DRAMA AT TOR…GUNMAN ARRESTED OVER MAHAMA VISIT

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu & Vincent Kubi, Tema

Thursday, May 12, 2016

A popular National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporter who works at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has been arrested by guards protecting President John Mahama for allegedly possessing a gun during the president’s visit to the facility.

The suspect, Senanu Asbeit Akpade, was arrested by the presidential guards and handed over to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to assist the security agencies to unravel the circumstances leading to the brandishing of the gun.

DAILY GUIDE learnt that the NDC gunman, who according to inside sources, was found with the gun when he came to work, was granted bail yesterday.

President Mahama was at the refinery on Monday, May 9 with the visiting Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Keith Christopher Rowley, to familiarise themselves with activities at the facility when the incident occurred.

TOR Confirmation

Yesterday, the management of TOR confirmed the arrest of the worker of the company by the BNI operatives.

Aba Lokko, Corporate and Public Affairs Manager of TOR who confirmed the news to DAILY GUIDE, said the intent of the worker to wield a firearm at the premises of the company at a time when the president and a foreign leader were visiting was yet to be ascertained.

She also confirmed that the BNI was investigating the incident.

Suspect’s Profile

The suspect, who is officially attached to the Environmental Department of TOR, according to media reports, had always been coming to work with a weapon on him, but Mrs Lokko said she was unable to confirm that aspect of the allegation.

“The issue is being handled by the BNI and the company is cooperating,” she pointed out.

Asbeit Senanu Akpade was arrested by the security detail of the President after his suspicious movement was noticed ahead of his (president’s) arrival at the facility.

TV3online.com had quoted a worker at TOR as saying that when the suspect was arrested a gun he was trying to conceal was found on him, saying, “Before the president arrived yesterday, one of the known NDC guys in the office had been arrested having a gun on him.

 “The national security officers around suspected his behaviour and quickly apprehended him and took the gun away from him. The security officers arrested Senanu ahead of the president’s arrival at the TOR premises so most of the workers and even some management staff were not aware that such an activity had gone on,” according to the worker.

He said again that “the action took place around the frontage of the old administration block, precisely around where the Managing Director packs his car.

“He had the gun on him before coming to work that day. Apparently he has been bringing the gun to work for some time now without the knowledge of his colleagues and the security at the gate. He is currently in the grips of the BNI and that is where we know he is at the moment,” the source continued.

A source told DAILY GUIDE yesterday that Senanu was arrested upon a tip-off by a staff that he was a gun runner and when the national security operatives approached him, he confessed having a gun on him.

Another Version

However, another version is that the president was actually at the TOR premises when the suspect, who was holding an unlicensed weapon, was apprehended.

The source told DAILY GUIDE, “He switched off the lights on the third floor of the TOR building, plunging the whole floor into darkness and that was where the president was,” adding, “He then put his hand in his side pocket ostensibly to pull out the gun but the security detail of the president was very quick to overpower him and retrieved the weapon.”

“He is somebody who is very popular in Tema as far as the NDC is concerned and we are all waiting to see what the state will do to him,” the source added.

Previous Arrests

The arrest of Mr Asbeit Senanu Akpade brings to two the number of suspects picked up in recent times with the alleged intention to take the life of President Mahama.

Charles Antwi, who is currently receiving psychiatric treatment, was the first person to be arrested by the president’s security detail after it had emerged that he wanted to assassinate President Mahama last year.

He had gone to the Ring Road Central Branch of Assemblies of God Church in Accra with a weapon supposedly to wait for the president, who worships there frequently, and shoot him and become the President of Ghana instead. But it turned out later that Antwi was mentally deranged.

He was jailed 10 years on his first day in court but the ruling was reversed later by a higher court and he was eventually sent for psychiatric analysis and treatment.

There was another incident around Dzorwulu, Accra, on February 25, when an NDC woman reported to the security agencies that a 33-year-old man had said President Mahama would drop dead when he was delivering his speech at this year’s Independence Day parade.

Kwame Gyebi was subsequently arrested and detained by the BNI but it turned out that he was an alleged drunkard who had the penchant to make needless statements when drunk.