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Member of Parliament for the Tamale Central Constituency, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, has justified the detention of the personal  bodyguard and photographer of Nana Akufo-Addo, Presidential Candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party, by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), saying profiling the men was in his own interest.

The two were detained by the BNI for refusing to fill a personality profile form when they escorted head of Nana Addo’s security detail, Captain Edmund Koda to the bureau, to retrieve some items seized from him as part of investigations into the presence of three South African former Police officers in the country.

But the BNI has been bashed for needlessly harassing citizens and in some cases abusing their rights.

The two men decided not to fill the forms based on an explicit instruction from their lawyers. 

But speaking on ‘The Big Issue’ on Citi FM, Inusah Fuseini, who is also the Minister of Roads and Highways, said the BNI’s detention of the two was to protect the NPP flagbearer.

“According to Article 85 of the Constitution which establishes state security services, it states that no agency, establishment or other organizations concerned with national security shall be established except as provided for under this constitution. The point is that, anything concerned with national security has to be done in accordance with law so to subject Nana Akufo Addo’s bodyguard and cameraman to personality test was to protect him [Nana Addo]. It was in the interest of Nana Akufo-Addo, in the interest of national security and in the interest of the nation as a whole,” he argued.

The Minister further explained that the personality profile was a means of knowing the bodyguard and cameraman better in a bid to ensure that those around Nana Addo are known by the bureau.

He also noted that, filling of the personality profile forms at security agencies started under an NPP administration.

“This idea of personality profiling was started by the NPP. I Inusah Fuseini sat on a platform with an NPP Member of Parliament consequent to the death of JB Danquah and that MP’s beef with government is that even we MPs, government doesn’t know our drivers and our security and that was a failure on the part of government. So when the MP said that I thought it wise to submit my driver to personality profiling.”