The 33-year-old man arrested and handed over to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for allegedly making a threatening comment that President John Dramani Mahama will collapse during this year’s Independence Day parade appears to be mentally challenged.
Kwame Gyebi, who allegedly made a comment at a beer bar at Dzorwulu in Accra, is said to have boasted that he knew what he was referring to and dared anyone to mark his words that the president would swoon when delivering his speech on 6th March.
But according to his brother who spoke on an Accra-based radio station yesterday, Kwame was suffering from a mental disease occasioned by typhoid which he had some time back.
The suspect, who was arrested by the police and later handed over to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) upon a tip-off, is reportedly receiving treatment at the Valley View Hospital, Dzorwulu.
Kwame Gyebi, who lives with his elder brother at the Dzorwulu neighbourhood, according to the brother, has his medical records at the hospital and said any doubting Thomases could check at the health facility.
The supposed mentally challenged man referred to the president as John when making the comment..
BNI sources say it is investigating the matter to ascertain if there are collaborators.
It will be recalled that on July 26, 2015 a 36-year-old man, Charles Antwi, was arrested during Sunday church service at the Ringway Estate Gospel Centre of the Assemblies of God Church with a gun allegedly targeting the president, who worships with his family at that church, to kill him.
It took a curious observer to cause the arrest of Charles Antwi as President Mahama was not in church that day.
Charles Antwi was later convicted and sentenced to a 10-year prison term by an Accra circuit court before he was freed by the Human Rights Division of the Accra high court.
He was later examined and found not to be mentally sound and was receiving treatment at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.
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