CID invites journalist for insulting, threatening Akufo-Addo
A journalist with Accra-based Power FM, Oheneba Boamah Bennie, has been invited by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service for allegedly insulting and threatening President Akufo-Addo.
The radio presenter is said to have recorded a live video on his Facebook page in which he was allegedly heard insulting and issuing a series of threats to the President of the Republic of Ghana.
The police in a letter to the Management of Power FM asked for the release of Mr. Bennie to report to “Superintendent/1U at the CID Headquarters, 4th floor, Room 13 on Monday. 14/12/2020 at 1000hours” to assist with investigations.
Previous incidents
In 2006, a popular serial caller of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was arrested for allegedly insulting the then President, John Agyakum Kufour.
Bobby was arrested in Takoradi by both officers from the Western Regional Command and Kwesimintsim Division of the Ghana Police Service.
A similar incident happened in 2010 when a self-styled social commentator believed to have allegiance to the New Patriotic Party (NPP), described the then President John Evans Atta Mills as a ”chimpanzee” in a radio discussion on Fox FM, a Kumasi based private station.
The man, Alexander Adu Gyamfi was later picked up by the police to explain his actions which had infuriated some NDC youth who besieged the radio station minutes after the derogatory remarks to attack him.
This was the second time an NPP social commentator had been arrested for unsavoury remarks in the media.
In the first case, one Nana Darkwa Baafi was arrested for accusing former President Rawlings of deliberately setting fire to his Ridge residence. He made the statements on an Accra-based private radio station TOP Radio.
The Police arrested and detained a political activist, Frank Kwaku Appiah, for allegedly insulting President Nana Akufo-Addo in 2017.
Frank Appiah, popularly known as Appiah Stadium, who is a serial radio caller and commentator for the opposition NDC, allegedly said in a widely circulated audio that the President smokes weed.
Following the leakage of the audio on social media, the Ashanti Regional Police Command arrested the Kumasi-based activist on September 26, 2017, and subsequently transferred him to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) headquarters in Accra for interrogation.
He was later released after the President had called on the police to drop an “incitement” case against the suspect.
In the Volta Region, a radio show host and a panelist were invited by the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for interrogation after allegations that they insulted President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Mohammed, the show host on Sela Radio in the Volta Region, was alleged to have allowed Luis Adjin, a panelist on his show, to use some unprintable words on the President, the police in the region said.
This incident happened in 2018.
A self-styled prophet, Apostle Adjei in 2020, was arrested by the National Security for threatening President Akufo-Addo and the Electoral Commission chairperson Jean Mensa.
The preacher man in a widely circulated video on social media was heard raining curses on the EC chair over plans to compile a new voter’s register for the just-ended December 7 polls.
Is it an offence to insult the President?
Presidents in Ghana since the early 2000s have been subjected to insults by opposition members in the media.
These developments sparked a conversation in Ghana’s media about the appropriateness to arrest and prosecute persons who insulted Presidents.
It was believed these individuals were only exercising their right to free speech as enshrined in the 1992 constitution.
However, a legal luminary, Ace Ankomah in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM said it was not an offence to insult the President per the criminal code of the 1992 constitution.
He explained that before 2001, there was an offence called insulting the President, but as part of the 2001 repeal of the Criminal Libel Regime, that section of the Criminal and other Offences Act were repealed.
“Technically, insulting the President is no longer an offence under our laws. Meanwhile insulting a chief remains an offence which should never be criminalised,” he stated.