Captain Budu was not arrested for saying a coup was imminent in 2013 – NDC
Arresting people for coup comments is a violation of the constitution – Lawyer
Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe, a member of the NDC legal team, has said that government must stop arresting Ghanaians who make comments about a possible coup in the country.
According to him, members of the current government, including President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, made predictions of political upheavals when they were in opposition but were never arrested.
In an interview on Neat FM monitored by GhanaWeb, the lawyer said that the government arresting people for comments is a violation of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.
"Yesteryears, people who saw the imminence of coup de tats, insurrection, uprisings among other things, should be tolerant to such conversations today. I make this point because, prior to the 2016 elections, then-candidate Akufo-Addo went to Germany to meet the Ghanaian community there and told them that the employment situation in Ghana could bring the Arab Spring to Ghana.
"On 2 December 2015, a few days to the election, Akufo-Addo also repeated the same claims about Arab spring happening in Ghana in an interview on Peace FM… Everybody knows that the Arab Spring resulted in the unlawful removal of government in Arab countries, but those were things that then-candidate Akufo-Addo was saying," he said in Twi translated by GhanaWeb.
"You can also check, the 4 May 2013 on Daily Guide, Coup de tat eminent in Ghana – Captain Budu Koomson. Captain Budu Koomson, at that time, was the head of security of the NPP. According to him, as a former military officer, his assessment shows that a military coup was imminent when John Mahama was the president.
"In fact, he even went as far as saying that we should not delude ourselves into thinking that Ghana has gone past coups and that we should not think so; that it can happen," Edudzi added.
He said nobody, at that time, said [to] the BNI, the National Security go and arrest anyone or "invite Akufo-Addo to come and explain what he meant by Arab Spring can happen in Ghana because of unemployment, nobody did!"
Some Ghanaians have been recently arrested for comments they made about coups. Members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) are calling for the arrest of the Dean of the University of Ghana Law School, Prof Raymond Atuguba, for saying that Ghana's current economic situation could serve as a basis for a military overtake.
NDC legal team member, Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe