Whatsup News has gathered that the Director of Operations of the National Security Ministry, Lt. Col. Agyemang is responsible for directly ordering a raid on the offices of Accra-based CITI FM on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. The raid was done by the same trigger-happy goons who raided polling stations at Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency some years ago.
This follows the arrest and torture of CITI FM’s reporter, Caleb Kudah who had sneaked into the National Security premises to expose a deep cover-up by the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) relating to dozens of brand new cars bought with state resources and abandoned to rot away at premises of the National Security.
Reliable sources at CITI FM who would want to remain anonymous for security reasons told Whatsup News via telephone that when Caleb Kudah was arrested for secretly filming the vehicle, DSP Samuel Koo Azugu, the notorious leader of the National Security SWAT team, had placed a call to CITI FM to verify the identity of Caleb Kudah.
Upon getting feedback from CITI FM, DSP Azugu had promised to resolve the matter swiftly to clear the journalist, but the irate Lt. Col. Agyemang had swung into the matter and had ordered his men to raid CITI FM when they realised that Caleb Kudah had already forwarded the film he captured to his colleagues.
Lt. Col. Agyemang is also cited as personally taking part in brutalising the hapless journalist by kicking him in the groin, alongside his men who incessantly manhandled the screaming journalist.
“This man called Col. Agyemang, he is a disappointment to National Security…In two, three years, this Agyemang will go on retirement and God will judge him and his family. It is so unfortunate. They have to take action against this Col. Agyemang guy because he is a disgrace to the government, he is a disgrace to the National Security and he is not fit for that job,” fumes Samuel Attah-Mensah, the Managing Director of CITI FM and CITI TV.
Samuel Attah-Mensah (Samens) had personally driven to the National Security outpost where the journalist was being tortured in the hope of rescuing him, but Samens said Lt. Col. Agyemang would not listen to any reason as he continued to kick the journalist in the groin.
. “I tried to get his attention so that we can have a better understanding, but he just walked off…That Col. Agyemang man is such a disappointment to National Security…we were hoping that 20/30 years down the line, we thought that this primitive way of handling journalists would have stopped,” Samens fired on CITI TV’s Point of View programme on Wednesday.
In February, President Akufo Addo had sacked Colonel Michael Opoku, the former Director of Operations at the National Security and had replaced him with Lt. Col. Agyemang.
His predecessor (Col. Opoku) was responsible for ordering the National Security SWAT, headed by DSP Azugu some three years ago to the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency by-elections where they opened fire on unarmed civilians at the polling station, seriously injuring several of them.
Lt. Col. Agyemang appears to be continuing the brutal legacy of his predecessor as he continues to groom the rag-tag team of SWAT primarily made up of men believed to have been key members of the Invisible Forces, the main militia group of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).
On Tuesday, May 11, 2021, Caleb Kudah, was arrested for filming the car park of the Ministry of National Security where scores of saloon cars were imported with public funds by the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) had been left to rot away.
Whatsup News gathered that Mr. Kudah had actually photographed the cars sometime in 2018 and had made reference to it again recently on his Facebook page. But the MASLOC had swung into defence, saying the vehicles had been distributed to beneficiaries.
But in his attempt to ascertain the veracity of MASLOC’s claim, Mr. Kodua had sneaked into the car park to verify. He said, contrary to the claim of MASLOC, when he gained access to the location of the parked cars, only a few had been evacuated as a substantial number was still left abandoned as they were in 2018.
Caleb Kudah, who narrated his traumatic ordeal on The Point of View on Citi TV, said he was detained and interrogated for hours on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, after irate National Security goons had subjected him to sustained beatings and torture.
“They pushed me and I sat on the chair. They [National Security operatives] slapped me from the back. I was trying to appeal to them that they had beaten me enough, but they were just slapping me from the back. I’ll be talking to another one and someone will just come and slap me from the back.”
They snatched his mobile telephone and deleted the video he had captured. However, the security officers realised he had already forwarded copies to another colleague at CITI FM, so they raided the radio station with assault weapons in search of one Zoe Abu-Baidoo, a close colleague of Caleb Kudah.
Pandemonium struck CITI FM on Tuesday when the heavily armed state security officials in about five vehicles invaded the radio station.
Eventually, the management of Citi FM/Citi TV cooperated and allowed the hapless Abu-Baidoo to be whisked away too for interrogation.
Both Mr. Kudah and Zoe Abu-Baidoo were released later in the evening on the same day, sparking massive public outrage as the tortured journalist had to seek immediate medical treatment.
Meanwhile, the National Security Ministry had today issued a statement claiming it will investigate the matter.
