General Secretary of the People's National Convention (PNC) Atik Mohammed has lambasted the Mahama government over the deportation of the three South African nationals.
The three South African nationals who were in the country to train about 15 members of the opposition New Patriotic Party in various security drills were repatriated to their country following their arrest by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).
Their arrest courted controversy as the BNI claimed the three men may be engaging in an unlawful training and other acts of terrorism.
They were charged with conspiracy to commit crime and unlawful training, and arraigned before an Accra Circuit Court before their repatriation.
In the wake of the brouhaha, several political figures including the leadership of the New Patriotic Party have shared varied opinions on the issue.
Atik Mohammed, touching on issue, wondered why the three men were deported instead of the government prosecuting them over the charges leveled against them.
He said if the three men were indeed in Ghana for any of charges brought against them, then repatriating them wasn't the best option.
To him, the deportation of the men was just a desperate and deliberate attempt by the government to score political points after "exaggerating" the issue.
“If the report as delivered by the Minister of Interior is supposed to be the report or outcome of the investigations of the BNI, then I think what the government did was a desperate and deliberate attempt to blow the issue out of proportion, to court anger against certain elements and to win some political points...The Minister of Interior’s statement means, in my opinion that nothing extremely serious was going on. It was just a desperate attempt by government to create a non-existing situation.”
He added that the retired South African security experts should have been tried by the court of law to ascertain the number of trainees who engaged in the security drills.
Atik Mohammed believed due to the government ulterior motives, certain facts cannot be obtained which means the trainees set free may become "potential armed robbers, potential recruits into gangs, political vigilante groups; these are perfect candidates for such groups. The government should be addressing this issue.”
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