Public office holders like Koku must exercise state power responsibly – Egbert Faibille

The Communications Director at the Presidency, Mr Koku Anyidoho, must do better than throw out innuendos on matters relating to police investigations, legal practitioner, Egbert Faibille has stated.

Mr Anydoho commenting on the arrest of Asem Dake connected with the MV Benjjamin cocaine case said, "Today Asem Dake is in custody and ...I can promise you, President Mills is going to go to the bottom of this matter. Nobody, be it a former president, be it a sitting president, be it an erstwhile president, anybody who is involved in this cocaine matter..., you can be sure that President Mills will let the people of Ghana stand and point fingers at those who were involved in this dastardly trade.”

But speaking on Joy FM's Super Morning Show Monday, Mr Egbert Faibille said the finger-pointing and deliberate attempt to sully the reputation of some individuals who have not been indicted by the police in any way was most unfortunate and ought not to come from someone speaking from the president.

He said to start naming persons, albeit indirectly, on the simple basis that they may have been mentioned by a suspect in police custody is irresponsible to say the least.

According to Mr Faibille, if the suspect mentioned any individuals in his statements to the police and the investigators had sufficient belief that those individuals were culpable in any way, the police would arrest the persons involved and charge them together with the prime suspect.

As far as he knew, the matter in court is the Republic v. Asem Dake and for the spokesperson for the president to, in spite of this notorious fact, proceed to impugn the integrity of innocent persons, is mischievous and condemnable.

Egbert who is also a journalists and edits the Ghanaian Observer newspaper, said even if the police were still following leads on information provided by the suspect, it would be imprudent for someone in such a critical office as the presidency to go giving clues, for that could well jeopardize the investigations.

“... We will get to the bottom of this cocaine matter, 77 parcels of cocaine? When INTERPOL alerted us? We moved our vessels from the sea, brought them to the base claiming that they had run out of food rations. Our 'hellis" (helicopters) were not allowed to use our airspace? All kinds of incredulous things happen in this nation. You had a president and his defence minister-brother and nothing could be done and these people are the ones who want to be pointing fingers at President Mills? ...They will be exposed one-by-one-by-one and nobody will be allowed to run out of this country,” Mr Anyidoho had said.

Responding, Mr Faibille said, “When the incident happened, Mr Kufuor was the president of Ghana. When you get Koku Anyidoho go on air and say that 'anybody, whether you are an ex president or you held whatever position, you will be arrested,' why, is he trying to use this to say that Mr Kufuor is connected to this matter”?

He said Mr Anyidoho and the government should stop casting innuendos and be bold and arrest anybody they reasonably believe has questions to answer.