'Serial caller' arrested for insulting Kufuor

INFORMATION Reaching this paper indicates that a popular National Democratic Congress (NDC) serial caller based in Takoradi and popularly known as Bobby was last week arrested by both the Western Regional Command and Kwesimintsim Division of the Ghana Police Service for allegedly insulting the integrity of President J. A. Kufuor.

This paper gathered that policemen from the Kwesimintsim Police Division were the first to arrest the said serial caller in the wee hours of Saturday October 7 in his home and place him behind bars at their Police Station before he was later transferred to the regional command of the police, where his statement was taken.

The District Commander of the division, Mr. T. R. Sam, confirmed in a telephone interview with The Chronicle that his division had indeed arrested Bobby.

He however told this paper that he neither knew anything about the arrest of the said serial caller nor did he instruct his men to arrest him.

According to him, it was only when he had seen Bobby placed behind bars that he had enquired who had effected the arrest, only to be told by his men that they had been instructed by the Regional Crime Officer of the Service to effect the arrest.

Mr. Sam told the paper that he immediately instructed his men to release the said serial caller from custody, after which he was later sent to the regional headquarters for further questioning.

The Regional Commander of the Service, Mr. Kofi Duku Arthur, in a telephone interview last week also confirmed that the said serial caller had been arrested by the Service for allegedly insulting the integrity of the President.

Asked if the Service had pressed charges against him, the Regional Commander answered that the matter was still under investigation and that they had not preferred any charges yet.

He also confirmed that the arrest was under the instruction of the Regional Crime Officer and that the suspect had been granted bail.

He could however not tell who the complainant in this case was when The Chronicle asked to know that.

But the serial caller has on his part denied in an interview with The Chronicle that he had insulted the integrity of the President, leading to his arrest by the police under the instruction of one Agyeman Dua, who he claimed was an Assembly member who belonged to the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

According to him, the said Agyeman Dua had met him and asked if he was the Bobby who had been condemning the NPP government on air, to which he had replied in the affirmative.

The said Agyeman Dua further asked him if he valued his life, and again he had replied in the affirmative.

According to Bobby, it was not until the following morning that Agyeman Dua, together with a team of policemen, broke into his room and arrested him that he had allegedly insulted the President.

Meanwhile, the Regional Executives of the NDC have condemned the arrest of the serial caller, claiming it was politically motivated because they had known the said Agyeman Dua as an NPP Assemblyman.

Speaking in an interview at the office of this paper, Messrs Solomon Nkansah and Japhet Baidoo, Youth Organizer and Propaganda Secretary respectively of the party, bemoaned the manner in which supporters of the NPP were using the police to intimidate supporters of the NDC.

According to the two, the rate at which NPP members were using the police to arrest NDC sympathizers would not serve the interest of the nation if not condemned.

Japhet Baidoo recounted how a top NPP serial caller also assaulted him, but about which nothing had been done although he had reported the incident to the executives of his party.