Owusu Bempah To Seek Redress At White House

Director of Operations of the Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings (FONKAR), Ernest Owusu Bempah, is threatening legal action against the security agencies for subjecting him to tortuous ordeal and abusing his rights.

Owusu Bempah, who was released from the grips of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) after he was arrested for alleging that the First Lady, Naadu Mills had been given $5million from the infamous Woyome scandal in which businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome was paid over GH¢51million, claims he was stripped naked and subjected to mental torture.

In his first ever radio interview after his incarceration, Owusu Bempah told Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM’s flagship programme, ‘Kokrokoo’ that, what happened to him was beyond imagination; ‘to think that you sleep in an air-conditioned then the next day you are in a room full of mosquitoes’.

Explaining his ordeal, he said when he was arrested; he was transferred from the Greater Accra Regional office of the BNI at Kawukudi Junction in a semi-nude state to the police CID office. According to him, when he and his lawyers arrived, the police ignored his lawyers and whisked him to ‘counter back’.

“When we got to the reception, they told me to go naked, so they took all my clothes from me, gave me a uniform without even a boxer shorts, nothing. They took me to the cells, a big cage,…a 7x7 confinement with a small chalet for a window…you don’t get to know whether its morning or evening…Later, they put me in a vehicle and I asked them where they were taking me to and they said it was an order from above. They took me to a confinement and the temperature in the room was very bad…I couldn’t breathe properly and I decided not to eat until I find out what is happening. It was not a place I am used to…I didn't know what was going to happen next…all you hear were footsteps coming towards the door.

Owusu Bempah said he was not scared when he was taken to the room, however, he was only worried about what will happen to his friends and family members if the unknown happened.

“I was not afraid but I didn’t know what will happen next in the situation I find myself. The condition there is absolutely beyond the bounds of human reasoning. They brought a doctor to check on me and the doctor prescribed some medication for me but I wasn’t very comfortable taking those medicines. I was forced to and I pretended to be taking it but I did not…I wanted to protest the circumstances under which I was arrested and that was why I said I will not eat…

"In the near future I will take the matter to the next level. I have contacted my UK lawyers and I will seek justice for myself based on the abuse of rights that went on in the BNI offices…I will take it to No. 10 Downing Street and the White House. I have got my contacts there and I want people to know the kind of government we have here for them to judge. People have made statements that are worse than what I said and they are walking freely…the hypocrisy of the President has been exposed big time…have you heard the President come out to condemn people like Koku Anyidoho…?” he asked.

The FONKAR director of operations said he was very emotionally depressed, physically drained of all energy and very confused but he prayed to God for fortitude and protection.

Owusu Bempah, who heaved a sigh of relief when he was eventually released on bail on Friday, March 16, 2012, believes he is a victim of circumstances. He has vowed to expose the hypocrisy of the Mills’ administration to the whole world accusing the government of claiming to be practicing democracy yet subjecting the citizenry to Gestapo-like tactics.**