The President of Ghana and the repository of the executive powers of government entrusted with the responsibility of law enforcement within the territories of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, lost the ability to deny that soldiers and other security operatives under his control invaded the home and privacy of the Honourable Ken Ofori-Atta after the media published excerpts of CCTV footage showing graphic effigies of personnel and vehicles used in what could only have been a state authorized invasion of the former Minister of Finance’s residence on 11 February 2025.
Before I read the Joy News report entitled “CCTV images of alleged raid in Ken Ofori-Atta’s home emerge” with the source as adomonline.com dated 12 February 2025 uploaded on its website at 3:14pm, the majority parliamentary apparatus was reported in the media to have trivialized the enormity of the forceful entry and search of the residence of the absent former Minister’s home without a search or arrest warrant.
Concurrent with the majority side of parliament trivializing the Rambo style invasion of a citizen’s home in Parliament, was the parallel activity of the Special Prosecutor, an appointee of the executive branch answerable to the Minister of Justice under Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution summoning a press conference the same morning at which he declared Kenneth
Nana Yaw Ofori-Atta, 66 years old, and the Minister of Finance of the Republic between 2017 and 2024 a fugitive from justice. The OSP denied that it caused any “persons (however uniformed or bedecked) to raid your house on Tuesday 11 February 2025 or on any other day”. The Special Prosecutor acting on actionable intelligence stated unequivocally that:
“Our intelligence points us to state that the purported raid on Mr. Ofori-Atta’s residence was staged or at best an imposter-action in an attempt to court disfavour for the OSP and to derail the investigation. The OSP is not deterred by such occurrences and the investigations would continue as by law prescribed.”
The Special Prosecutor cast Ken Ofori-Atta, the victim of the unlawful entry and search of his residence in his absence abroad, as an imposter who had self-orchestrated the unlawful act that was “staged or at best an imposter attempt to court disfavour for the OSP and derail the investigation.” This narrative of the OSP appeared to have carried the morning and implicated Ken Ofori-Atta as alleged by the Special Prosecutor but for the fact that the victim was not an ordinary Ghanaian without the means to own a CCTV installed in his home.
The diligence of the arrangements in the residence of the former Minister of Finance in retrieving and publishing excerpts of the CCTV images of the raid to his home to the whole world turned the tables upon the OSP, Parliament which instead of debating such a condemnable violation of a citizen’s fundamental human rights chose to debate and trivialize the unlawful and Rambo style invasion for political point scoring, and the President as the repository of the law enforcement, security, and intelligence apparatus of the government.
The CCTV evidence was overwhelming that Ken Ofori-Atta did not self-stage an invasion of his home to derail a government investigation of corruption and corruption-related offences against him. The burden was now upon the President of Ghana to break the ice by admitting that he ordered the invasion or that it was conducted on his blind side with demonstrable assurances to the public of prosecuting all the culprits involved.
We the People had just reiterated at the polls on 7 December 2024 that the impression successive governments of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have created that we are a zombified bunch of yokels who would sell our votes for a pittance underestimates our patience and intelligence in deciding on the performance of each government come elections.
The publication of the CCTV images of the unlawful invasion of Ken Ofori-Atta’s residence during his absence abroad juxtaposed against the declaration of the same Ken Ofori-Atta in the morning of Wednesday, 12 February 2025 by the Special Prosecutor, an appointee of the executive branch as a fugitive from justice who had staged or at best conducted an imposter action to derail an investigation into corruption and corruption-related offences against him convinced reasonably objective citizens who non-partisanly evaluated national developments that a thorough investigation was enjoined to impartially bring to book the persons under the control of the executive authority of the President who committed the dastardly invasion of the former Minister’s home.
I did not need any admission from the Majority Leader of Parliament to conclude that the criminal invasion of Ken Ofori-Atta’s residence was the work of agents of the state security and law enforcement apparatus answerable to the President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama. Consequently, I was not surprised by the orchestrated investigations, and then admissions on the floor of Parliament by the Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, on Thursday, 13 February 2025 that:
“… It is true that the private residence of the former Minister of Finance was entered into by operatives of the Military and Police led by somebody we believe was at the National Security Coordinators’ office. Mr Speaker, his name is Mr Jakpa. We have investigated the matter and we want to say and assure our fellow countrymen and our colleagues in this house that we have received assurance from the Office of the National Security Coordinator that it was not intended that that should happen and that occurrence is most regrettable, unfortunate and he wants to give this house his words and assurance that a thing like that should never happen again. …”
The Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, cannot exercise the executive authority on behalf of the President of Ghana and speak on his behalf in such an important matter that affects the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens to the right to privacy of their homes.
Admittedly, the President has been out of the country since 11 February 2025 but in his place is a Vice-President acting in his stead who speaks for the executive branch. The indolence of Ghanaian Vice-Presidents abdicating their responsibilities in the absence of Presidents abroad needs to stop.
Bawku, my hometown, burnt while Mahamudu Bawumia slept under the Nana Akufo-Addo government whilst the President was abroad. Today, our rights and freedoms are under attack whilst the sitting Vice-President abdicates her responsibility to the Majority Leader to assume leadership of the executive branch of government in the absence of the President. That is not what we voted for!
Ghanaians cannot continue to be subjected to psychological operations by the political elite in the executive and the legislative branches of government to deflect citizens’ attention from profoundly serious infractions of the rights of citizens smacking of the exercise of impunity reminiscent of what they voted against on 7 December 2024. The Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, cheaply contributed to the Majority Leader’s psyops when he congratulated Mahama Ayariga for admitting the obviousness of the invasion of Ken Ofori-Atta’s home by assets and agents of the executive arm of government which any reasonable citizen could determine for himself.
It is now time to remind Alexander Afenyo-Markin that his precipitate compromises smacking of cheap sycophancy has already led the electorate to lose the right to submit creditable and actionable memoranda to Parliament in its process of determining the integrity, honour, and constitutional fitness of some of the President’s nominees for critical ministerial appointments in the government. Such cheap and obvious compromises that shortchange the electorate in its ability to hold the government to account creates the perception of collusive transactional political corruption in Parliament instead of encouraging the citizens to fight any form of oppression by government. Could it be that Mr. Afenyo-Markin’s real intentions are to thump his fingers at the electorate for daring to vote his party out of power? Mahama Ayariga, think about that.
The unwarranted and Rambo style invasion of the homes of law abiding citizens followed by apologies in Parliament on his behalf is not what John Dramani Mahama promised the electorate to earn its vote. We did not vote for Mahama Ayariga to be the conduit through which the President will speak to us when officers working under him unlawfully invade our homes and privacy.
And for President John Mahama particularly, this invasion under his watch, if he did not authorize it, should call to mind the invasion of the late Professor John Evans Atta Mills’ residence in 2002 during his absence while in Canada and the humiliation his dear wife was subjected to in the unwarranted search under the John Agyekum Kufour’s government. The repeat of such impunity twenty-two years down the line must not go unpunished under President Mahama’s watch if he really intends to reset this country forward and not backwards to gone-by years of the coup mentality.
Mr. President, I discussed this pervasive coup mentality with you less than a month ago and now you need to face it squarely with firm leadership without any prevarication this time round on the breakless bicycle speeding with you as the ridder again downhill towards political disaster unless you wakeup from slumber with decisive and preventive action.
The electorate will want to know through a thorough and impartial investigation whether the invasion of the home of Ken Ofori-Atta shown on the excerpts of the CCTV had any link with the declaration of Ken Ofori-Atta as a fugitive from justice by the OSP exercising the prosecutorial executive power on your behalf. The coincidence of the alleged emergence of Richard Jakpa’s presence apparently leading the invasion of Ken Ofori-Atta’s home with officials admittedly being from the Office of the National Security Coordinator, and the OSP casting Ken Ofori-Atta as having staged the invasion himself to derail the OSP’s investigations gives the perception of a collaboration between the Office of the National Security Coordinator and the OSP unless disproved by an independent and impartial investigation. The nation has a right to know the motive and the reasons for the Rambo style invasion of the former Minister’s home in his absence under the watch of the President as the Chairman of the National Security Council under which Mr. Richard Jakpa and his men work.
The invasion of Ken Ofori-Atta’s residence allegedly led by Richard Jakpa whose appeal was pending in the Supreme Court when the Attorney-General just appointed by President Mahama partisanly withdrew the case from the Court is a more important pressing reason to have a thorough and impartial investigation into the Rambo style invasion of Ken OforiAtta’s home. Would Richard Jakpa, if he really led the invasion of Ofori-Atta’s home on 11
February 2025, have done so if the Ambulance case on appeal was still pending in the Court? The answer is in the negative. The involvement of Richard Jakpa in the Ken Ofori-Atta home invasion debacle, therefore, calls for the unearthing of the linkages, interconnections, and interwovenness of all the variables in the chain of the authorization and enabling process of the operations of the security assets and agents of the government to conduct the Rambo style invasion of a citizen’s home and privacy.
Mr. President who is better placed under your Oath of Office to determine whether an appeal pending in the Supreme Court constitutes a political witch-hunt or a genuine case of prosecutable criminal conduct: an Attorney-General exercising prosecutorial authority of the executive power on your behalf at your sufferance or a Supreme Court properly vetted by Parliament and appointed by the executive branch under the 1992 Constitution? Let the stories of the justifications for the exercise of the Attorney-General’s prosecutorial powers be told to the marines and drunken sailors, and not to those of us who exercised those powers for decades beginning October 1988 when others were no where near the profession of the law.
Experience and not missing dockets from the Attorney-General’s Office counts!
The President needs to walk his talk by ensuring that all those involved in this despicable invasion and other invasions of citizens’ rights and freedoms are brought to trial before the ordinary courts in accordance with the due process of law. Ghana must reset forwards and not backwards to yesteryears! That is what the electorate voted for and not media psyops to deflect the enormity of such unlawful acts by government assets and agents.
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
14 February 2025
