Okudzeto: Gov't using 'rogue' security agents to gag NPP

The Mahama administration is using the security agencies to gag the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Deputy Communications Director of the main opposition party Mr Perry Okudzeto has said.

He told Class News’ Emefa Apawu in an interview – a day after officers from the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) ransacked his office within the premises of policy think tank Danquah Institute (DI), as well as the invasion of the residence of his party’s flagbearer’s head of security, Capt. Koda, by police officers on Thursday March 24 – that: “Well, our suspicion is that all these are gagging orders from government officials using rogue security people to try and intimidate the opposition party.”

“It all falls in [line] with what has begun from Monday trying to tag people as mercenaries.

“Clearly, there is something going [on], there is a certain desperate action and manoeuvring from government using security agencies to try and achieve what I cannot fathom,” Mr Okudzeto said.

The BNI and police invasion of DI and Capt. Koda’s residence followed the recent of three South African ex-police officers in Ghana for being involved in "activities that threaten the nation's security".

The three men, Chris Hazis, 54, also known as Major Ahmed Shaik (rtd), WO/Denver Dwayhe Naidu (rtd), 39, and Captain Mlungiseleli Jokani (rtd), 45, were picked up at the El Capitano Hotel at Agona Duakwa in the Central region.

They were said to be training some young people in various security drills, including unarmed combat, weapon handling, VIP protection techniques, and rapid response manoeuvres. They have been charged with false declaration and unlawful training. They were put before court on Thursday March 24. They pleaded guilty and were each granted a GHS20, 000 bail with sureties. The BNI is still holding them despite the bail, a situation that has angered their lawyers.

The NPP has insisted that the three were neither “mercenaries” nor “terrorists” as being alleged by some officials of the NDC, but were experts who were only training bodyguards to control crowds around opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo and his running mate Dr Mahamudu Bawumia during campaigning, ahead of the November polls.