Amidu Names Persons On IGP Leaked Tape

Martin Amidu, the Former Special Prosecutor, has said the recent audio recording suspected to be a leaked tape which captured conversations on how to sack the Inspector General of Police is “authentic and not fake” and he personally knows and recognizes the owners of the voices on the tape, where it was recorded, why it was recorded and why it was leaked.

Mr. Amidu is making this revelation at a time the Minority in Parliament has called for forensic investigations to ascertain the authenticity of the tape suspected to be a conversation between a Commissioner of Police and some high level members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Mr. Amidu, in a statement he authored over the weekend noted: “The 50 minutes plus leaked tape recording I listened to several times is authentic and not fake. One of the interlocutors was my client in 1980 to 1982 when I practiced law in the Northern Region whose voice I cannot miss when I hear it.

“I have been to his Accra office on the Castle road and know that while speaking to him his mobile phone is always on and he continues receiving phone calls which interrupt whatever serious discussion one is having with him. By those incoming phone calls the inexperienced are put at ease of the likelihood of being recorded”, Mr. Amidu added.

Martin Amidu, without giving any evidence to back his claim, alleged in his statement that one of the voices is that of a certain “Mr. Mensah” whom he described as a senior police officer and the other voice is that of a former Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

“What is worrying listening to the leaked tape is the fact that Mr. Mensah, a senior police officer, would lose his guard and speak in the office of a former NPP chairman unmindful of basic security and intelligence precautions on such sensitive matters. Mr. Mensah threw caution to the wind to visit his host in his office and assumed that his host was not capable of recording their conversation. A senior police officer who has served that long and is on terminal leave at the pinnacle of his career should have realized that he was being recorded when his host was being non-committal and using leading interjections to goad him to say more things against his superior, the IGP.

Amidu continued: “I am convinced that the recording of the conversation was planned and executed by the host of the office where it took place. The decision to leak that taped recording might have been made by his political collaborators who saw it as a perfect tool for the diversion of the opposition political parties from the likelihood of a relaxation of security supervision of the 2024 elections by the Ghana Police Service. The recorded tape was leaked knowing very well that the President, Nana Akufo-Addo has confidence in the IGP and would not remove him from office a few months to the 2024 elections.”

Martin Amidu stated what he suspected to be the reason the tape was recorded and leaked:

“The leakage of the tape recording has achieved its objective because the NDC in particular, other opposition political parties, and security and intelligence operatives have diverted their attention to defending and extolling the virtues and perceived neutrality of the IGP. IGPs do not win elections and can scarcely influence the polls. What an IGP can and might do is to position Regional, Divisional, District, and Station Commanders who will control his men at the polls and relax their security alertness and surveillance on election day. Even such a move in a national election is not without hazards for the IGP as some Commanders may give him out to the other side. The Assin North constituency by-election cannot be used as a yardstick for measuring the neutrality of the Ghana Police Service in the coming national elections in 2024.

“The danger the NDC and other opposition political parties are putting themselves in now by concentrating over the smokescreen that Nana Akufo-Addo may remove and replace the IGP before the 2024 elections is that they may take positions generated by this planted tape recording and find themselves unable to walk back their talk when circumstances about the perceived neutrality of the IGP changes, come the period leading to elections 2024. The NDC and other opposition political parties ought to make haste slowly in what they say in praise or condemnation of the IGP. Heed the warning: ‘There is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face’!

“The leaked recorded tape is not the first time a chairman or former chairman of the NPP has been involved in the leakage of what would have passed for confidential information. The alleged bribery of a chairman of the NPP for the Northern Region with a vehicle and money made the rounds before the 2016 elections”, he noted.