Government has issued a veiled threat over taunts and trolls that it has been receiving from the public since it announced on Monday that it had foiled a coup plot.
Reacting to the outpouring of scorn, especially on social media, Deputy Information Minister, Pius Enam Hadzide, today told a press conference that the government wants those mocking it to quit, and it is asking that they do so, in the strongest of terms.
“We want to discourage strongly, attempts by sections of our population, especially on social media and even sometimes in traditional media by self acclaimed security and intelligence experts to stop the ridicule,” Pius Hadzide said.
Himself, a corruption scandal tainted appointee of the Akufo-Addo government, Hadzide only came short of decreeing a gag order against the public on the so called kitchen knife and pepper bomb coup plot.
The Akufo-Addo government has become a laughing stock after it announced on Monday that it had foiled a coup plot that was being masterminded by a medical doctor and two other accomplices.
Naming the supposed would-be coupists as Dr. Fredrick Yaw Mc-Palm of the Citadel Hospital in Alajo, Accra, Kafui Ezor, a local weapons manufacturer and one Bright Alan Yaw Debrah Ofosu, alias BB, a statement signed by Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah claimed that the alleged coupists had been preparing to attack the presidency.
However, the jolted public was to later see from a showcase of weapons allegedly retrieved by National Security from the supposed coupists that a kitchen knife was one of the instruments that the suspects were going to use.
This quickly sparked a troll on social media as the public laughed off the supposed coup plot as deliberate storm in a tea cup. Soon the mockery led to a description of the drama as “the kitchen knife coup plot.”
In the Information Ministry’s announcement, it was also stated that the alleged coup plotters had stockpiled locally made grenades for the purpose of the coup and that in preparing the bombs, they had use grounded pepper as ingredient. This led to a second nickname of the alleged coup plot as the ‘pepper bomb coup.’
Meanwhile, per the government’s own inventory, weapons seized from the alleged coup plotters include six locally made pistols (side arms) 9 AK 47 rifles and 22 IED improvised explosives.
The rest are three smoke grenades. A retired senior officer of the Ghana Armed Forces Col. (Rtd) Festrus Aboagye, has since expressed doubt that the weapons that the State has retrieved are reliable for the purpose of overthrowing a government.
According to him, smoke grenades only produce smoke when they are detonated. They are not the same as fragmentation grenades, which made of metal shrapnel, are deadly when detonated.
A skeptical public has since been calling the Monday announcement by the government a sham. The trolls worsened yesterday when the government arraigned the suspects before the Kaneshie District court on four misdemeanor charges.
The charges are conspiracy to manufacture fire arms without lawful authority; possession of fire arms without lawful authority, conspiracy to manufacture explosives without lawful authority; and possession of improvised explosive devices without lawful authority.
Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has since asked rhetorically in a write-up whether any of those charges carry the gravity of coup plot charges.
The respected Legislator dismissed Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, as a “useless liar” over the coup plot announcement.
However, this afternoon, Pius Hadzide warned that those trolling the government over the issue will do well to stop. According to him, there is still an ongoing investigation into the issue and that commensurate charges would be preferred later against the suspects.
According to him, the government had to rush to court with the misdemeanor charges so that it can secure the court ruling to keep the suspects in custody.
“Going forward, when the docket is finally built, we will prefer commensurate charges,” he justified. He insisted that Dr. Fredrick MacPalm had turned the X-Ray container at his Citadel Hospital into a gun manufacturing hub.