Kweku Baako Appears Before NRC On Tuesday

The Editor-in-Chief of The Crusading Guide, Kweku Baako Jnr. has been subpoenaed to appear before the National Reconciliation Commission at 9.00a.m. on Tuesday.

The subpoena issued by the NRC and signed by its Chairman, Justice Amua-Sekyi dated March 3, 2003 indicates that Kweku Baako is to appear and testify in the matter of a complaint petition by a certain Mr Christian Kofi Goka. Information available to this paper indicates that Kweku Baako was originally to appear before the NRC to testify in connection with the same case on February 12, 2003 but he asked for a postponement.

In an interview with Kweku Baako over the weekend he told the Independent News paper that he gave the NRC a statement in connection with the Mawuli Goka case in January this year. He said even though he was not a witness to the torture of the late Mawuli Goka, he can testify to the scars he saw on the body of the deceased. Mawuli Goka is reported to have had his penis slit open by his torturers and had other scars all over his body when he was brought to the Ussher Fort Prison at the time.

Kweku Baako had earlier told the paper that when he saw the condition Mawuli Goka was in after his torture, he doubted if he would ever be released, though he (Mawuli Goka) was sure that he will be released. The late Mawuli Goka and others were arrested for subversion against the Rawlings – led erstwhile Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) on October 8, 1985 and tried in 1986.

Among those who were tried alongside Mawuli Goka were Kyereme Djan, a student leader at the time and a brother of Major Kojo Boakye-Djan, Rawlings’s number two man in the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) regime. Others were Kankani Brimah, Warrant Officer Aforo and one Boamah, a.k.a. Ata Kululu. Kweku Baako told the independent news paper that former Liberian Rebel Leader and now President of that country, Charles Taylor was also in detention at Ussher Fort when the Mawuli Goka group was brought in. “They came to meet me, Kwesi Pratt, Tony Akoto-Ampaw and Ralph Kugbe at the Akuse Ward of the Ussher Fort Prison”, Kweku Baako said.

Kweku Baako has on many occasions spoken about his experience in detention and his encounters with some person whilst in detention but his account of what he saw of the late Mawuli Goka is one that grips many with fear anytime he tells it. Mawuli Goka was the son of the late FDK Goka, who became a Finance Minister in the government of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.