Farmer tells NRC of his ordeal

Alhaji Mohammed Kwame Osei, alias Nana Osei, a farmer based in Nkawkaw, on Thursday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) he and other prominent business people were arrested by soldiers without charge a week after the June 4, 1979 Uprising and drilled.

At the Police station, soldiers made them to roll on the ground and frog-jump. In the course of the drill one Kwame Nkrumah fainted.

He said he fell sick and went to Accra for a medical check-up after the drill. When he returned, he found that soldiers had ransacked his store and arrested his wife and taken her to the Michel Camp for detention.

Alhaji Osei said he followed up to Michel Camp, but he could not identify her wife when he found her, as she had been shaved and had whip marks at her back.

He said she was admitted at the Michel Camp Hospital for four months.

He said his wife told him one Kwasi Somua, who had asked him to sell some of the stock of goods he was keeping for members of a co-operative, invited the soldiers to his store on allegation of hoarding.

She said Somua also forced her, a Muslim, to drink akpeteshie during a Ramaddan fast.

Alhaji Osei, who said he was the founder of the Okwahu United Football Club, said he was again arrested in 1982 on a false charge masterminded by Mr Oduro Nyarko, his clerk, and one Ofori Boateng for distributing literature for Major Boakye-Djan to overthrow the government of the Provisional National Defence Council.

His home was thoroughly searched and he was taken to Accra and detained at the Legon Police Station for four months. He also spent one month at La Police Station and four months at Tesano Police Station.

He was released in April 1983.

Alhaji Osei said at the time of his arrest, soldiers seized his car and when he retrieved it later, it was in a dilapidated state and he sold it for a mere 100,000 cedis.

He said he had earlier in 1972 been arrested and detained overnight by the Police without any charge when he went to Koforidua to inquire about a friend, who had been arrested by Police.

He said when the going became tough all his three wives left him. He has now re-married two women.

Alhaji Osei said God had been his tower of strength and he was out to tell his story as a lesson to the public.

He said his wife, who was maltreated at the barracks, also left him and his efforts to convince her to petition the Commission had not been successful.