COMMANDO HIT SQUAD ON THE PROWL

…threatens to Kill editors of TODAY Newspaper

The early dark days in Ghana when media personnel’s were brutalised, threatened, jailed and sometimes killed has
emerged again. This time a mafia group called AHUUYA have descended on the editors of Ghana’s informative newspaper TODAY.

Readers may remember that Mondays edition of your authoritative TODAY news paper, we asked readers to look out for a story (our lead story today) on the top commando who sent threatening text messages to some media men and top AFAG organizers before the “Atta Adaadaa Yen” demonstration. At 08:20am Tuesday morning, editors of the paper, Mr. Richmond Lamptey and Mr. Richmond Keelson, received a threat on their lives in the form of a text message (presented below unedited): “WHO DO U THINK U ARE, JOKE WITH US N U WILL SMELL UR OWN BLOOD. TOUGH SKIN GINA BLAY HAS STOP PUBLISHING NEWS ABOUT US. SHE HAS TASTED OUR DEADLY POISON. YOUR PAPER IS ALREADY ON OUR DEADLY HIT LIST. IF U A MAN GO AHEAD ANY PUBLISH ANY STUPID THING ABOUT US. ABODAM. WHO ARE U WORKING FOR N WHO IS YOUR MOLE, CONSIDER YOURSELF A LIVING DEAD..… STILL AHUUYA.” The text was carried by a TiGO number 027 8884271.

In spite of this, the paper published to its cherished readers and Ghanaians what is fast becoming despotism-in-leadership-in-the-guise-of-democracy. Please read on.

“We the Taliban warriors will not sit down unconcerned as you and your media houses continue to provide these AFAG idiots- Kabila, Samuel Awuku, Arnold Boateng and Ofori Atta the chance to run down the Government. Your life is in danger and so are others. As we plan to deal with those guys, we shall also eliminate ….”. Signed: Ahuuya.

This text was sent to the leadership of the Alliance For Accountable Government (AFAG) and other media organizations, a day before the August 4, 2009 demonstration dubbed “Atta Adaadaa Yen” in Accra by a group that only identified itself as Ahuuya.

Leading members of the AFAG group, whose names have been mentioned in the threat, including that of the editor of the Patriot newspaper, Ms. Frances Essiam, received the message on their private cellular phones.

The media houses that were included in the hit list were Oman FM and Daily Guide. The affected media organizations were sent the same text through their editors.

After weeks of discreet investigations, TODAY has uncovered the real architects behind the threat. They are a group of former Commandos of the 64 Battalion that have clandestinely found their way back into many state security apparatus in the country.

A common identification, as the paper discovered, is their Ahuuya war cry. It is common to find the ex-Commandos exchanging their battle-cry anywhere they met. They are being marshaled and mobilized by one Emmanuel Amedeka, a former instructor of the defunct 64 battallion and currently the head of the security detail at the Jubilee House, formerly Flagstaff House.

The group holds its nocturnal meetings at the Afrikiko Night Club, near, Sankara Over pass. He drives a latest Stratus Patrol Four Wheel Drive.

The plot to threaten the AFAG leadership and the media houses was hatched at the Afrikiko Night Club with Emmanuel Amedeka sending the text on his TiGO chip. He hilariously reported back to their bosses, who are believed to be appointed state officials of the national security apparatus, after the text had been aired on a number of radio stations in the capital city, particularly, Oman FM.

Managers of Afrikiko Night Club, TODAY can state, are unaware of such underground meetings at their premises, let alone the identity of the Commandos and an insight into their operations. They are unknowingly treated nicely as any other patron of the club.

The leader of the group is known within NDC circles as “the notorious NDC assassin”. He comes from a family that many Ghanaians dread dealing with because a member of that family was associated with the gruesome murder of the three High Court Judges and the Retired Army officer.

He was the instructor of the Commando group that was stationed at Cantonments, a suburb of Accra, during the heady days of the 1981 revolution and later became a driver at the National Commission for Women and Development (NCWD) in the first administration of the NDC.

The Commando leader lost his NCWD job under some bizarre political circumstances and has since vowed to pay back the NPP any time the opportunity availed itself. He was dismissed from the NCWD after he was spotted in the company of some die hard adherents of the Rawlings’ June 4 and 31st December revolutions in one of the June 4 lectures organized during the last NPP administration.

That graphic spectre confirmed the long standing suspicion within NPP circles that the Commando leader was a staunch June 4 and 31st December loyalist. And that instantly caused him to lose his job.

Despite the dangerous aura surrounding his identity, TODAY, still managed to get him to comment on the fact that he masterminded and indeed sent the threatening text. The interview was conducted on the phone.

This was his reaction:

“My brother, you should speak to my boss, Gbevlo Lartey or the Interior Minister. You didn’t even have to take a phone and call me and expect me to react. This is a security issue and you need to investigate the issue well….

I have not sent any text message to anyone for the past week so I don’t know anything about it. If you write anything about me, the law will take its course against you. That mafia game they are playing with me… it is a plot to blackmail me…

If you want any discussion, come to my office and let’s talk”.

Emmanuel Amedeka was a candidate during parliamentary primary of the NDC for the Dome Kwabenya Constituency in the run-up to the 2008 elections. Indeed, TODAY has it on authority that he paid the GH¢ 1,000 filing fee to contest current Information Minister, Zita Okaikoi for the Dome Kwabenya Parliamentary seat.

He was however impressed upon by the leadership of the Dome Kwabenya constituency of NDC to step down after agitations by NDC delegates and members against his candidature. He was also once a worker of former NDC MP for Kpone-Katamanso in his ostrich farm.

By Richmond Keelson & Richmond Lamptey