Legal practitioner and Member of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo has defended the actions of the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) in the attempted arrest of Assin South MP, John Ntim Fordjour, over his allegations relating to the controversial AirMed scandal.
Speaking on The Forum on Asaase Radio on Saturday (12 April), Samoa Addo questioned the public outcry over the incident, insisting that the NIB acted within the bounds of the law and existing precedent.
He stressed that security agencies have every right to obtain and execute arrest warrants, even against Members of Parliament, so long as the proper legal procedures are followed.
He noted that should a Member of Parliament feel that their privileges have been violated, there is a clear constitutional recourse through the Speaker of Parliament and the Privileges Committee.
“I don’t know why we are creating a whole noise about the fact that an MP has been invited and in his invitation the NIB went to his house and attempted to arrest him and there was a compromise,” he said. “As far as I know, the Minority Leader intervened and went into an understanding with the NIB that the Rev. Minister would be brought in the next day, and that ended it.”
“Let nobody be out there and say that the NIB cannot obtain an arrest warrant to execute the arrest warrant. They have every right to do so. If Rev. Ntim feels that his privileges have been breached, he will go through the right process. But until that is done, I don’t see why we should fault the security agencies because there are a lot of precedent to this,” he remarked.
Touching on concerns raised over the appearance of masked men during the incident, Samoa Addo blamed the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for setting that precedent.
“It is the NPP government acting through their security agencies at the time that introduced mask men into our security apparatus. Until Ayawaso West Wuogon, there hasn’t been any security apparatus whose personnel is hooded. People like Double had been recruited by the NPP, given three months training into the National Security,” he said.
He noted that all the agents involved in the attempted arrest of Rev. Fordjour were in identifiable police uniforms, which allowed for negotiations with the Minority Leader to proceed smoothly.
Looking ahead, Samoa Addo called for bipartisan legislation to clarify how security agencies should engage with sitting MPs in such situations.
“We should all agree to do a bipartisan legislation which would uphold the provisions of the 1992 Constitution and detail in legislation the method by which MPs should be invited or arrested by the security agencies,” he said.
The controversy over Rev. Fordjour’s statements on alleged illicit gold and cash trafficking involving AirMed has sparked national debate, with political figures weighing in on the constitutional limits of parliamentary privilege and the powers of security agencies.
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