-As Group Defeats Police, Attorney General In Court
Actress and socialite, Effia Odo, has expressed disappointment in the Ghana Police Service over a rounding up of herself and some other members of the #FixTheCountry movement, at the Court Complex in Accra on Friday.
According to her, heavily armed Police arrested her and her colleagues treating them as if they were criminals when there were no grounds for the arrest.
She narrates that she had just come out of the High Courtroom where the judge adjudicating the group’s case against the Police’s refusal of the permit for demonstrations after the court had gone on recess.
Her presence at the Court premises became a photo opportunity for many who had only known the actress by reputation. It was as they were taking pictures that the Police stormed the place and arrested some ten of them like criminals.
“I was inside the courtroom and the judge called for a recess that we should come back at 1:30 to get our final verdict…. as I came outside, obviously a lot of campaigners were outside to support and they wanted to take pictures. I am a public figure and they wanted to show their support. A lot of commotion was going on and all of a sudden we see police come with their guns as if we were criminals and they just aggressively pulled us in,” she told journalists.
She and her colleagues have since been granted bail but their lawyers have refused to disclose the bail conditions to the media.
The desperate Ghana Police Service (GPS) and the Attorney General (AG), Godfred Yeboah Dame had dragged the group to court asking the court to prevent them from demonstrating against corruption and what the group describes as the rotten political establishment in Ghana.
The AG has sought the court to criminalise the protest by the youth movement.
However, after a protracted back and forth, the court threw out the Police and the AG, saying their case against the group was senseless and moot because, May 9, the date for the protest, which the police did not agree to, has long elapsed.
#FixTheCountry is a movement of disenchanted Ghanaian youth who are unhappy with the State of the country and the failure of successive governments to fix the country’s problems.
In their attempt to stage a demonstration around this issue, the Police had refused them permit, saying their demonstration was in breach of social distancing regulations enacted by President Akufo Addo against COVID-19.
In what was an obvious case of victimisation by the GPS, they had looked the other way when several political rallies, dangerous massing up of students and a 1000-man funeral procession headed by President Akufo Addo was organised all within the period, the Police was in court asking for an injunction against the Fix The Country group’s planned street protest.