Senior Vice President of IMANI-Africa, Kofi Bentil, has criticised government over the arrest of #FixTheCountry convener, Oliver Barker-Vormawor after he allegedly threatened to stage a coup.

According to Kofi Bentil, the citizenry is gradually losing confidence in the current administration due to what he has described as a downward political spiral being exhibited by the Akufo-Addo-led administration.

He told Newsfile host, Samson Anyenini on Saturday that the recent arrests of media practitioners and social commentators smack of widespread abuse of state power, although “we understand that the business of securing the state must be done.”

Mr Bentil argued that government is being insensitive and exaggerating certain utterances and actions of some people in society.

“There is something which I call the downward political spiral. You study or watch how politicians and political parties and people in power behave, you can easily detect it; it is accompanied by a period when generally there is an abuse of power.

"You have a situation where politicians or people in leadership become tone-deaf, they develop these rubrics, and they believe they can do everything with the power of the state.”

“I agree with you that we also should be minded about the words we use. But does that warrant the sledgehammer approach of arresting the guy [Barker-Vormawor], showing him where power lies, detaining him for this time? Look across regimes, dictatorships and political power; when it is wielded by people who are on a downward spiral, you’d see these things,” he indicated.

The Tema Regional Police Command arrested Oliver Barker-Vormawor on Friday over a post he allegedly made on a social media platform to the effect that he would stage a coup himself if Parliament passed the E-Levy Bill.

According to the Police, Mr Barker-Vormawor’s “post contains a clear statement of intent with a possible will to execute a coup in his declaration of intent to subvert the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.

But Kofi Bentil says the Police could have privately engaged the culprit to seek clarity of what he had posted before going ahead to arrest him.

“You have a situation where somebody makes a post, and you understand what he’s talking about, and you drop on him, detain him and start arresting journalists all over the place. So it’s not about arresting Oliver or a journalist; our leaders must be a bit more reflective.”

“You have a harassment of the media, generally, and I hear you when you say some people are committing crimes with the media, but you get this generalised harassment of the media.”

Mr Barker-Vormawor will be arraigned before the court on Monday, February 14, 2022.