Shatta Wale
A video footage of popular dancehall artiste Charles Nii Armah Mensah Jnr., known by his stage name as Shatta Wale, in a street side verbal exchange with a senior police officer in uniform, attracted the attention of many Ghanaians over the weekend.
Many people, especially those on social media, wondered why the artiste continues to be embroiled in controversial circumstances, having recently been reported to have said that he would burn down churches by December, if he did not die as prophesised by a pastor.
He was said to be driving an unregistered Range Rover when the police patrol team accosted him at East Legon, Accra thereabout.
In the video, the police officer, who was very angry, ordered the artiste and his friends to go back to their Range Rover and follow him to the police station.
Shatta Wale asked whether the police officer did not know him and why he was being difficult with a public personality.
The Legon Police Station Commander, DSP Emmanuel Ofori Anokye, said there was no case reported to him about Shatta Wale, but added however, that a lady was brought to the station by a police officer for videoing an incident and since that was not a crime, he dismissed it and let go the lady.
The senior police officer at the centre of the dramatic incident has been identified as the Second-In-Command of the Visibility and Patrols Unit of the Greater Accra Command, whose name the paper was unable to get at the time of filing this report.
In street conversations many asked why the police officer did not take any action against the artiste but chose to rather arrest the lady who suffered the inconvenience of being sent to the police station only to be released for want of a charge.
They wondered what could have informed the police officer’s decision to let go the artiste, who could have breached the law.
Shatta Wale was reported to have told a radio station later that the police officer was his uncle, denying outright that there was a brawl at all.
He reportedly claimed they were only playing.
Many wondered whether a senior police officer could ‘playact’ in the street as the artiste claimed.
By A.R. Gomda