NDP fires Mahama

The National Democratic Party (NDP) has described as unfortunate efforts by the Mahama-led government to gag commentators in respect of the much talked about Nayele Ametefeh 12.5kg cocaine saga.

The party insists that the country had long passed the era where the government would throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians over the Ruby cocaine scandal by placing it in darkness.

According to the NDP, the Mahama-led NDC government is now hell bent on suppressing all credible information on the matter.

The NPD is incensed over attempts to arrest Ernest Owusu Bempah, its Director of Communication, following his comments on the subject on Peace FM, an Accra-based radio station on Monday evening.

The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) operatives and armed police officers allegedly besieged the radio station to pick Mr Owusu Bempah after he had made some allegations on the station’s political show, The Platform.

The movie-style arrest however prompted some onlookers to prevent the BNI from arresting Owusu Bempah after which he was escorted by a friend home.

The Director of Communications of the NDP, also known as Aboa Papo, has so far been invited by the BNI for interrogation following his comments on the matter.

But the party in a statement issued in Accra yesterday on behalf of the General Secretary by Mohammed Frimpong, said, “The Gestapo-style intimidation and harassment to gag innocent citizens must not be countenanced as it will send our hard-won democracy to an abyss of the Stone Age.”

It further noted, “At a time when Ghanaians expect mitigation under a crushing economy, our freedoms are rather threatened from a Gestapo-intimidation at this hour of Ghana’s development.”

Mr Frimpong said while contriving to mislead Ghanaians on the 2015 budget and emerging ‘cocainomics’, the Mahama NDC is determined to control all information, particularly on the cocaine bust.

The statement urged all well-meaning Ghanaians to rise up against the curtailment of their right to free speech and credible information.