Assassination plot on President Mahama

A man has been arrested for plotting to assassinate the President at the Independence Square on Independence day, Sunday, March 6, 2016. Kwame Gyebi, a resident of Dzowulu in Accra was arrested last Thursday, February 25, 2016 by the police upon a tip off after he was overheard confidently saying the President will drop dead while delivering his speech on March 6 this year at the Independence Square during the parade to mark the 59th Independence Anniversary of Ghana. The confidence and certainty with which he was making the declaration (that the President will drop dead on the said day) alarmed a patriotic citizen who tipped the police off culminating in Kwame Gyebi’s arrest. The police after initial investigations handed him over to the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI). He is currently in their custody. An intelligence source said the BNI is conducting further investigations into the matter to ascertain whether Kwame Gyebi has accomplices or is working alone.

Readers will recall that on July 26 last year, a 36 year-old man, Charles Antwi, was arrested during Sunday church service at the Ringway Gospel Centre of the Assemblies of God church with a loaded gun. The President was not in church that day. The manner in which Antwi was fidgeting aroused the suspicion of the security detail of the Chief Justice who attends the same church.

They accosted Charles Antwi, led him out of the church and searched him. A fully loaded locally manufactured pistol was retrieved from him. He confessed wanting to assassinate the President and said he had come to the church on previous occasion for that purpose. Charles Antwi was later sentenced to a 10-year prison term by an Accra Circuit court presided over by Justice Francis Obiri.

The sentence did not go down with the Attorney-General who appealed against it. At a sitting of the Human Rights Division of an Accra High Court, the Acting Director of Public Prosecution, Yvonne Obuobisa, told the court that the BNI sent Charles Antwi to court to get him remanded for further investigations to be carried out only for him to be jailed ten years for illegal gun possession.

 Following an appeal by Charles Antwi’s lawyer, Francis Xavier Sosu, an Accra High Court quashed the ruling of the Circuit Court and ordered Charles Antwi to be sent to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital for examination. The hospital later declared that the gun man was not of sound mind and has since then been treating him.