I Lied About My Ethnicity In Fear For My Life …City FM’s Caleb Kudah

One of the CITI FM’s journalists who was arrested by heavily armed National Security operatives on Tuesday for filming abandoned state cars at a National Security office has recounted that as part of his ordeal he had to hide his tribe.

Mr. Kudah, an Ewe by birth, narrates that while he was being slapped about by the National Security operatives, one of them asked of his tribe and given the ethnocentric rhetoric by the operatives, he lied saying he was a Fanti, to save his skin.

 “One operative asked ‘Which tribe is he?’ and another replied that ‘He is an Ewe’. There and then, I knew that if I confirmed it, my beatings would have doubled. And for some reason I just said, I am from Cape Coast. Then one person amongst them said ‘People from Cape Coast don’t do that’’ he told Bernard Avle in an interview after the ordeal.

The revelation only reaffirms the alleged institutionalization of ethnocentrism by the Akufo-Addo government, with Ewes as the most targeted.

During the voter registration exercise for the 2016 elections, reports were replete about how government machinery targeted Voltarians, especially Ewes. The President put the Region under military siege and went after those who lived outside of the Volta Region.

In the Eastern Region, government functionaries, including a deputy Minister of Finance went around from house to house confiscating voter ID cards of Ewes in the Region, branding them as Togolese.

Mr. Kudah, host of ‘Back Page’ a satirical program at Citi was arrested by about a dozen National Security operatives for filming some abandoned State cars parked at the premises of National Security.

Another colleague, Zoe Abu-Baidoo, to whom he had forwarded the footages had also been arrested and questioned.

Upon his release, he gave an interview on Citi FM and revealed that he was handcuffed and slapped about by National Security operatives.

He was also made to kneel down and then kicked in the groin by one Lt. Col. Agyeman.

“They were slapping me from the back. I will be talking to one of them, and someone will just come and slap you from the back, and you will feel dizzy at once. At this point, they had handcuffed me, and now and again, one will come and press it harder so that I feel the pain,” he recounted the harrowing experience from thugs in the National Security. 

Mr. Kudah’s ordeal has sparked widespread anger, as calls intensify for the probe and sanctioning of the operatives who have turned the National Security Agency into a GESTAPO-like institution.

The National Security Ministry has released a statement promising to investigate the situation but has been promptly rubbished as one of the many similar promises that never resulted in sanctions.