Emmanuel Ajarfor
The bone of contention in the modernghana ‘torture story’ is whether or not the two gentlemen were really subjected to the ordeal one of them claimed they did.
We may even want to pose specific questions about whether they suffered electric shocks or even had their manhood or blokoss (to use Nigerian parlance) pulled as part of a routine ordeal administered by the National Security Council Secretariat operatives.
After countless, as it were, ranting and even press conferences and radio slots for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) darling story, a medical report not only discounted the lies, but also one of the freed cybercrime suspects, said he was not tortured.
We are just imagining what they, we mean the propagandists, would spin next since the torture story has melted like shea butter under the scorching sun in Binkpurgu.
It is worrying when mischievous elements try in vain to squeeze water from desert stones. A radio station was very active pushing the ‘blokoss pulled’ narrative as if the originator had put out a gospel truth without blemish.
The young man, who claimed his genitals were maltreated, should apologise to the nation for the lies he peddled. As for the radio station which championed his cause and that of the NDC, it is their stock-in-trade for which we can only say ‘posterity will surely judge them.’
What the freed modernghana man did when he was pouring out his wobbling story can be seen as recalling PNDC/NDC national security operations tactics under the aegis of those paying him to do so. Murders, electric shocks and even disappearances – features of the junta and later the party it metamorphosed into – have long been confined to the dark chapters of Ghana’s history.
Under the current dispensation, the rule of law is supreme. Indeed, that is why a lying man can still regain his freedom even after embarrassing the national security managers of the country.
Nobody could have endured the kind of torture the young man said he did and have his limbs bear weight. That aspect of the medical officer’s report speaks volumes of the lies the man told his compatriots and had gullible persons, politicians and even media fall for. Nobody goes through the kind of Auschwitz concentration camp experience as Ajarfor said and not show bruises or even lacerations alongside ‘bearing weight’ effortlessly.
Partisan politics in the hands of mischievous players can be destructive and even self-immolating. When lawyers burn their integrity as they try to project lies, they do not only lose respect, but also they cast filth on their otherwise noble profession.
One of the freed suspects is engaging in a war of words with a lawyer. He has denied what the learned gentleman put out in the public domain to discredit him in the eyes of respectable Ghanaians.
Shouldn’t they who issued press statements and became nuisances in their bid to present themselves as human rights advocates retract their mendacious remarks and even express a sincere remorse? If they are gentlemen, they would do if not they wouldn’t, we can bet. For sure, there was no torture because it is not part of the national security management architecture under President Akufo-Addo and the man he has appointed to man the national security department of his government, Kan Dapaah.