Siege at BNI as Security officials quiz Kwadwo Mpiani(June 3, 2009) Front Page

Michael Donkor


WHAT began as an invitation of former Chief of Staff, Mr Kwadwo Mpiani, by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) yesterday turned into a political stand-off at the office of the BNI.
Scores of former New Patriotic Party (NPP) ministers and Members of Parliament, as well as hundreds of their supporters, thronged the BNI headquarters to express solidarity with the former Chief of Staff who was being questioned on what was described by the Information Ministry as “wide range of issues”.
By press time yesterday, the vigil was on with the defiant party faithful ignoring all pleas to vacate the scene.
The former ministers and the loyalists blocked the main road chanting and singing war songs and demanded the whereabouts of the former Chief of Staff.
As the interrogation went on, scores more of the party loyalists arrived in buses creating a scene at the entrance of the BNI.
At the Ministry of Information, a deputy Minister of Information, Mr Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwah, obliged Graphic with some explanation indicating that the agitation of the former ministers and party loyalists was unnecessary and that the questioning of the former Chief of Staff was being carried in a friendly atmosphere.
He said what was being done was in line with the government’s policy to ensure that certain matters that bordered on national security were properly clarified.
According to him, Mr Mpiani was invited somewhere last week by the BNI to answer questions on a variety of issues.
He said he failed to honour the invitation but told the BNI that he would instead report on Monday but failed again.
He said the former Chief of Staff reported at about 11 a.m. in the company of 20 former ministers and his counsels, Mr Yoni Kulendi and Mr Egbert Faibille Junior, and were later joined by a female lawyer whose name was given as Ms Hamida Nuhu.
He said minutes after, the 20 former ministers left the former Chief of Staff in the company of his counsels
According to the deputy minister, Mr Mpiani rejected the food offered him by the BNI but accepted that which was brought later by the female lawyer, Ms Nuhu.
Asked why Mr Mpiani was being held by the BNI for that length of time, he said Mr “Mpiani was answering questions on wide range of issues and that there were intermittent breaks in the interrogation of the former Chief of Staff.
Other security sources, however, hinted that Mr Mpiani was being interrogated on his tenure as the Chief of Staff in the Kufuor administration and his role in the handling of Ghana@50 funds.
The Greater Accra Police Regional Commander, ACP Rose Atinga, later joined the security at the place and addressed the gathering and appealed for calm, assuring them of the security of Mr Mpiani.
However, her appeal for them to leave the security to do their work, made little impression.