Martin Amidu: President Mahama must stop using executive authority to scam Ghanaians over Ofori-Atta’s home invasion
The People voted for John Dramani Mahama as President to be faithful and true to the Republic of Ghana and to dedicate himself to the service and well-being of the people of the Republic of Ghana and to do right to all manner of persons, and not to scam the people of Ghana with the barefaced lies and media propaganda being peddled about regarding the ill-fated raid led by Richard Jakpa into Ken Ofori-Atta’s home, and the shameful performance of the President’s friend, Kissi Agyebeng, to achieve parochial political objectives.
The appointment of Richard Jakpa as the Director of Special Operations at the National Security Secretariat on 31 January 2025 gave him no power to lead a raid into a suspect’s home in Rambo style under the Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, 2020 (Act 1030). The National Security Coordinator does not have the power under Act 1030 to apply for a warrant from any court of law under section 34 of the Act, so how could Richard Jakpa’s “involvement in the raid on former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta’s residence last week” settle the controversy as reported by Joy News with source as Adomonline.com at 4:18 yesterday?
The power and the circumstances in which to apply for a warrant under Act 1030 is apportioned to a Director-General of an intelligence agency or an employee designated by the Director-General who has reasonable grounds to believe that a warrant is required to enable the agency to perform a function under the Act, and it is exercisable by the Director-General or the designated employee. One may apply for a warrant of arrest or search warrant, or both simultaneously.
The Act states in the interpretation section that: ’“Director-General” means the Director General of an intelligence agency”’ while ‘“employee” means a person who is appointed as an employee of an intelligence agency or has become an employee of an agency under this Act whether by transfer, secondment or otherwise”’.
The National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) and the Research Department are the only agencies “continued in existence under this Act as the Internal and External Intelligence Agencies of the State” under section 12 of Act 1030. Consequently, a Director-General of an intelligence agency can only mean one of those two Directors-General.
The appointment of Richard Jakpa as Director of Special Operations at the National Security Secretariat does not make him an employee of one of the two Intelligence Agencies let alone to have been designated to apply for a warrant and to lead an execution of a lawful warrant at the Rambo style raid of Ken Ofori-Atta’s home. The supervising body of the two Intelligence
Agencies that have the power to apply for warrants are the National Security Council and not the National Security Secretariat or the National Security Coordinator.
The government’s attempt to scam the people of Ghana just demonstrates the very high level of contempt and disrespect in which President Mahama and his appointees exercising the executive authority now hold the people of Ghana, even in the teeth of the fact that under Act
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1030 the application for the warrant would have had to specify “(a) the facts relied on to justify the belief, or reasonable grounds, that a warrant is required to enable the intelligence agency to investigate a threat to security or to perform functions under this Act” which functions are clearly spelt out under section 14 thereof.
I know as a matter of fact that before the raid on Ken Ofori-Atta’s home, a warrant of arrest for Ken Ofori-Atta was applied for and granted despite the fact that his absence from Ghana should have been known by the applicant. There was no application for a search warrant so
none was granted. This explains the deliberate government disinformation to the people of Ghana planted in and carried by Joy News states that: “However information gathered indicates that he had a warrant and did not break into Mr. Ofori-Atta’s house, as his security guard gave the team access”, when the CCTV footages showed terrified children and other occupants of Ken Ofori-Atta’s home being marched about and out of his home at gun point by Richard Jakpa who was appointed as Director of Special Operations just eleven days previously. The security guard who gave access must have a name, so why hide it, if the narrative is true?
The justification for the dehumanizing and unlawful raid of Ken Ofori-Atta’s home in the morning of Tuesday, 11 February 2025 in tandem with the declaration of him by the Special Prosecutor as a fugitive from justice from Ghana planted and reported by Joy News stating that: “As Director of Special Operations, Mr. Jakpa will supervise the planning and execution of covert and overt operations and develop early warning systems for emerging threats such as terrorism, insurgency, and organized crime” are barefaced lies and banal propaganda from the government to scam the people of Ghana who placed their trust in John Mahama to be the President of Ghana on 7 December 2024.
President John Mahama as the repository of the executive power and authority has some explanation to do on why a warrant of arrest would be obtained in respect of a person whom the government knew was outside Ghana at the time the warrant of arrest was applied for. The government can scam Ghanaians with deception, disinformation, misinformation, and blatantly dirty propaganda, but it cannot run away from the fact that it has records from the flight manifests and documents required of persons departing and entering Ghana through Kotoka International Airport (KIA) or the approved exit points of Ghana. In the case of “high-profile person” such as Ken Ofori-Atta, to borrow Kissi Agyebeng’s description, there exists daily, weekly, and monthly security briefs that contain when they depart and re-enter Ghana while in public service or retired from public service.
The President and the National Security Secretariat which employed Richard Jakpa hold records of the movements of the so-called high-profile persons, apart from the daily, weekly, and monthly security briefs submitted to the President himself and others. The NIB, the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) and other security agencies have their own records and security briefings on such high-profile persons at the disposal of the executive authority. This explains the necessity for the President to deal at arms length with the people of Ghana by establishing an independent enquiry into the raid on Ken Ofori-Atta’s home on the morning of 11 February 2025 instead of empowering his appointees to lie to Ghanaians to cover-up for a botched operation exposed by CCTV records.
Media and other open-source platforms abound with statements by recent appointees of the President condemning Ken Ofori-Atta in very inhumane and degrading words and supporting the raid on his home in his absence abroad and his being declared a fugitive from Ghanaian justice. The impression any objective non-partisan person dedicated to the rule of law and the due process of law gets is that the President has let loose his underlings including the Special Prosecutor to exact street justice on Ken Ofori-Atta while scamming Ghanaians with lies to cover up the jungle justice being meted out to him.
It is shameful that the President and some of his high-profile appointees find nothing wrong with supporting this unjustifiable situation where the recently appointed Attorney-General, Dominic Ayine, files a notice of abandonment of appeal on 24 Janaury2025 in the Supreme
Court at 3:00 pm in respect of the Ato Forson and Richard Jakpa pending case, and followed six days later with Richard Jakpa being appointed Director of Special Operations at the National Security Secretariat to give him a pretext to lead the raid on the home of Ken Ofori Atta eleven days after his politically induced public service appointment.
President John Dramani Mahama if you are not part of the exhibition of the coup mentality by your appointees and other underlings of your government, then you need to crack the whip to call them to order, and to redeem your image by setting up an independent enquiry to establish the true facts no matter where the truth may lead. We the People want a Ghana that is reset forward and not backwards as all the indications are pointing to. Mr. President the time to act is, now!
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
19 February 2025
The post Martin Amidu: President Mahama must stop using executive authority to scam Ghanaians over Ofori-Atta’s home invasion first appeared on 3News.
