The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has condemned the National Security Advisor for ordering the arrest of a man on suspicion that he took pictures of his private property.

The NPP Communications Director, Nana Akomea, said the arrest of Dr. Edmund Ayo Ani, the Managing Director of a quarry company, Marble and Granite is a retrogressive move to Ghana’s dark days under military rule in the 80's.

“Alhaji Baba Kamara is taking Ghana back to the regime of settling civil disputes through the use of the coercive tools of the criminal justice system”.

Baba Kamara

He says in an era of respect for the rule of law, an aggrieved person even if he is a National Security Advisor is required to sue if his rights have been infringed upon.

At the center of the controversy is a yard belonging to Alhaji Baba Kamara on the Spintex road in Accra where vehicles reportedly meant for a state institution, National Commission for Civic Education, were sprayed with party colours of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) ahead of the November 2016 elections.

Dr. Ayo Ani whose office shares a wall with the yard was put into Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) custody last Friday on suspicion that he took pictures of the vehicles. The pictures were shared them on social media. 

The NPP says Baba Kamara’s action is another example of abuse of office.

“Now if even Mr. Kamara believes that the privacy of his property has been violated, his course of action should be a civil one,” Akomea said.

The controversy-prone conduct by the BNI comes a few days after media attention was waning on another controversial arrest.

Three South Africans, although they had been granted bail by a competent court were nonetheless re-arrested by the security agency.

Government’s commitment to the rule of law is seen as an easy target for the opposition NPP.  For years, the NPP has been unhappy about the government’s record of respect for human rights.

The party accused its main rival of trying to “bring back the dark days of a police state” after a former deputy Interior minister Kobby Acheampong said in 2012 on Metro TV that; “President Mahama could decree a curfew and have the leadership of the NPP arbitrarily arrested”.

After fierce critic and NPP MP Kennedy Agyapong was arrested in August 2012 and accused of making treasonable comments, the NPP reminded government that  “Ghana is long past the days when criticizing a weakness of the current government or making an irresponsible remark should amount to treason.”