begets violence” How sad!!!