John Kumah
A New Patriotic Party (NPP) youth activist, John Kumah, was arrested yesterday afternoon by security agents from the Police Headquarters when he was partaking in a radio discussion on Hot FM, an Accra-based radio station.
The General Secretary of the NPP, Kwadwo Afriyie, said President John Evans Atta Mills was the complainant in the case, which saw the policemen rushing to arrest the gentleman as he made his submissions.
John Kumah, a law student and a leading member of Young Patriots, a youth pressure group within the NPP, was arrested for allegedly saying that President Mills is a gay suspect on Asempa FM, an Accra-based private radio station, last Saturday.
He was arrested when entering the studios of another Accra radio station, Hot FM, for a political discussion programme yesterday afternoon.
The producer of the programme, Nana Fianko, told Citi Fm that John Kumah was charged for offensive conduct.
“I was told by the officers who came for John Kumah that they had been ordered by higher authority to arrest him for offensive conduct. They showed me their IDs and so I had to go into the studio and inform John Kumah that there were some CID officers who had come to take him to the CID headquarters for questioning”.
News about the arrest soon spread across the country, especially Accra, with party activists lacing their boots to go and solidarise with their comrade.
Within a second, the police headquarters had been taken over by NPP leaders and activists, who were ready to get him out of the police dungeon.
Many proceeded to the police headquarters but the mission was short-lived because the suspect was discharged after his interrogation.
Mr. Owusu-Afiriyie, who sneered at the arrest and subsequent discharge after going to the police headquarters in the company of other party officials, said, “It does not make sense.
If we have a president who calls himself a lawyer and such things happen, God save this country.”
President Mills, he said, would regret the action, adding that Nana Akufo-Addo had continuously been vilified by the NDC apparatchiki even as the party leaders looked on unconcerned.
He condemned the use of the state apparatus to undertake political missions of harassing opponents as he asked rhetorically, “Why did hapless policemen have to be pushed into this matter?”
His arrest was seen as government’s reaction to John Kumah’s recent rebuttal of NDC attacks on NPP officials, especially the flag-bearer, Nana Akufo-Addo.
He was interrogated at the Police headquarters following what is believed by many political observers to be upon the orders of the President, with NDC officials finding the reactions repulsive.
John Kumah recently served notice that the NPP would return the insults of the NDC as he took exception particularly to the latter’s intention to smear the flag-bearer of the largest opposition with drug labels.
The activist had warned the NDC to keep off Nana Akufo Addo lest he and his colleagues descended into the sewerage with them.
In their recent press conference, the Young Patriots of the NPP also warned the NDC to desist from insulting their officials lest they incurred their wrath.
In his reaction to a verbal attack on the NPP’s Communications Head by an NDC person earlier, Mr. Kumah is alleged to have described President Mills as a gay suspect.
He said the president’s wife, Naadu Mills, had not been sleeping at the Castle with the number citizen but some men have been seen at the Castle taking abode there, raising questions about the president’s position on gays, especially in view of his recent criticism of a national daily that he was misquoted on the raging gay issue.
Hints of security agents seeking to arrest the gentleman has been on air for some time, according to the NPP’s Policy Analyst, Kwaku Kwarteng, in a chat with Joy FM yesterday.
He said, “The arrest was nothing but to take away the freedom of speech provided by the Constitution.”
The NPP, he said, would resist what he described as oppressor’s rule.
DAILY GUIDE has learnt that no sooner had the charge of offensive conduct been levelled against John Kumah and a subsequent interrogation scheduled, than another officer came to ask that the suspect be discharged.
It was an abrupt political action which appeared to have ended as soon as it started and attracted a lot of comments from a cross-section of Ghanaians.
For many, it heralds the commencement of intolerance on the part of government and a threat to free expression.
President Mills has often been accused of refusing to comment on the spate of insults now rife on the political terrain.
He has complained to the clergy and Islamic leaders about the insults but has never descended upon his aides whose acerbic tongue has earned many of them public notoriety.
If the announcement at the end of the drama yesterday that President Mills ordered the dropping of the case against John Kumah sought to win a PR point for the head of state, it appeared to have failed as the action came under a barrage of condemnation, drowning the discharge order.
By A.R. Gomda