He was arrested for 'threatening a coup'
Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe explains the effect of trying him
Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, a founding member of the New Patriotic Party, has warned the government that it will be doomed if it goes ahead in prosecuting Oliver Barker-Vormawor.
According to him, when the convener for the #FixTheCountry movement was arrested, he sent out a warning to the government through Albert Kan-Dapaah, National Security Minister, that they should instead have a conversation with the 'young man' but the minister refused to either pick his calls or listen to his caution.
He said, it will be proper for the government to set Oliver Barker-Vormawor free but if they “try to try that boy [in court], what they will have on their hands, they can never handle it.”
Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe told Bridget Otoo on the ‘One On One’ show, Monday, April 25, 2022, that he wasn’t surprised about the statement Kan-Dapaah made concerning the judiciary and the lopsided nature of recent rulings.
He noted that Kan-Dapaah’s statement though frightening, [it] is the truth.
Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe explained, “Firstly, I recollect [when] I heard this gentleman [Oliver Barker-Vormawor] and the steps that the government was taking about him, I sent a verbal note through an interview to Kan-Dapaah that they should be careful with him because such people, you don’t handle them roughly.
“I even went further to advise Kan-Dapaah to call on Francis Poku, a former National Security Minister, if he feels he has difficulties or certain cases are so difficult to handle. I didn’t stop there, I called him to talk to him personally but he never lifted my calls.
So, I am not surprised that this young man went through what he has gone through. And one thing they should not forget is that these signals are always bad signals; we’ve seen it before.”
“Such a young man definitely has got followers; if they have followers, what a good government will do is to invite him and have a [conversation] with him and know exactly what he wants and a good intelligent officer, will know how to handle it,” he stressed.
Background
Oliver Barker-Vormawor, was arrested by the police for “threatening a coup” in February.
A police statement said he was arrested by the Tema Regional Police Command following a post he allegedly made on social media to the effect that he would stage a coup himself if the E-Levy Bill is passed by Parliament.
He is said to have incited the army to stage a coup over the proposed E-Levy Bill in Parliament.
According to the police, “the post contained a clear statement of intent with a possible will to execute a coup in his declaration of intent to subvert the constitution of the Republic of Ghana,” the police statement dated February 12, 2022, signed by the Director-General of Public Affairs, DCOP Kwesi Ofori said.
An Ashaiman District Court has remanded him into police custody for two weeks and he was later charged with treason felony by the police.
Barker-Vormawor was granted bail on Tuesday, March 15, 2022, but successfully executed the conditions of his bail bond - GH¢2 million with two sureties, one of which was to present documents covering a landed property - on Thursday, March 17.
Oliver Barker-Vormawor