Inmate left to Starve to Death at Ashaiman Police Station?

Akufo-Addo’s Jubilee House will rather have inmates in the cells of the Ashaiman Police Station starve to death than allow members of the youth pressure group #FixTheCountry to donate packaged food items to them, Whatsup News can report.

In a classic exhibition of George Orwell’s satirical novel “Animal Farm” which illustrates societal inequalities induced by tyrannical regimes, “Orders from above” has forced the Ashaiman Police Command from receiving donations worth GHC 5,000 in packaged food items and toiletries for the inmates, most of whom get starved for up to four days in a row, according to Oliver Barker-Vormawor, a convenor of #FixTheCountry.

When the group on Sunday, March 20, 2022, presented their items to be donated to the inmates at the Ashiaman police command, they were met with heavily armed and masked police officers who prevented them from making the donation, amidst cocking of their assault rifles.

According to the #FixTheCountry Group, the Police Commander at Ashaiman was initially receptive, but quickly made a U-turn, in what Whatsup News gathered was a call from the Jubilee House ordering the donation to be rejected and the youth group making the presentation dispersed.

Apparently, the Akufo-Addo government, now infamous for its brutal and bloody clampdown on dissenters, did not like the publicity the donation was bringing the youth group that had terrified the government since its organic creation since May 2021.

Meanwhile, Mr. Barker-Vormawor had earlier been arrested and kept unconstitutionally in the Ashaiman police cells for over one month for using the innocuous word “Coup” in a social media post.

According to Barker-Vormawor, he was motivated to crowd-source for donations from the public to buy the food and other items for the suffering inmates because while he was incarcerated, he experienced the harrowing and inhumane treatment meted out to suspects in police cells awaiting trial.

“The state does not provide food for persons arrested and kept in cells…They eat at the benevolence of the few that receive visitors. When I went into the cells, I met people who had not eaten for 3-5 days. Cells that should accommodate 3 people maximum had up to 55, at some point, with no ventilation,” Barker-Vormawor stated.

However, the Tema Regional Police Command will issue a jerky statement denying ill motive for their rejection of the food items for the inmates.

In the statement signed by one Stella Dede Dzakpasu, the Police Command claims it is responsible for the safety of its inmates and they “therefore accept food from any sources except for families and people nominated by the suspects being held in custody for that purpose.”

However, the statement from the Police Command has turned out to be palpably false. This is because there are photographs and news reports of pro-government celebrities donating food items to suspects in Police cells.

For instance, in April 2020, Charles Nii Armah Mensah, aka Shatta Wale, a dancehall artiste close to the Akufo-Addo Jubilee House, donated various food items to inmates in several police cells across Accra.

A year afterwards, on April 16, 2021, Shatta Wale’s manager, Lawrence Nana Asiamah Hanson, popularly known as Bulldog, donated similar food items to inmates of the Striking Force police cells in Accra.

This privilege completely contradicts the claims by the Police Command in Tema that the Police Service prohibits food donations to inmates in its cells.

The double standard has prompted critics to conclude that it was a deliberate ploy by the Akufo-Addo administration to clearly exhibited vindictiveness and insensitivity towards the plight of the prisoners to spite the youth group which has been given the government the jitters.

Source: whatsupnewsghana