Goka And The Selebi Thing

Apart from the media, who else can pack time and space in a tiny cup and make it all look so uncannily real, Jomo?

We gathered from media headlines on Wednesday, that six cops and four civilian accomplices who robbed a businessman of US$50,000 recently, are going to spend “a total of 200 years” in the penal monkey cage.

Try adding 24 hours from the life of a colleague or friend to your own 24-hour day, so that you can have “a total of 48 hours” to live in one day, and see if it works, but never mind..!

Have you noticed how some things don’t mix at all, Jomo? In the unwritten script for the popular game of cops and robbers for example, the two are not supposed to play chummy buddies. Cops are supposed to pursue robbers all the time, grabbing them by the throat and getting a judge to exact full justice from them on behalf of society.

Unfortunately, society is changing faster than the colours of a chameleon in close proximity to a predator and robbers are wearing police uniforms and getting thrown in jail for impersonation.

Cops are also playing robbers and the consequences can be dire as was illustrated in the robbery trial this week.

It portends big trouble for Ghana because it is the kind of bizarre development in law enforcement which has brought Nigeria and South Africa their present predicament with internal security.

The now familiar scenario began playing out dramatically in Nigeria years ago when that country’s most notorious armed robber and cop-killer, Lawrence Anini alias “The Law”, revealed before his execution on March 19, 1987, how he had had the top Bendel State and Benin City Police Officers in his pocket for many years.

Anyone wishing to get a true picture of how Anini’s legacy is playing out in Nigeria as far as violent crime in that country is concerned, is better off consulting the ghost of the guy who painted “Dante’s Hell.”

Jackie Selebi, the handsome, distinguished looking gentlemen who until recently was South Africa’s Commissioner of police and head of Interpol to boot, is facing charges of having received illegal payments from one of South Africa’s most powerful criminals Glenn Agliotti alias “The Landlord.”

Selebi stands accused of having given ‘The Landlord” tip-offs about law enforcement activities and handing him dossiers detailing British Intelligence investigations into the activities of the Agliotti who has been exporting drugs into the UK from South Africa.

You do not need binoculars and large road signs to see that Ghana is walking this very same road: The numerous drug cases including the case of the vanishing MV Benjamin and her cargo of coke, threw up cases of very strange friendships between some of Ghana’s topmost cops and suspected drug barons. Many questions about those relationships will most likely never be answered.

If this does not convince you that we are going the way of Nigeria and South Africa, this week’s conviction of the six cops for complicity in robbery, should give you a little bit more faith in my prognosis.

If you want to monitor developments on this matter keep reading the news papers and listening to the radio. I must warn you though, that listening to radio in Ghana is not for the impatient:

I tuned into a radio station yesterday and there was a very angry clown with an axe to grind with somebody and he was trying hard to scream the sky down over everyone so early in the morning.

I tuned off and into another station and a studio panel was discussing something but the discussants were all speaking at once just like the tongues-speaking multitude on Pentecost Sunday and it was difficult to say whether they were discussing how to breed rabbits, fry onions or stop cyber crime.

The concept of the talk show has assumed a whole new meaning here, with curious emphasis on screaming and yelling and letting all the hair down to the scalp. Discussants do it and phone-in-callers keep up the steam with great gusto.

The other day too, radio listeners head some heavy panting and grunting and the sound of microphones flying across the studio of one the most popular radio stations in the capital.

It was later revealed that emotions had brimmed over and one discussant on the talk show came close to losing a jaw to another enraged panel members fist!

Blame all this mad stuff on the sudden discovery by propagandists and political activists, that radio is a potent tool in politicians’ battle for the minds of the people.

The tale of the late Northern Region Chairman of the Convention Peoples Party, Alhaji Issah Mobila affirms how seriously some people are taking the battle and what a deadly game politics can be in Ghana.

Mobila was invited by the Tamale Police four years ago for an investigation. He went to the police station of his own volition and was detained. Then Military personnel from a garrison went to the police station and took him away.

In a matter of hours Mobila was very dead. There were marks of severe torture on the body. Three soldiers were arrested. For four years, human rights and CPP activists kept singing “Prosecute Mobila’s killers.” Something happened, namely NOTHING.

Then a new political administration comes and the trial is set to begin:

When the case was called up for hearing this week, one of the accused, Private Seth Goka had dematerialized into one of the atmospheric gases.

The circumstances surrounding Goka’s escape and media coverage of the escape were strange. Reporters reporting a cell break for example, would normally tell you how it all happened:

The suspects in detention punched a big hole in a decaying slab of wood in a cell wall, called a window, and vamoosed while the cops on duty took an unauthorised snooze.

Otherwise, felons threw a bucket full of sh-t or ground pepper over a hapless policeman, punched him in the face and piled out to sweet freedom.

Questions are flying about on their own: How come that for three good years Goka was in custody without being prosecuted? Does it make sense to suggest that someone in military custody can just up and scoot to freedom without some assistance? That being the case, who may have assisted him to escape and why?

How come that in a very high profile story like this a picture of Goka has not been published in the media which is well noted for publishing anything resembling the picture of a newsmaker? Want some more questions?