Dr Benjamin Kwasi Agordzo, an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), has shared with the Financial and Economic Division of the High Court in Accra that his statements on the “Arab Spring” had nothing to do with criminality.
He emphasized that he had never engaged in any arrangement with anyone to topple the government.
“I’ll like to state that I merely expressed an opinion on an issue that does not have any link whatsoever with criminality. This is because Arab Spring is just like any form of mass demonstration or uprising of citizens; and that it is a democratic means of expressing dissent or disagreement.”
ACP Agordzo
The prosecution charged the top police officer with assisting Dr Frederick Yao Mac-Palm of Citadel Hospital (blessed memory) in staging a coup. However, in response to the charge, ACP Agordzo stated that as an opinionated person, his opinions on the Arab Spring were just to characterize a “manifestation.”
Relating to this matter, he revealed to the court that in a radio broadcast on August 27, 2019, Dr Nyaho Tamakloe, a founding member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), condemned the enormous corruption under Akufo-Addo’s administration and “warned that the situation could lead to civil uprising.”
Moreover, he explained that Dr. Tamakloe had described Arab Spring as a revolution that occurred in North Africa, but he was not detained, since expressing his view on the subject cautiously, as he(ACP Agordzo) did, which he claimed did not constitute a crime.
Also, ACP Benjamin Agordzo questioned why Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, Presiding Archbishop and General Overseer of the Action Chapel International Ministry, who spoke about the prospect of a civil insurrection in Ghana, had not been detained. He stated that the Archbishop foresaw an upheaval in Ghana and West Africa similar to the Arab Spring after 2020, if high levels of youth unemployment and hatred in African politics persisted.
He made these claims while commencing his defense before a three-member Accra High Court panel, Presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, a Justice of the Court of Appeal, serving as an additional High Court judge on the allegation of abetment.
ACP Agordzo and eight others are currently on trial and have pled not guilty to their accusations.
Arab Spring Statement Used As An Illustration
ACP Agordzo stated that the “Arab Spring” was an issue he discussed with Masters Students in his Power Point presentation on Conflict Prevention, Management, and Transformation at the Centre for Conflict, Human Rights, and Peace Studies at the University of Education, Winneba.
He revealed that the prosecution also accused him of abetting Dr. Mac-Palm’s alleged attempted coup because he responded to a query about the prospect of spontaneous uprisings in Ghana by using the Arab Spring as an example.
“It is never the same as a coup d’etat as the prosecution seeks to portray. I wish to reiterate the fact that the term “Arab Spring” is not different from Civil Unrest, Civil Agitation, Civil Uprising, Civil Disobedience, Mass Uprising and Spontaneous Uprising among others.
“Arab Spring is merely a term used to describe manifestation of one or more of the aforementioned because a series of demonstrations broke out in several Arab countries, hence the term ‘Arab Spring.’ That is why in explaining Arab spring, one could hardly do without mentioning civil unrest and civil uprising among others. This also explains why the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.”
ACP Agordzo
Also, he said that he only expressed his opinion on the Arab Spring in accordance with article 21 (b) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana which stated that “All persons shall have the right to – freedom of thought, conscience and belief, which shall include academic freedom.”
“Such expression of opinion could not amount to criminality unless those alleging criminality have a predetermined agenda. Furthermore, this is a subject matter I have expressed my opinion on at several fora, including my discussions on other WhatsApp platforms.
“Such as Alert with Adam Bonaa of which the Minister of Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, the Minister of the Interior Ambrose Dery, senior police officers including the Inspectors-General of Police, media practitioners, academics and members of civil society organisations, are members.”
ACP Agordzo
He added that the civil unrest discussion on that platform was sparked by a post by a member attributed to Nyaho Tamakloe on 28 August, 2019, which elicited a variety of replies from members of the site, including his own.
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