Former Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu in a twelve paged statement has explained how the controversial E-levy and disappointing E-Levy cake set in motion a tirade of felony and coup discussions in recent times.
According to him, the controversial E-levy and the celebratory E-levy cake displayed during Majority Leader Osei-Kyei Mensah Bonsu’s birthday celebration led to the public reaction of Oliver Barker Vormawor who was subsequently arrested on treason felony charges.
He indicated in context that, Mr. Vormawor’s anger expressions follow the display of an edible E-Levy cake presented to the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu amid sufferings of Ghanaians and after a nationwide rejection of the proposed levy.
Oliver Vormawors first statement, “if this E-levy passes after this cake bullshit, I will do the coup myself useless army!” And a second statement “okay let’s try again. If this E-levy still passes after this cake bullshit, then may God help us resist oppressors rule with all our might forevermore. Useless Army. Anaa the value is still the same?”
Martin Amidu says the comment was ambiguous and further given different interpretations by the public hence the outcry for the police to arrest him.
He was arrested and then after being cautioned for a misdemeanor offence offensive conduct conducive to the breaches of peace contrary to section 207 of the Criminal Offences Act 1960(Act29) as the basis of his arrest.
Arraigned before the court on February 14, he was charged with treason felony.
On the same day, Martin Amidu admits that the Bono Regional Chairman of the NPP Mr. Kwame Baffoe popularly known as Abronye DC sat on radio and alleged that the former president John Mahama was planning a coup and Oliver Vormawor was an accomplice. Abronye Dc was invited by the police and also arrested and detained overnight for the publication of false news, but that decision by the police was met with great disapproval by the NPP, but by February 15 he had been granted bail.
In juxtaposing both situations, Martin Amidu asserts that “the arrest and detention of Oliver Barker Vormawor , the convener of the #fixthecountry and Mr. Kwame Baffoe, the powerful Bono Regional Chairman of the governing political party , demonstrates the partiality with which the fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed to citizens might through the exercise of the investigatory and prosecutorial discretion in the systems of criminal justice administration at the level of the extensive branch of government has been wittingly or unwittingly abused in the matter of the ‘Kyei Mensah-Bonus’s E-Levy cake for his 65th birthday’ contrary to article 3(2) of the 1992 constitution.”
In the same vain, Martin Amidu stated that, Professor Raymond Atuguba was attacked and lifted for an arrest after a lecture he delivered on the dire economic situation in the nation was cited and interpreted to have been the good professor’s advocacy for a coup.
According to Mr Amidu, although he does not agree with some aspects of the professor’s lecture, he did not find any criminal incitement on the part of the professor in his intense critique of the lecture.
He stated that constitutionalism and democracy was undermined when the NPP called for Prof Atugubas’s arrest without painstakingly like he did, reading through all twenty-one pages of Prof Atugubas’s lecture.
Consequently, Martin Amidu insists that the conflict over the E-levy and the disappointing and insulting display of an E- Levy cake during the celebration of Majority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu’s birthday has shown how investigatory and prosecutorial power invested in the executive can be abused for purely partisan ends.
He said government in all of this was using the police as its ‘Thought Police’ in the E-levy national disagreements to have its way despite the proscription of such methods in the constitution.
