I begin this column with the above caption because following the breaking of the news that the Editor of the Modern Ghana online media portal, Mr. Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri, and one of Modern Ghana’s news reporters, Mr. Emmanuel Yeboah Britwum, who had earlier on been reportedly arrested for a cyber crime that shortly turned out to have been nonexistent, by some national-security operatives, it was also reported that Mr. Samson Lardy Anyenini, the renowned host of Joy Television Network’s current affairs program, Newsfile, had been hired as the attorney to represent both Messrs. Abugri and Britwum in an apparent case of arbitrary arrest and torture.
A lawyer for Modern Ghana’s News Reporter Mr. Britwum would shortly hold a press conference and categorically state that his client had not engaged the legal services of Mr. Anyenini. The latter, it is equally significant to note, would insist that, indeed, Mr. Britwum, who had reportedly been released from the custody of national security operatives, had earlier on affirmed to Mr. Anyenini, in the presence of Editor Abugri, who had given a statement to the Legon police personnel, to the effect that both men had been tortured while in the custody of operatives of the National Security Secretariat (See “ Modern Ghana’s Ajarfor Sues National Security Coordinator, IGP ” Modernghana.com 7/15/19).
We need to get to the bottom of how Mr. Britwum came to legally disengage himself from Mr. Anyenini and his boss, that is, Mr. Abugri, in the inescapably abrupt manner relayed by Mr. Britwum’s lawyer at the aforementioned press conference. But, of course, this call is absolutely without any prejudice against Mr. Abugri who may very well have been tortured by the national security personnel, because he had been held in custody for at least a day or 24 hours longer than Mr. Britwum, obviously because Mr. Abugri had a greater say-so in the matter of which stories got selected for publication or rejected for the same. I am also a bit intrigued by the fact that although in the afore-referenced news story published by Modernghana.com, in which Mr. Abugri is reported to be suing the leaders of some of our law-enforcement agencies for redress and the government for monetary compensation, it is the name of Mr. Joshua Kyeremeh, the National-Security Coordinator, that is mentioned as the prime suspect and defendant in the arrest and alleged torture of Mr. Abugri, although it is the picture of Mr. Albert Kan-Dapaah, the National Security Minister, in a wide-angle shot that appears under the caption of the news story in discussion.
What I am obviously suggesting here is that Mr. Kyeremeh, the National-Security Coordinator, is highly placed enough within the echelons of our national security apparatus to have had his portrait published, if the evidence of the torture of Mr. Abugri directly points to his office or official designation. I am also curious to know why Modern Ghana decided to publish the article being presently discussed with the middle name of Mr. Emmanuel Abugri. Is it because the latter’s middle name of “Ajarfor” sounds Nigerian – Ibo or Igbo, to be precise – and therefore was more likely to be read as having invidiously contributed significantly to the decision by our national security operatives to manhandle the Modern Ghana Editor?
This is a pertinent question, in view of the high tension and violent clashes that have flared up between some Ghanaians and some Nigerian-community residents in Ghana. In other words, is any attempt being made here to suggest that if Mr. Abugri had sported the middle name of, say, “Yeboah,” as in Emmanuel Yeboah Britwum, the Editor of Modern Ghana would not have been so crudely or rudely dealt with by the operatives of the National Security Secretariat? At any rate, it is far past time for the relevant authority/authorities to emerge out of the woodwork, as it were, and tell us the fact of whether, indeed, Mr. Abugri had been tortured while in the custody of our National Security Agency operatives; and also, who had authorized the meting of such a scandalous act of barbarism against an apparently hardworking and patriotic Ghanaian journalist, whose only crime appears to have been the publication of an opinion piece mailed to Mr. Abugri by one of the regular contributors to the Modernghana.com website, verging on the unflattering perception by the author of the character profile of the National Security Minister and, perhaps, one or two of the latter minister’s close friends and associates.
If, indeed, the order for those operatives of the National Security Secretariat who allegedly brutalized Mr. Abugri came directly from the top, that is, from the National Security Minister, as has been alleged in some quarters, then, of course, there is deep trouble brewing in the land. Our land of birth, heritage or patrimony, that is.
*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
July 16, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]
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