Police arrest man over extortion claim against NAPAIC Secretary in Bolga

Police have arrested a man named Thompson Amartey, in the Upper East regional capital, Bolgatanga, for offensive conduct.

The Bolgatanga Divisional Police Command took him into custody on Friday, April 21, 2023.

Amartey, who is also alleged to be a pastor, had claimed that the secretary of the National Patriots against Injustice and Corruption Ghana (NAPAIC-Ghana), Zumah Tii-roug, attempted to extort money from him.

His claim prompted the Upper East Regional Police Command to arrest and detain Tii-roug on April 14, 2023. Amartey, however, has up to now not mentioned the amount of money he claimed the secretary attempted to extort from him.

Tiiroug was kept in police custody for more than 48 hours last week by the Upper East Regional Police Command. He was granted bail from the cells on April 16, 2023. On April 17, 2023, he was taken to a Circuit Court in Bolgatanga on charges of attempted extortion.

A police prosecution team waged stiff opposition against a bail application filed by Tii-roug’s lawyer, Sheikh Arif Abdulai. But the court, presided over by His Honour Sumaila Amadu, ruled in favour of Tii-roug, granting him bail in the sum of Gh¢20,000 with two sureties. Tii-roug’s numerous well-wishers, who had thronged the court to show their support for him, celebrated his bail publicly.

On the other hand, supporters of some big shots and “corrupt powers” who dislike Tii-roug in the region because of his relentless anti-corruption campaign against them, left the court’s premises in visible disappointment over the bail granted Tii-roug. They, together with some reporters widely known to be doing the bidding of the “corrupt powers” who hate Tii-roug, had come to court in their numbers with expectations that Tii-roug would be remanded into prison custody where he likely would have spent a much longer period than the over-48 hours he already had done in police cells.

Amartey who is currently inside the cells of the Bolgatanga District Police Station to the displeasure of the anti-Tii-roug camp, is being detained pending a court hearing for illegally confiscating Tii-roug’s motorbike last week.

He illegally impounded Tii-roug’s motorbike on April 13, 2023, after Tii-roug spotted him sitting with a married woman, eating and having a chat with her inside a neem-tree grove in the regional capital and sought to caution him against meeting with married women alone at such locations.

In a press statement delivered on Friday April 21, 2023, after Amartey’s arrest, Tii-roug explained that he had only met with Amartey last week to advise him against meeting with married women alone in isolated places.

He said he never made any attempt to extort money or anything from Amartey, contrary to the allegation of attempted extortion he made against him later to his utter shock. A confident Tii-roug had indicated last week that he had enough evidence that would not only contest the allegation but also expose the complainant and the prosecution to the public.