Mahama: I was detained for 16 months without charge

Accra, July 24, GNA - Mr Ibrahim Mahama, a Tamale-based lawyer, on Thursday told the National Reconciliation Commission that Police in 1987 arrested and detained him for more than 16 months in various Police stations and prisons without any charge.

Mr Mahama said he felt bored and had mental torture, as he was worried about the welfare of his mother, then 76, and other dependants numbering about 25.

His legal practice was badly affected, and his two cars and three tractors were run down because of ill care.

Mr Mahama said a combined harvester he acquired from the Ministry of Agriculture was wrongly confiscated on the orders of Alhaji Huudu Yahaya, then Acting Northern Regional Secretary, and prayed the Commission for a "fair and equitable compensation" for his arrest, detention, and the confiscated combined harvester.

On his detention, Mr Mahama said in 1987, he obliged to an invitation from a Police officer to see Mr Kwesi Nkansah, the then Northern Regional Police Regional Police Commander.

He said the Regional Police Commander in the company of two Police Officers, told him, without assigning any reasons, that Alhaji Yahaya, the Regional Secretary had ordered his arrest.

He said Mr Nkansah refused to allow him to telephone Alhaji Yahaya to find out why he was arrested.

Mr Mahama said seven other prominent people in Tamale, including Mr Rowland Issifu Alhassan; Mr Sumani Zakari; Yahaya Yedi; and Alhaji Amadou Sala, joined him.

They were ordered into Police cells, but they insisted they be separated from criminals and were placed in another cell. Mr Mahama said four of them were later transferred to Bole and detained at the District Police Station for four months. When they thought their release had come, they were rather transferred to the Tamale Prisons for four months, and then to Nsawam Prisons for eight more months.

Mr Mahama said he later discovered that their detention was under an Executive Instrument Number 17 of 1986, which said they were detained for security reasons.

On the combined harvester, he said he did not acquire it with any bank loan. He said the then Secretary for Agriculture, Prof Bortei Doku approved it and he spent 170,500 cedis to refurbish it and to pay the insurance premium.

Mr Mahama, who said he is also a farmer, said a month after he brought the harvester to Tamale, there was a radio announcement that Alhaji Yahaya had ordered all private and individual owners of combined harvesters to hand them over to big rice companies such as the Nasia, Limann and Suglo Rice companies, but he refused.

He said he prepared a petition and had audience with the late Colonel Asase at the Office of the Committee For Defence of the revolution (CDR), adding that Col Asase asked for a justification of the seizure of the combined harvesters.

The reply was that the owners were not farmers but "kalabule" people engaged in exploitative businesses.

The Witness said operators of the combined harvester reported to him that some members of the then People Defence Committee had seized the keys from them on the field and handed it over to the Northern Regional Development Corporation.

He said he wrote various petitions but all to no avail, adding that he had heard that some of his colleagues whose combined harvesters were seized had been compensated and prayed the Commission for a new Forskrit Combine Harvester or an amount enough to purchase one.

He said he only saw the combined harvester grounded in front of the Regional Administration, and "the next time I saw it a neem tree was growing in it".

When the Commission asked if there were any problems between him and Alhaji Yahaya, Mr Mahama said he was surprised that he behaved that way. "My auntie was married to his father," he said.

Commission: Have you ever had the chance to talk to him one on one? Mahama: I'll never go to him. He is the wrongdoer. It is the wrong doer who seeks redress.

Commissioner Most Rev Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle remarked that the Witness's statement was legitimate, but appealed to him to move for peace with Alhaji Yahaya.

Another Witness, Ex Sergeant Emmanuel Kwabena Osei, formerly of the 48 Engineers Regiment, said he was unlawfully arrested and detained for seven years at the Nsawam Prisons for jubilating openly after the June 19, 1983 abortive military takeover by Cpl Halidu Giwa.

He said fire gutted the house in which his wife transferred his belongings and he lost all his personal belongings.

Ex-Sergeant Osei said his petition to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) was only granted in 1997, after initial petitions to the Armed Forces and the Chief of the Defence Staff in 1990 and 1994, were not replied to.

He was paid his entitlements, including the salary for the seven years in detention. Commission Chairman Justice Kweku Amua-Sekyi noted that the Witness was still entitled to be aggrieved, considering the effect that his detention had on him and his family during the period. He said the Commission would examine and make the appropriate recommendations on his petition.