Former Attorney General Martin Amidu must sue former national security coordinator Larry Gbevlo-Lartey for illegally raiding his house as well as unlawfully arresting and detaining him, head of the political science department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr Richard Amoako Baah has said.
"I wish he sues Gbevlo-Lartey for violation of his civil rights; I wish he sues. I think he should sue. Take him to court and let these things come up: what evidence he has to raid his house and arrest him and detain him," Dr Amoako Baah told Kumasi-based Ultimate Radio.
His suggestion comes on the heels of Mr Amidu’s allegation that Gbevlo-Lartey on the eve of the 2012 general elections ordered officers of the Bureau of National Investigations to raid his house and detain him without a court warrant.
In his latest statement issued to the media on Sunday to rebuff claims by Mr Gbevlo-Lartey that his (Amidu’s) dismissal in 2012 by President John Mills (late) had nothing to do with his suggestion to the Government–at the time–to use his predecessor Betty Mould-Iddrisu–under whose tenure the money was paid to businessman Alfred Woyome–as a prosecution a witness in the Government’s quest towards retrieving the money, Mr Amidu said: “…Has Gbevlo-Lartey forgotten that his actions in sending officials of the BNI to search my residence, arrest me and detain me for hours on 6th December 2012, without a Court warrant on the very eve of 2012 Election when tensions were very high in the country could have caused mayhem in the country if I had invited the media and others to my residence that day?”
"I refused to be used by him as a scape goat in causing any upheavals that might lead to confusion and God knows what, at the nick of the elections!” he said.
'Citizen Vigilante' as Mr Amidu is called due to his lone efforts towards retrieving a Ghc51.2 million judgment debt which was illegally paid to Mr Woyome by the state in 2010, said the actions of Mr Gbevlo-Lartey on the eve of the elections could have plunged the country into chaos if he (Amidu) had fought the matter out in the media.
"Does Gbevlo-Lartey know whose votes would have been affected most if I had made his illegal search, arrest, and detention at the BNI public on that day even if the election still went ahead?
"Did Gbevlo-Lartey have the authority of the President to cause the search, my arrest and detention on the eve of an election with dire probable consequences for the nation? He did not!
"The President told my emissaries later that he was not informed, was not aware, let alone to instruct him on that critical day in the nation’s history: the President undertook to deal with the matter. I prevented whatever unconstitutional intentions, if any, Gbevlo-Lartey might have had to use me innocently for: I preserved the dignity of Ghana as a democracy!" he said.
Speaking about Mr Amidu’s revelation, Dr Amoako Baah said the whole country must strive to support the former AG’s quest to have Mr Woyome refund the money to the state as determined by the Supreme Court, rather than leave him to his fate.
"The point is that all of us in this country ought to be ashamed of ourselves, whether you are NDC, [a] Northerner it doesn’t matter. This man is the son of the country, he is the real hero and we sat here and allowed president Mills to fire him without so much as a demonstration in support of him. What is going on here, what do we support, what do we stand for, and now they are harassing him? The one who is fighting for justice for the country, and the rest of us just sit there. We all have to be ashamed of ourselves. This is a very sad situation and we should not allow it to happen. We should show our support for him," Dr Amoako Baah added.
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