Rawlings' man accused of coup plot

A former bodyguard of former president Rawlings, WO II Imoro Salifu has been arrested by security agencies in Ghana on suspicion of plotting a coup d’tat.

“After my arrest they told me some people are planning to overthrow the government and they suspect me to be one of them. I told them I don’t know any people who are planning a coup d’tat. Yes I was once the former president’s bodyguard…the fact is I’m NDC, I won’t hide that one,” Imoro said when he spoke to journalists after his release by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

Imoro’s arrest has meanwhile been linked to the alleged plot to eliminate Dr. Obed Asamoah, a leading member of his own party, the NDC and the plot to physically attack two journalists in the country, according to a Daily Guide report.

Salifu recalled that as a close associate of former president Rawlings, he helped to stage the 1979 coup using two companies including the 4 BN, the newspaper said.

According to him, he was interrogated extensively by five officials of the BNI and later released on bail, and asked to be reporting to the Ashanti Regional offices of the BNI.

The ex-bodyguard was reportedly picked up around 4.30 am last Monday in Kumasi after 20 heavily armed soldiers, and two BNI operatives stormed his house.

The Ashanti Regional branch of the NDC has meanwhile, queried the rationale behind the arrests an invitation of two notable members of the party in the region. The two are WO II Salifu and Alhaji Awudu Ali Abubakar, a former Ashanti Regional organizer of the party.

Alhaji Abubakar according to a Daily Guide report was asked to report to the BNI in Accra. Reasons were however not given.

However, his lawyers who were informed of his invitation have threatened to seek legal action to question the harassment of their client, which they claim, was anathema to the 1992 Constitution.

The Ashanti Regional branch of the party has described the arrest and invitation as a calculated attempt to intimidate followers of the NDC.

“We’ve gone through an election, one party own, and another lost. It’s therefore absurd for the incumbent party, which is expected to protect and support the other, to rather behave this way,” the party said citing the arrest and invitation of the two to support their fears.