Stop Tickling CID To Harass Political Opponents--Adaklu MP To NPP

Hon Kwame Agboza

Hon Kwame Governs Agboza, member of Parliament for Adaklu, has warned the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to stop using the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Services to harass perceived political opponents of President Nana Akufo Addo.

According to the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP, government is hiding behind the state law enforcement bodies to more or less intimidate and harass members of his party in the name of conducting what he termed," frivolous" investigation of crime.

Mr Agboza, a Ranking member of the Roads and Transport Committee of Parliament made the comments while contributing to a discussing on "Good Morning Ghana" newspaper review program on MetroTV Tuesday morning May 14.

Commenting on the topic centred on the Office of the Special Prosecution(OSP) suppose list of potential culprits of corruption worth of prosecution by Martin Alamisi Amidu, the Adaklu lawmaker said, the NPP government was not committed to fighting corruption but only harassing political opponent, using the police.

He cited the invitation to National Chairman of the NDC by the CID to assist in investigation on kidnapping and fire outbreaks as some of the hatchet jobs for the ruling government.

In his view, the illegitimate job of using instruments of state security to harass and intimidate opponents would not promote the democracy we are all yearning to built and that if care is not taken, the Akufo Addo government would collapse the credible institutions for their political gains.

Mr Agboza wondered why the government and the ruling party had listed critical players in the opposition party, including the former President John Mahama who is the Presidential candidate of his party as subjects of investigation only for it to be debunked as fake by officers from the OSP.

The NDC party council of elders had complained recently and vowed never to allow the national Chairman, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo to honour the police invitation.

The party elders alleged that, the police CID Boss Maame Tiwa Addo Danquah had made herself a willing tool to carry out the NPP script on how to cage and crush the NDC.

This, the Adaklu MP said aside arrest and detention of opposition leaders, their family members and business associates have been lined up for intimidation and harassment, citing the shutdown of Radio Gold and RadioXYZ to buttress his point.

He described as an afterthought fabrication, the CID Boss denial of the whereabout of kidnapped girls, insisting that information available to the NDC party was clear on who was the ultimate target.

Mr Agboza maintained that these acts of impunity and harassment was aimed at intimidating the NDC and nothing incriminating, arguing that if Martin Amidu as the Special Prosecutor is allowed free hand to work, just as he was free to write untrue articles against Mahama and the NDC, many of the NPP gurus would be expose in corruption deals.

But Eric Amoako Twum, a member of the NPP communication team who was on the program debunked the Adaklu MP assertion and said, government has no hand in the police CID invitation to the NDC National Chairman.

He said, the police could invite any citizen or even foreigners if they believed that such individual is a credible candidate of information to help in the investigation leading to the discovering of the kidnapped girls or know the causes of the recent fire outbreaks.

On the issue of Martin Amidu and the Office of the Special prosecutor, Mr Twum said, the NPP itself is also concern as to why nothing is being done or heard about what the OSP is doing after one year.

He said, it was untrue that, the OSP is under resourced, arguing that, Mr Amidu office is fully resourced as compare to other state offices that have the mandate to investigate cases of corruption and prosecute same.

The NPP Communicator said the NDC is now a flowing stream of fake news and therefore urged Ghanaians and the security services to ignore them.