Okatakyie Afrifa
DETAILS HAVE emerged about the Rambo-style arrest of media personality and former Angel FM morning show host, Okatakyie Afrifa by operatives of National Security Secretariat on Wednesday night.
Initial details concerning his arrest were sketchy, but information available indicate that his arrest was as a result of his criticism of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government’s approach towards the fight against illegal mining.
Okatakyie Afrifa Mensah, host of ‘For The Records’ was arrested on Wednesday night after writing an examination at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).
His arrest sparked outrage among sections of Ghanaians, with some criticising government for being hard-handed towards its critics.
Having realised the enormity of their decision to arrest the media personality, the operatives who effected the unlawful arrest later claimed they had picked intelligence that his life was in danger, hence the arrest was for his own protection.
But many have questioned this narrative, wondering why a person who needed protection would be taken into custody in handcuffs.
Reports suggest that leading members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), including National Youth Organiser, Henry Nana Boakye (Nana B) stormed the National Security Secretariat to secure his release.
Unnecessary
Nana B, in an interview on Accra-based Happy FM, described the arrest as needless, useless and arbitrary.
He wondered why the journalist would be arrested over a sensitive issue as illegal mining, an issue that is on the lips of every Ghanaian.
He recalled a similar advocacy embarked on by Okatakyie regarding illegal mining during erstwhile Akufo-Addo administration, but nobody arrested him.
“President Mahama, you had an emphatic endorsement, do not let these sorts of things disgrace you,” he cautioned.
Nana B cautioned the state security agencies to brace themselves because they are not leaving the fight against illegal mining.
“If this is how they will be going about things, then they should be prepared to arrest all of us because we haven’t even started yet,” he added.
The Arrest
Kwame Appiah Kubi, who is also a media personality, in his narration of the incident stated that they had gone to write exams at GIMPA and they parted ways after a conversation.
He said he was driving on the N1 toward Multichoice when he had a call that Okatakyie had been arrested by the National Security.
“I was the first person they called, so we mobilised a team and in the company of lawyers we went to the Blue Gate. We did not immediately know where they took him, but we later got a hint that they had taken him to Blue Gate,” he disclosed.
He continued that upon reaching the National Security Secretariat, they were told Okatakyie had not been brought there and that he was taken to the Ministries Police Station.
But that information turned out to be false, as they had another hint that their colleague was indeed being kept at the Secretariat.
He said after waiting for more than two hours, they brought him out and said he could go home.
NPP Condemns Arrest
Meanwhile, the NPP has condemned the unlawful arrest and detention of Okatakyie Afrifa Mensah, describing the incident as the latest “instalment of the ongoing series of state-sponsored attacks on the media by the NDC government, in their desperate attempt to silence the media and curtail press freedom.”
The party, in a statement, commended the lawyers and individuals who stormed the National Security Secretariat to secure his release as well as “the many well-meaning Ghanaians who spoke loudly against the arrest.”
“The NPP wishes to remind President Mahama and his government that the Ghana that was bequeathed to them on January 7, 2025, was a free country. It was the bastion of democracy, underpinned not only by the existence of functioning democratic institutions but also by our unflinching commitment to upholding press freedom as enshrined in Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution,” the statement pointed out.
It further called on the Ghana Journalists Association, the Media Foundation of West Africa, civil society organisations, and all stakeholders to join the NPP in demanding an immediate cessation of this tyranny and growing culture of state-sponsored attacks on the media.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak