Is Police Commander, Isaac Yeboah behind proxy war in Atiwa District? 

Sequel to my article titled “The rot at Kwabeng Police Division”, there appears to be a proxy war by phantom and faceless callers masquerading as concerned citizens in the Atiwa Division.

But what surprises me is that all the callers claim to be citizens of Abomoso, which happens to be my hometown. Yours sincerely comes from the holy villages of Abomoso (matrilineal) and Sankubenase (patrilineal).

Since the article first hit the news stand, I have received more than five calls from individuals who claim to come from Abomoso telling me that the District Police Commander, Isaac Yeboah is doing a very good job at Abomoso and the surrounding villages. They claim that “their man” the District Commander has nipped in the bud the nefarious activities of wee and cocaine dealers in the Abomoso township. I do not begrudge them on their claims. It may be true or false. They are entitled to their views.

But before I go into the substantive issues, I would like to state here that I, Daniel Danquah Damptey will not do anything to malign any public official, much more one of the Chief Law Enforcing Officers in my own District. That is not in my character. But I detest injustice. It pains me to see or hear an innocent person being victimized to satisfy somebody’s whims and caprices.

Those who know me will vouch for me in this regard. I have carried this fight or crusade to the Church and other institutions. You can call me what you like, but trust me, that is the way God created me and I am grateful to Him for making me the way I am.

So, let no individual think I just sit in my bedroom to concoct stories about high ranking public officers. No, I do not do that. My stories come out after an exhaustive investigation. So those who called me to issue threats and abuses on me should be careful what they do, otherwise they will invite the wrath of God upon themselves and their families.

But I sincerely believe that those phantom and faceless individuals cannot be doing what they are doing including the threats on my life without the promptings of some “ powers above” or God Fathers..

I would like to recount two of such incidents. I cannot give verbatim accounts of the two nasty incidents, but the first one goes like this.

Phone rings ……. I picked the call but the caller refuses to talk.

Me: “Hello, this is Mr. Damptey. Please who is calling?

Caller: “It doesn’t matter. I am from Abomoso. There was an article in the newspapers and they say you wrote it. I want to tell you that the Commander is doing a very good work in the District especially at Abomoso and you must not do anything to spoil his good name.

Me: “My friend, have you read the said article? You are telling me “they say” you wrote it. That implies you have not read it but you are basing your views on what people told you. Go and read it and you will understand the point I was making.

Caller: “You don’t live in this town but you are allowing the Commander’s enemies to use you. We in Abomoso will not allow it. Why are you doing this? People smoke wee and are arrested and you say the man is doing something bad. He has got rid of wee smokers in the town and you are crucifying him. Are you one of them? The people of Abomoso will not allow you to …..

The phantom and faceless caller had become insane or demented. He was raining insults, curses and threats on my person. I allowed him to continue in his chosen line of threats and curses till I felt I had had enough. He would not allow me to put in even a word. I therefore had to cut the line.

. The call came in on Monday, 3^rd April, 2017 at 3.00pm

This message is directed at the owner or user of phone number 0249806890 who called me to issue threats and curses on me. I want to tell him that I, Citizen Daniel Danquah Damptey was brought up by civilized parents, whom I am proud of. I have been taught to put up my best face forward in public but I say with all the venom in me that if I do not encounter the likes of the owner of Phone Number 0249806890, who will act as castrated eunuchs and sell his conscience for peanuts to the highest bidder, I would not have missed anything of value.

On 25^th April, 2017, I had a similar conversation with the owner of 0243568218, who claimed to be Secretary to one of the Supreme Court Judges. I asked him of his name but he refused to tell me but went on to issue curses and even death threats on my person. I told him he was impersonating, but he retorted that I would not live to see the end of the matter. “Wagyimi, wo nnim nyansa…. Onyankopon betua wo ka. Enkye koraa Wobewu afi wiase ha. Wogyedi se asem yi beko awie na wotease? Dabi! Wobewu! Me na meka. Wobewu”

Translated into English, this was what that faceless, phantom impersonator said in Twi. You are stupid. You don’t have sense. God will punish you. You will die very soon. Do you think you will be alive by the time this case ends? No, you would be dead. I am telling you, you will long be dead”.

These two shameless and satanic scoundrels are examples of drug addicts in the society who are prepared to do anything including taking the lives of individuals for peanuts and to settle personal scores. If they are men of principles, why did they not mention their names? One even went to the extent of indulging in impersonation.

Now to the substantive issues raised in my write up and the phone conversations I had with the supposed advocates of Commander Isaac Yeboah. All the callers claimed to come from Abomoso. Was it a mere coincidence that Abomoso happens to be my hometown so that they would create a credulity doubt in the minds of the people for me? The latter appears to be the case. If not, then I am yet to know their motive. .

All the callers told me that Commander Isaac Yeboah has rid the Abomoso Township of wee and cocaine peddlers and smokers. If that indeed is true, then and I commend him on that. But can they tell the public how many of such suspects have been prosecuted in court not to talk of the number of convictions gained in the last couple of months? If the number of prosecution is far below the number of arrests made, does that not tell you that something is amiss?

In all the conversations I had, I always asked the callers why it is that only citizens of Abomoso have been heaping praises on the Commander to the exclusion of other towns? I asked them why not one single individual from other towns especially Kwabeng which happens to be the District Capital has not raised any issue in defence of the Commander?. To that, I am yet to get an answer.

Please, let us reason as intelligent individuals. I did not raise any issue on the competence of the Commander. So, whether the Commander is competent or not, that is not the issue here. I said that the Atiwa District Commander led a detachment of policemen to arrest some suspects at Akrofufu in the night. I also stated that the detachment included a civilian, Alhaji by name who was clothed in Police uniform. True or false? That is the issue we need to interrogate not the competence level of Commander Isaac Yeboah.

Did it happen or not? And is it right to cloth an informant in police uniform when the Police go to arrest a suspect? Do Police regulations allow this? Again, do the family of suspects have to pay the transport fares of suspects when the latter are being taken to court? Again, does the Divisional Police have a vehicle? If it does, why do the families of the accused/suspects have to bear the cost of transporting them to court?

And if I may ask, is the offence so grievous to warrant the Commander and more than seven policemen to stage a commando style raid on a building housing three suspects? How many times have the Commander led such expeditions since he became head of the District Police Command? Why was the vehicle that was used for the raid not used to convey the suspects to court? Was there any search warrant obtained before the raid on the house of the accused at that odd time in the night? Did the correct time of the raid written in the Police Dairy? My investigations reveal the time of the raid was given as 9.30 am in court whereas the Police stormed the place around 12.30 am.

I have done an in-depth investigation into the matter, contrary to what the backers and supporters are saying. I called the father of the accused and he told me that he met and spoke with the Commander after a long wait at the Police Station. The Commander told him that as a matter of fact, they did not find anything on the accused, but they sent some men to buy the stuff from one of the accused.

Why did the Police transfer the case from the Kwabeng District Court to the one in Koforidua? And did “constable” Alhaji slap the accused persons when they raided the house?

Another mind-bugging question to be unraveled. Three suspects were arrested that night. The third, Yaw Collins was drunk dead and was being fed by the wife when the Police banged into his room. He was vomiting. He operates a drinking bar. The police took some bottles of the drinks he was selling away. They are yet to return drinks. Why was he not prosecuted in court like the two others who? He was left off the hook because he bought his freedom with an amount of Five Hundred Ghana Cedis. (GHC500.00). This is the truth, not fabricated. Could the Police give any tangible reason why Yaw Collins was not sent to court? His wife brought out the money to the police before he was granted bail.

Again, Police “Constable” Alhaji who was clothed in Police uniform collected One Hundred Ghana Cedis (GHC100.00) from a relative of the accused as compensation for the alleged beaten he had suffered at the hands of Kenneth Adarkwa and his friends when the missing cow of the accused (Kenneth Adarkwa) was traced to “Constable” Alhaji. This is also authentic because the District Commander, Isaac Yeboah called that relative to confirm that fact.

There is also a very serious allegation hanging on the neck of the Atiwa District Police Command. Whilst the suspects were in police cell at Kwabeng, another suspect called T.T. a Krobo (just for identification purpose) residing in Kwabeng was arrested for dealing in drugs and he paid a whopping Four Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHC4,000.00) or 40million Cedis before regaining his freedom.

This is a test case for the Ghana Police Service. During the era of the Nefarious Destructive Cancer’s administration, Ghanaians could not go to sleep with even one eye closed. Now that God has been magnanimous by ridden the country of those who nearly plunged the country into an abyss, we expect something better from our Police Service led by the indefatigable IGP. We expect to sleep soundly with both eyes close. We don’t have to sleep standing still.

Again, the National Communication Authority should do us the favour by revealing the true identities behind the faceless and phantom users of these phone numbers: 0249806890 and 0243568218. Using one’s phone to issue threats and impersonate another person are criminal offences punishable by law.

The owners of the above two telephone numbers who today are defending the indefensible and whose mouths are dripping like dogs baying for my blood might not understand my genuine motives today, and so would want the status quo to remain, so that the citizenry might live in perpetual fear of the Police like our fore-fathers did under colonial rule. Today they are singing a different tune because their “man” is the top dog. But a new Pharaoh might emerge who will not know Joseph. It will be that time that there will be cries and gnashing of teeth. But then, it will be too late.

The Police in South Africa used tear gas and bullets to mow down defenseless and innocent school children whose only crime was to go on a demonstration against the imposition of the Oppressors language as a medium of instruction in schools.

That action was widely condemned by the international community. We should not overlook the fact that the agitation was started by s single individual before it got spread to other schools in the neighborhood. You might condemn me for my chosen path, but I know that is the right thing. And as Nigeria’s Social Critic, Tai Solarin once said: “I have chosen to follow my own path. I don’t look back to see whether any one is following me or not”.

If we fold our arms and allow one Police Commander to clothe a civilian in police uniform, a time will come when Ghanaians, especially those in the Atiwa District will curse their stars and say that they would have been better off if they had joined me in this unilateral campaign. Do we want our Police Service to be transformed into a Police Force? We cannot use unlawful and unregulated excessive use of brutal force by our Police to cow our citizens into positions of servitude.

To the “Talibans” who have issued a fatwa on my life, I want them to know that I am not worried by their threats because as a Devout Christian who serves The Living God, my life is in the Hands of the Almighty who created me for a purpose. And as the Lord was with Moses and Joshua, so is HE with me. He will never let me down; not even for a moment. So, if today, such irredeemable and conscienceless souls who have deliberately refused to differentiate right from wrong are being teleguided by unseen hands who erroneously believe they have the law on their side because of the positions they occupy in the security service, I have this candid advice for them. They should beware of the Ides of March. We live in a wonderful world where anything can happen at any time.

Mr IGP, over to you! Eagle Eyes are watching.
Daniel Danquah Damptey ( [email protected] ) 0243715297