If the BNI had no right or authority as a security agency of the state to invite the former chief of staff Mr. Kojo Mpiani, then I don't know which agency has. Indeed if the agency lacked the authority, then why did Mr. Mpiani agree to the invitation? I am still at a loss as to the motive of the former ministers regarding the action they took. Why did the former Minister’s not protest at the invitation by the BNI all the while because it had been public knowledge several days before he responded? If they agree that the BNI has the authority to invite anyone for that matter as happened during their administration, then is their problem to do with the number of hours he was detained or that of his whereabouts?
Unless as former ministers, they have evidence that the BNI is an ass for politicians in power, then they may rightly have needed to worry because they are no more in power. Did they interfere in the discharge of duties of the agency during their tenure?
The ministers should be ashamed of themselves especially when Mr. Mpiani was discharged by the BNI that night. Not that I have any idea of the number of hours he should have been detained. The truth is that his seven hours in detention is far less compared to MP E.T Mensah's fifty hours in detention under the NPP in 2001. How the BNI conducts its investigations and operations I think might be a valid subject for discussion and not its right to invite alleged suspects or otherwise.
Not only did Mr. Mpiani spend less time in detention but he also emerged and had the luxury of granting interviews to the press with broad smiles in which he never mentioned any form of physical maltreatment meted out on him but rather that he would be going back to the BNI to continue the discussion the following day.
Again even though I believe in the adage that "unity is strength", I don't think the march by former NPP minister's to the BNI premise was necessary. To me and some members of the public, it only created an impression that some people were above the so called "standard practice" of the BNI which the NPP and NDC all presided over in their recent past.
Also I do not agree with assuming collective responsibility of individuals by the party. It does not make sense. A party founded on principles and ideals should be accountable to such and such alone and not to individuals! The NPP is bigger and more important than any of its individual members. One would expect that such a party should be able to apply itself to its principles and values in sanctioning any member that falls short within and outside of government.
Aside Mr. Kwame Pianim, When was the first or last time we saw a politician or an appointee resign his work on the grounds of any principle. Even when they are supposed to step aside for credible investigations to be conducted, they still fight to cling to their positions. It is for a strong and principle based party especially in government to be bold and sanction, sack or fire its appointees who fall foul of the law. Then there would be no room for "witch hunting" when and if a new party wins an election.
One of the reasons’s for which I think the NPP lost the 2008 election was because it assumed collective responsibility when it should have stuck to its values and principles. Remember when in 2000 elections Prof. Atta Mills went round singing praises of the NDC's achievement in office and saw nothing wrong with anything it did in office? Prof. Mills repeated it in 2004 and lost again. But watch Mills in 2008, he admitted and begged for forgiveness for its past wrongs while the NPP went on the path of “we will continue all that President Kufuor started”. How do you think those that have been negatively affected by President Kufuor's policies to feel? A party that can not censor itself has no moral right to govern. As the great philosopher Socrates said "the unexamined life is not worth living"!